Editorial

Sympathy for the devil (but Mr Jones has responsibilities)

By Andrew M. Potts

As a young French and English teacher coaching rugby at Australian private schools in the 60’s and 70’s, during the most heated years of the gay rights debate in Australia, Alan Jones can be forgiving for not coming out of the closet in the early years of his life.

The issue of gay men teaching in schools has always been a hot button issue for those uncomfortable with homosexuality, as it continues to be, though thankfully these fears are more restricted to the political fringes these days.

The brave, brave individuals who marched in the first Mardi Gras in 1978 were heroes- people before their time, living their lives openly and proudly at great personal cost so that we could have the freedoms of today which many younger gay men now take for granted.

Considering that the majority of gay men of that time were in the closet, Jones’ decision to live secretly is merely unremarkable.

We can’t all be heroes.

His brush with the law in the 80’s must have been a terrible embarrassment for him, whatever the facts really were, and with his career on the rise most people could understand him burying the issue with so much at stake.

We can’t all be heroes.

However, in turn of the 21st century Australia, Mr Jones HAS got it all.

He has the freedom to live publicly should he choose, and the decision will cost him little.

Realistically, he has less than a decade left in his career in radio- and I think it’s time for him to pay some dues for the hard work that was done for him by others during all those years when Mr Jones was merely being average.

Because if it wasn’t for that hard work and those heroes, it would be police officers and prosecutors beating down Alan Jones’ door today, not journalists.

He has become an extremely wealthy man with a great deal of influence over conservative Australia and it’s time for him to use it.

Jones’ power is often understood- he has never been able to bring votes to John Howard.

His power lies in that he can take them away.

There has been no great backlash against Jones since his outing, if it can be called that, for many years it seemed that the only people who did not know he was gay were his listeners.

In the end this event may prove a great boon to gay and lesbian Australia, as though odious as the concept may be to many on the Left, Alan Jones is the sort of gay man that conservative Australia can empathise with.

They have gotten to know him. He cares about the same things they do. He is about as far as is possible from the sort of homophobic caricature that redneck Australia has in it’s heads about the gay community.

Just as Oprah is the black woman white America can identify with, Alan Jones post-outing has the potential to become the gay man that conservative heterosexual Australia can identify with.

He only has three choices left to him, he can own it, he retire, or he can hide behind the 5 second delay for the rest of his life.

I am confident that if he does decide to own it, he can move on with honour, and in doing so cast off the millstone that has been around his neck all this time.

It’s time to pay those dues and what could be more appropriate for a man who has styled himself as a champion of the mistreated than a campaign like this?

If Alan Jones was in a commited relationship today he and his partner would be paying twice what their heterosexual counterparts would be on the Medicare Safety Net and Pharmacutical Benefits Scheme.

If in years to come and in the infirmity of old age they decided to move from their home into aged acommodation, their home would not be exempted from assets tests, potentially costing them many thousands of dollars in costs compared to a straight couple.

These inequalities, and many others add up to what is effectively a Australian gay and lesbian tax by exclusion, in everything but name.

These could be removed through the changing of many separate pieces of legislation, or they could be done with dignity, with a single vote, in changing the definition of spouse to include same sex partners in the Federal Marriage Act.

I would hope that a time honoured traditional institution like marriage would appeal to a conservative like Jones.

Isn’t it time he got on the blower to Canberra? Why not go out in style- in a blaze of glory.

Speaking to the Pink Broad for an unpublished article in June of this year, journalist David Marr, now cast as one of Jones’ chief tormentors by the likes of Akerman and Bolt, had this to say of the man, “Jones is careful never to cross the gay community. He doesn’t attack, doesn’t defend but leaves gay issues alone. Tweak the man’s personality slightly, and he’d be leading the Mardi Gras parade. Perhaps he one day will. I hope so.”

We hope so too.