Opinions are like noses – for a less crude term – and everyone has one.
Australian tennis legend Margaret Court made hers perfectly clear when she told Qantas that she would boycott flying with the airline after their support of same-sex marriage.
And almost instantly, every man and his dog made their own opinions clear on Court’s comments. Some called for the Margaret Court Arena to have its named changed, while others defended Court, saying that she is entitled to her opinion.
While I agree Margaret Court is free to have her own opinion, I am also entitled to my own – and I am free to speak it.
While I wouldn’t be rushing to change the name of the arena, I certainly would take it into consideration.
To name a stadium after an individual, especially in Australia, you would assume they displayed the sportsmanship, pride and personification of what it is to be an Australian sportsman, and an Australian in general.
Court, sadly, does not. To come out and so blatantly deny equal rights to somebody, because she does not believe that they should have such rights, is as un-Australian as it gets.
To go out of her way and boycott a company simply because they support marriage equality, is preposterous in the very least.
The whole anti-same sex marriage argument is flawed in of itself. For one, the Bible has also outlawed eating pork, ignoring the judgment of a priest, cutting the hair on the sides of your head, or living in a city that failed to surrender to the Israelites. The Bible is over a thousand years old, and to continue to follow the practices so vehemently is absurd.
Secondly, I have never truly understood the whole idea that God forbids marriage between the same sex.
Wouldn’t a God so wonderful and welcoming want to embrace two people who want to be married under his eyes, regardless of their sex?
And thirdly, marriage isn’t something that the Church or Margaret Court should be able to decide. It isn’t really any of her business if two people want to get married, regardless of their gender.
Court argued that she was bullied on The Project recently, and that she was ‘bullied’ by the gay community for suggesting that her name be replaced on the Margaret Court Arena.
With all due respect Margaret, you told the LGBTI community that they don’t deserve to have the right to be married to someone they love. Did you expect them to react kindly?
(Wikimedia Commons/DestinationAlan)
Margaret Court’s values are exactly that, her own, and she is entitled to them. But they aren’t everyone else’s, and when you begin to push your own values onto somebody else and it affects their lives, then there becomes a problem.
Australia is already quite far behind in the marriage equality debate. We are one of the last Western countries to still deny LGBTI people the right to get married under law.
With people like Margaret Court constantly crowing over how two people should have no right to be together under marriage, it severely undermines not only us as a country, but the fact that we still have her name plastered across Victoria’s second biggest tennis stadium.
Margaret Court is entitled to her opinion, but everyone else is entitled to their own. Just because she says something controversial does not mean those who disagree aren’t allowed to make it known.
So while Margaret Court is allowed her opinion, I am also allowed mine, which is I would consider renaming the Margaret Court Arena after what I have heard the past few days.
And people may agree or disagree, and they will have their own opinion on the matter, and that is perfectly fine. After all, it is what free speech is all about.
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