This is it. Rugby Australia’s and Israel Folau’s joint press release announcing they’d reached a confidential settlement called it.
And the end of all the gibber about wishing each other the best and not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, there was the word that, hopefully, means the last we’ll hear of the great thumping bible-basher, at least on the back pages of our daily gazettes.
And that word was: ends.
Finito. Done and done. End of.
And ain’t that some happy hand relief.
Or so you’d think.
Because there I was down the coffee shop and there’s the usual Table of Knowledge banging on about the talking points they’ve read in the Daily Terror that morning, and though these are rugby people it’s clear they don’t believe Israel Folau did anything wrong by publicly spouting his homophobic nonsense because you’re allowed, apparently, to spout homophobic nonsense if it’s under the guise of one’s religion, and thus under freedom of speech laws which make anything you say okay long as you read it an ancient book.
Because Religion. Because Freedom of Speech. Because of that hoary old chestnut Political Correctness Gone Mad (it’s always going mad, PC).
And so all that rubbish that applies when you don’t see why someone else would be offended by something because your empathy finishes at your own experience, and that’s how it should be for everyone else.
Apparently.
And thus! If Israel’s telling gay people they’re not allowed into his holy pantheon in the sky because of his interpretation of the rules as decreed in the great thumping book of medieval life-laws, and as a public figure he shoots out that dogma because… I don’t even know where that paragraph is going. So stuff it.
Anyway! So the old boys down the café, in the mode of Quiet Australians who want everyone to know what they reckon, and stuff ’em, were effectively declaring they don’t give a stuff about gay people taking offence especially if Israel said it under the guise of his religion, it’s cool because freedom of speech.
And it’s extra cool because it’s not PC and it’s okay to say things that other people don’t like because stuff ’em. We used to call it manners. Now it’s stuff ’em.
Anyway!
Yes! Another Israel Folau column! How are you enjoying it? Feel like you’ve read it all before? You probably have. Because it’s been a vexed issue, and it’s good to work out why, and this will be my last ever one unless Israel does play rugby league again, though that is looking unlikely.
But then Andrew Johns played cricket for NSW, and Israel played Aussie rules in the west, and… no.
It won’t happen.
Not in Australia, anyway.
Why not? Look – Israel’s views, religious and non-PC though they may be, don’t mesh with modern Australia’s which don’t punch down on gay people because like the meek in The Life of Brian they’ve had a hell of a time for generations stretching back millennia.
Don’t believe it? Think of it this way: If Israel had said – and he sort of did, but no-one knows what an idolater is, so everyone sort of brushed it – but imagine if Israel had said this:
“Jews are going to hell unless they repent the sin of being Jewish!”
Imagine he’d done that on Insta however many years ago it is now.
We would not be having this conversation. I would not be writing this column. Because Israel would have been gone baby. Gone.
Immediately. No freedom of speech rhetoric. Nothing about PC going mad. He’s just gone.
If he says Jews are bound for hell because they’re not good enough to get into heaven, he’s not getting any empathy from the old diggers, or anyone else.
(AAP Image/Paul Miller)
People just don’t do anti-Semitism because, well, they don’t. It goes back a bit. And it goes back as far as persecution of gays goes. Indeed gays and Jews play rugby against each other in the Barbara Streisand Cup and share a bond.
So Israel can’t damn Jews to hell, or Catholics, or women or disabled people. Well, he can. But he can expect a backlash.
Don’t believe it?
Remember that England football coach, Glenn Hoddle, said disabled people were disabled because they did something in a previous life and were being punished for it in this one? Being disabled was karma, according to Glenn Hoddle, and out the door like a bag of old prawn heads he went.
Champion footballer. Excellent coach. But you can’t say that. And if you do, even under the guise of your religion, you’re clearly a loon and out the door you go.
But apparently, still, among the old boys at the cafe, and thousands of others, including those of you priming keyboards as we speak to rebut the left-wing sensibilities of this gibber-jabber, sledge the gays and it’s cool and the gang.
Anyway Israel’s gone, baby, gone, and is not rugby’s problem anymore. And he can hang out in the Hills (District) and thump that pulpit, and damn whoever he likes to hell and we’ll all just pass our proverbial beer nuts and think that Captain Preachy Greedy Guts can take a flying dud root at the moon because he’s no longer speaking as a rugby man, if he ever even was one.
Reckon he was one? Whatever it means?
He did once say he’d never do anything to hurt rugby, and that if he ever was hurting rugby he’d stop it at once. Then he kept on banging on with his inflammatory gibber, and modern Australia – not, admittedly, represented by the old boys in the café – was suitably aghast, and weirded out, and sorry for him, and a few other things mainly concerned with wondering just what sort of mad boomers are leaping about in the big fullback’s top paddock.
Not okay boomers, my tip.
Anyway, he’s off to a footy version of purgatory, and it’s time to see if he possesses any sort of irrelevance syndrome from no longer being a famous footy man but rather Australia’s most famous homophobe outside Fred Nile and Bob Katter and other doom-and-gloomers with paddocks full of mad loose boomers.
Will he play again?
(Photo: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
Footy? I would say never.
Never say never? Maybe. The Daily Telegraph represents plenty of readers who don’t see the fuss in what Israel said because religion, freedom of speech, and other markers they didn’t apply when Yassmin Abdel-Magied very politically incorrectly said “Lest. We. Forget. (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine…)” on Anzac Day a few years ago.
So she deleted it and wrote: “It was brought to my attention that my last post was disrespectful, and for that, I apologise unreservedly”.
LNP backbencher, free speech warrior and cultural attache to the strip bars of Manila George Christensen tweeted that: “Yasmin [sic] should no longer on the public broadcaster’s tax-funded payroll. Self-deportation should also be considered”.
But that is another story.
In this one, the Tele may proselytise that Israel should come back to rugby league because it wasn’t that bad.
And the NRL may reflect and genuflect that yes, we could swing that.
Be it would be a tough gig getting a float to go up Oxford Street for their Gayme On promotion with Israel a paid-up member of the code, indeed people would ping fruit at it.
And nobody wants that.
And rugby will think, again, whatever we secretly paid the poor mad bastard, it was worth it.
Buk
Guest
Some good points Patrick. Even if I disagree with some, its good to be open to what others think, & have a forum for discussion.
kgbagent
Roar Rookie
I have been on a lot of forums and BBS since the WWW began, and if you remember BBS boards it was before the WWW, but you Patrick are ranking in the same apologist groups as the White Power groups me and my friends delighted in shaming and condemning back then. What a load of crap you wrote - you should be ashamed of yourself.
BennO
Roar Rookie
And Yasmin isn't Australian? There's a level of prejudice in your statement that I haven't seen in a long time. In this one post you've made you've demonstrated that she's more Australian than you are. And after hearing her talk about footy I'd say she knows more about the game than you too, even though she prefers league to union.
BennO
Roar Rookie
What a crock mate. Absolute rubbish. You don't know what it means to be Australian. Sadly Yasmin does but she was run out of the country for speaking. And demonised by members of the government no less. Free speech my back side. You're dreaming if you think you and your lot believe in free speech and respect Australian values.
Ken Catchpole's Other Leg
Roar Guru
And it seems Ralph, that we have all had, on this issue “a very long day’.
Stin
Roar Rookie
Speak for yourself weapon!
Patrick
Roar Rookie
No comparison. Yasmin is a foreigner who has no intention of integrating into Australia(as evidenced by the fact that she cannot be bothered Anglicising her name). Her opinions were to link something completely irrelevant, economic refugees and what is done to deter them for sound reasons, with persons who literally performed blood sacrifice for the existence of our nation(however nuanced the causation might appear to be), as though the aforementioned plight of a handful of economic refugees was superior to focus on, on Anzac Day, than to remembrance of people who by their hundreds of thousands were willing to sacrifice their lives for Australia. Yasmin was someone paid for opinions to produce content by the ABC, and as a role model for moslems by the government. Her actions were interpreted as being from a foreign body to Australians, and to the interest of a foreign body other than Australians, at the expense of the Australian taxpayer. That is treason, which has a questionable relationship with free speech. Nor does it mean that just because she has the right to free political discourse, she ought not to be judged for what she said on the basis of her capacity to fulfill her job as a "personality-female working moslem role model-professional pest" at the taxpayer's expense. Folau is actually an Australian. Folau's comments were the regurgitation of millenia old Christian dogma. They are a part of a belief structure that he personally did not create. Secondly, and more importantly, none of it was relevant to his job which was to hit holes on a football field. So can people stop mentioning Yassmin in the free speech debate, she was judged based on what she said, which was arguably treasonous, but not prevented from saying it. Her opinions were a relevant part of her job. Neither of which applies to Folau. Folau is a footballer who believes God condemns persons that commit gay acts unless they repent. Not a position of scientific enquiry, just a matter of belief... Folau plays football for a living based on his ability, was not someone who gained his position like Yassmin on the basis of her race and religion(when there are many better commentators in Australia, just not ones relevant to persons trying to push feminism in Islam), but by a genuine meritocracy.
Ralph
Roar Guru
"he was on his “Israel Folau Rugby Player” account" The salient point is that it was his own account, not what words he used to name it.
piru
Roar Rookie
Because when he made the comments he made he was at home, on his own time, not talking about rugby or RA, using his own personal media accounts etc. No, he was on his "Israel Folau Rugby Player" account, regardless of this he is the face of rugby. I'm honestly so tired of having to repeat this, it's clear you've decided that it doesn't matter so I'm leaving it here.
Ralph
Roar Guru
The right is to free speech. Because when he made the comments he made he was at home, on his own time, not talking about rugby or RA, using his own personal media accounts etc. He wasn't speaking on behalf of or representing any brand except himself. What he lost was his employment and that's a material loss.
piru
Roar Rookie
The settlement suggests that Folau was indeed discriminated against. It suggests RA doesn't have the money or time to waste on his nonsense nothing more
piru
Roar Rookie
Again, what ‘human right’ are you talking about? The right to be paid millions to play rugby? That’s all that he’s lost – no one cancelled his account, or even made him delete his post. They simply said “we’re going to stop paying you to represent our brand if you won’t represent it the way we want”? How is this unreasonable? I mean please, if you think it is, explain how so?
Ralph
Roar Guru
"he was told in no uncertain terms to cut it out, and it wasn’t acceptable to his employer" And there is my problem. Who is the employer to censor the views of an employee outside the business context?
Ralph
Roar Guru
Whilst if he had kept it private you are certainly right, using that as a principle of 'freedom' removes all rights to speak in any public forum unless approved by an employer. I don't much like it as a definition of 'freedom', it's extremely restricting in fact and just amounts to form of censorship (meaning a third party approves what you can or cannot say in public). Free speech must include the right to speak in public, even if you make an total ass of yourself.
Ralph
Roar Guru
I think you are missing one side of freedom Piru. If you are "free" to speak but if that is at the cost of your life (extreme end of the scale obviously), but how is that "free" in any functional sense? And as for the 'contract', it shouldn't be allowed to either remove any human right nor to take legal control of anyones private life. Nothing he said had anything to do with RA or rugby.
piru
Roar Rookie
Didn’t all this drama start when someone asked him a specific question about gay people? (and he answered it in accordance with his beliefs). Yes, and he was told in no uncertain terms to cut it out, and it wasn’t acceptable to his employer. He agreed this was the case – so much so that he signed a new contract – then did it again, cut off communication with RA and then refused to take it down
piru
Roar Rookie
The place of publication is largely irrelevant, the salient fact is that he posted private/personal opinions. I disagree, it’s arguably the most important point of this whole saga. If he’d confined his comments to a family dinner or private gatherings we wouldn’t be here
Ralph
Roar Guru
"Not sure social media is a human right" I am sure you are right, but the medium of the soapbox isn't really the issue, although social media certainly is a weird medium.
Ralph
Roar Guru
I don't know Dwanye, that has never happened. I would try to use the principles I have espoused as guiding lights. Employees are people first and hold opinions and make decisions second. In my view anyway. I do know I wouldn't do what RA did.
Ralph
Roar Guru
All the more reason to speak, if even into prejudgement.