Candidate's past called out
Leopards don't change their spots. And anti-marriage equality campaigners don't spend months bleating hurtful bile to suddenly start batting for the other team.
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So it was startling to see the Bendigo Advertiser report that Eppalock ward candidate Lewis-Freeman Harrison will run for council in 2020 on a platform of, among other things, "equality" and "a voice for young citizens" (Bendigo council hopeful Lewis Freeman-Harrison says he has changed,16/8/2020).
More news: New COVID-19 case numbers remain steady
This is the same Lewis Freeman-Harrison who the Addy named in 2017 as the creator of local 'no' campaign, Vote No Australia - Marriage Plebiscite, which was removed from Facebook in October that year because its content violated anti-hate speech legislation (Facebook shuts down homegrown 'no' campaign, 23/10/17).
This is the same person who towed billboards through Bendigo streets advocating that gay and lesbian couples be refused the same legal recognition as their heterosexual counterparts.
When Australians returned a vote resoundingly in favour of marriage equality, the most emphatic demand for change came from young people - the same demographic that 25-year-old Freeman-Harrison suggests he will represent on council. Not very accurately, his record would suggest.
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The council hopeful tells the Bendigo Advertiser that he's changed, that he's "older, wiser and more stable". Replacing his plebiscite tripe with platitudes of equality? It all sounds a little too convenient.
What a privilege it must be to simply turn the page on an ugly chapter in our recent history and start afresh. Meanwhile, as Freeman-Harrison writes off his behaviour as a childish mistake, same-sex attracted Bendigonians continue to live with the hurt brought on by his caustic actions.
Mark Kearney, White Hills
Protest under fire
I would like to see the morons (yes, morons, Oxford Dictionary, ie. stupid, foolish, low IQ) that propose a protest march in September (because they think this time, that the COVID-19 is a sham) put in the back of an ambulance, patient transport etc. that have just been called out to collect a "positive patient".
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Maybe watching them try to breathe and struggle for air might wake them up, or perhaps continue on the hospital and ICU where again still struggling to breathe with tubes and machines everywhere and the wonderful staff doing all they can to help.
Half of these protesters will most likely be the "rent a crowd" and very few not even knowing just what the march is for.
Also there are lots of people that think that social distancing or the wearing of masks is not meant for them, but my advice for you is "just wear the bloody mask".
Take care and stay safe to all.
Brenda Preston, Strathdale
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