No, Queer People Should Not Be Grateful For Every Half-Arsed Attempt At Straight Allyship

In the never-ending quest to be the most woke person on the internet, a litany of under-cooked, problematic and often brain-numbingly stupid takes can and do, make their way onto our feeds on a daily basis.
It’s a plague that affects both sides of politics and more-often than not is found gurgling out of the barely functioning brains of those used to extensive, ingrained privilege, whose inability to properly engage with issues outside their experience is only matched by their incapability to view any minority-affecting cause through a lens which doesn’t make it all about themselves.
The latest attempt to do so comes from polarising writer and Mamamia founder Mia Freedman, whose article titled “Straight, married women want marriage equality too”, has already been heavily edited and apologised for, after backlash to its concluding call-to-arms for married straight women to post selfies of themselves flashing their wedding rings with the stomach-churning hashtag #married4marriageequality.
Whilst the fact that such a tonedeaf, self-aggrandising, piece even made it to the pages of such a widely-read publication is enraging enough, the response from many allies and even some misguided queers, that we should be grateful at least for the intent behind Mia’s myopic, self-absorbed take is truly baffling to this writer.
I have read countless comments and tweets, a LOT from gay men in particular, that demonise those who spoke out against Mia, (some admittedly like myself, quite furiously), and say that attacking those only trying to help our cause is damaging and may in fact alienate straight people.
Oh no! Not the poor straights! Here we are fighting for the opportunity to marry the people we love and we forgot to think about the feel-feels of sensitive heteros!
Yes there may very well be an upcoming national vote on marriage equality, in which we need the majority of the population to tick a box saying they don’t think gays are icky, but if you can’t magnify your support for it without ignoring those it affects and centring it around your privileged, LITERALLY ALREADY MARRIED arse, maybe don’t.
Putting aside the fact that placing the basic human rights of a minority in the hands of a majority flies in the face of a moral democracy, the implications of these kind of sentiments takes a big ol’ dump on hard-working queer people who have committed large portions of their lives to fighting inequality and furthers the heinous idea that poor little gay people need hetero White Knights to save us from our dilemmas.
Implying that every single pro-marriage equality entry into the campaign is worthy of merit results in equalising the inferred benefits of a queer person working tirelessly for decades with your Aunt Suzie making her Facebook profile picture rainbow-hued. It minimises and silences those actually instigating real-life change.
If you’re entering the fight for marriage equality as an ally or say, a brand, your attempt should be scrutinised to hell and back, and if the resulting balance of actual input to progress versus brownie points and/or personal exposure to yourself falls towards the latter, kindly fuck off, read/discuss/engage with queer people’s perspectives and try again.
These are our lives this campaign is about, not yours. If your hot take doesn’t help us more than it helps you, we don’t want it.
