While most of us were struggling to recover from, or still indulging in, the excesses of the stupid season, the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal made a ruling that all but flew under the radar. Indeed, if it wasn’t for Joe Hilderbrand’s article on December 27, I probably wouldn’t have noticed at all. The tribunal found in favour of the Catholic church’s argument that to disallow them to discriminate openly against homosexuals was in fact a form of discrimination against the Church. One can only attempt to grasp the nature of this logic when one remembers that these people believe in a god who fathered himself so he could commit assisted suicide because some naked tart took the culinary advice of a talking snake. The only approximation to “Catholic logic” that I can find in modern literature is Douglas Adams’ improbability drive, although that requires far less suspension of disbelief from the reader.

Of course it is no accident that the ruling of this fruitcake tribunal was released smack bang in the middle of the festive period, when most of us were still so inebriated we were struggling to remember the purpose of opposable digits. Any political reptile knows only too well that if you have unpopular news, you release it when nobody is looking. It’s the media equivalent of timing your fart to the sounding of the vuvuzela in the stand behind you. All power to the NSW government, though. Through a skill born of years of necessary practice they have elevated the sneaky fart into an art-form par excellence. With almost zero reportage, the release disappeared like a drop of pubescent semen into the vat of cottage cheese that passes for the Christmas news cycle.

So, years of ballooning public sentiment and robust argument in favour of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) equality have finally been recognised as an assault on the legal rights of the long-suffering and eminently vulnerable Catholic Church. Truly a day of celebration for persecuted multinational corporations everywhere. I can only say, in the revered words of the Virgin Mary, thank fuck for that. Now we can properly get down to business. The obvious first step in further extending the security blanket of the law over the church’s emaciated metaphorical thighs is to remove the heavy burden of tax exemption from their operations. I get to pay taxes and therefore feel empowered to take my place in political discourse, rather than being some parasite that merely leeches off the sweat of others and should rightly remain voiceless in the public debate. The law, in its misguided benevolence, accords the same right to our evil gay oppressors.

Hell, even minors get to pay taxes, though we rightly tell them to shut up and go their room at voting time. Denying the church this basic right is a criminally negligent oversight that needs our lawmakers’ urgent intervention.

It follows that the church should be invited to participate in full public disclosure of all of its business dealings, as all publicly listed companies have the right to do. I own shares in the company I work for, so I (and anyone else who cares to look) have the right to see how my money is being spent. As every person who puts money in the collection plate on Sunday is a default shareholder, surely they should be afforded the same rights as me, both in seeing how their money is spent and voting on key issues of direct impact on their investment.

Also, in the same manner that we extend the protective hand of law over our indigenous kin in term of how they spend their income, we need to protect the church from the possibility of its own bad judgement. Imagine if it was found that the Catholic church had accidentally invested in pharmaceutical companies that manufacture birth control medicine, or (heaven forbid) munitions companies. How on Earth could the church reconcile that kind of negligence against its divine and unchanging tenets? We owe it to them to prevent that kind of mistake and legislation is their only Earthly saviour.

Finally, now that the law has acknowledged the evil of promoting GLBT equality, everybody who supports said equality should recant their sinful ways by placing an absolute boycott on all dealings with Catholics, as it’s the only way to save them from inadvertent persecution. It is our responsibility to save them from endangering their immortal souls by unwittingly accepting our tainted lucre. Worse still is that they should unwittingly fund our illegal activism by paying for our goods and services.

I humbly beseech any business owners who are illegally persecuting the Catholic church by supporting GLBT equality to come clean. Place a sign in your window to dissuade Catholics from entering. I suggest the sort of friendly language they relate to. Something like “Catholics who shop here will burn in hell for all eternity” should get the message across in a subtle fashion.

Personally, I am in awe of the wisdom of our state parliamentary committee system, which obviously surpasses archaic institutions like the High Court in its understanding of civil rights. I have always known the gay community to be oppressive but up until December 27, 2010 I thought it was for making me listen to Kylie at house parties. I know better now. I pledge to do my part to rid the world of gay persecution of helpless Catholics.

Do your part. They need you.

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