Yesterday, both Bernard Keane and former Crikey staffer Matthew Knott did good diagnostic work on the slow death of the same-sex marriage plebiscite. This demise, they said, could sure tell us a lot about Coalition politics. Our government is decrepit, worn down by the quaint afflictions of the cultural right. It’s true. Turnbull, today’s champion of innovation, is eaten alive by the Bernardi appetite for yesterday’s cold virtue.
We’ll leave the autopsy of a prime minister’s hope to Coroner Keane. Let’s focus here on another passing. And, no, not the end of the plebiscite itself — although someone should probably say something about what such a forceful rubbishing of a democratic process might mean for our future. It’s about the waning hope for useful conversation on mental health, the reason almost uniformly given for abandoning the plebiscite.
Opponents of the plebiscite have not equivocated; this, they said, would be a disastrous mental health event. Taking their cue from Australian Marriage Equality and other traditionalist LGBTI groups, politicians have said that thing long uttered by a particular kind of lobbyist: this decision is very bad for mental health.
Bill Shorten has written that the proposed vote would cause LGBTI people, already at increased risk of poor mental health, further distress. Later, he mentioned the Orlando shooting. Last Friday, Richard di Natale said that the vote could lead to suicides.
Okay, this nightmare scenario is possible. It’s also possible that a plebiscite could lead not to suicide, but to an extraordinary national conversation on marriage and intimacy. Certainly, the constitutional recognition talk among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander intellectuals has been pretty darn good. In fact, it’s offered fearless proof that the subjects of that proposed referendum have both great solidarity and great disagreement. And this, undertaken by a class of people confronted with the problem of suicide prevention more than any other. No one is claiming that this referendum should not take place for fear of poor mental health outcomes.
But let’s forget that. Let’s say that a plebiscite, even if it does provide the fastest route to the same-sex marriage that conservative gay lobbyists have long insisted will somehow prevent suicide, will provoke suicide. Let’s ignore the absence of data — the claims made about mental ill health during the Irish referendum are anecdotal — and let’s even overlook the ethics of Di Natale publicly predicting a tragic outcome. Let’s just agree and say that we are glad that we have, perhaps, avoided a catastrophe. Let’s say we are so committed to good mental health outcomes for an at-risk group we are prepared to forego the possibility of future plebiscites, which we are now all agreed are just a costly sham, to preserve them.
We are committed to the idea of good mental health outcomes, and we speak about the need for more tolerance, understanding and sensitive speech around the matter non-stop. We’ll “call out” incorrect language, enjoy the ABC’s awareness-gasm every year and agree with the latest Beyondblue campaign that compassion is what is needed most. We bear particular concern for LGBTI youth and we believe quite utterly that learning to recite this year’s accepted sexual identity categories in schools will prevent suicide. We believe that same-sex marriage will prevent suicide. We believe that any bumpy democratic route to that suicide prevention strategy will likely provoke suicide. We are absolutely committed to good mental health outcomes for this and other groups, so long as their address demands nothing more from us than kindness.
Kindness is great. Safe Schools is OK. Marriage equality will bring some people happiness. But these are not proven suicide prevention strategies. To be effective, suicide prevention strategies must be evidence-based.
Researching those strategies is the work, inter alia, of the Black Dog Institute. Director Helen Christensen has recently undertaken a NSW study of the most effective means of suicide prevention. While she is, she says, relieved to learn that the plebiscite is unlikely to take place, she is eager to see implemented those methods that work to prevent suicide in both the LGBTI and general populations.
“What are known interventions that work for suicide prevention? Making sure that people are screened properly and identified. That GPs are equipped and supported to do this. Ensuring that there is follow-up care. Developing school programs around reducing suicide ideation,” says Christensen, for starters. “Implement strategies simultaneously in a local area and take into account the target groups for this local area.”
Professor Patrick McGorry, a well-known advocate for mental health services, is a complex man with a simple answer to the question of what works: “Providing proper care for people with mental illness or mental ill health.”
Like Christensen, McGorry is pleased that the potentially divisive plebiscite will not take place. But he is displeased, as he has been for some time, that moments of public understanding serve to mask the problem of inadequate services.
“Mental health care. No one focuses on that. The emphasis is on awareness-raising and community cohesion, which is difficult to deliver and to measure.”
Mental health care in general and suicide prevention strategies in particular are not impossible to measure; the Black Dog Institute is just one research body that assesses their effectiveness. These services are not difficult to deliver if they are well-funded. But, as McGorry and other advocates keep on saying, the budget envelope for mental health services in Australia is a crappy joke. Which is to say, less as a proportion of GDP relative to the spend of other OECD nations and, jeez, just not nearly enough.
Mental ill health and suicidality are real problems. They are real problems that really afflict real categories of real people disproportionately, including the LGBTI community. If we really care about all those afflicted, we must care beyond the point of saying, in this case, “no” to a vote or, more generally “yes” to the many entreaties by awareness-focused groups like Beyondblue to be more understanding and tolerant.
These are good qualities. These are not evidence-based strategies that will produce good mental health outcomes. Nor, for that matter, is the suspension of a plebiscite. I mean, I’m thankful that for the sake of my own mental health I will not hear more than the usual volume of idiocy from cold virtue politicians and tepid equality lobbyists who will go on and on about how the possibility of marriage is, somehow, good for my mental health. But this is a relief from a trifle, not relief from the institutional and domestic homophobia that cause mental ill health in LGBTI populations and nothing like the relief that an adequately funded mental health service would provide.
We do not have an adequately funded mental health service. Instead, we have the slow death of interest in addressing mental health with anything but conspicuously considerate gestures.
*Lifeline: 13 11 14
You may be missing the point that most of the mental health issues GLBTI people suffer from stem from a lifetime of having shitty things said about them. It takes a mighty strong constitution to maintain a sense of self esteem with the relentless stream of abuse and outright falsehoods most of us suffer. The plebiscite is seen as an opportunity for those most opposed to marriage equality to do their absolute worst. Rather than see it is an issue of marriage equality I would rather it be simply seen as an issue of straight out equality. We are equal. We should have the same rights. Including marriage.
No. I didn’t miss that point. I directly understand it and mention it in the piece.
Ideally, we’d have a nation free from all forms of prejudice and hardship (homelessness in particular afflicts LGBTI people). We don’t and we shan’t even when marriage is passed. There are plenty of examples in which mental illness and other signs of homophobia persist in places where marriage has long been legal.
So. Failing that glorious time when we all have access to equal material and rights, we need mental health care. This is my point. It is not the point of any political party. Including the Greens who costed their own scheme oddly. (Big dollars for awareness.)
Some LGBTI people and not all LGBTI people suffer from mental ill health. To say equal rights under the marriage act is a treatment for these people is hopeful, but dead wrong.
I haven’t missed that point.
You certainly did not miss any points at all. FWIW I totally agree with your points #AsALesbian
I believe you are conflating issues here. Many do need marriage equality. No one need the hatefest that the plebiscite will become.
On mental health I agree that the resources devoted to it are appallingly low. While the GLBTI community is more adversely affected as they have a larger percentage of people needing those services I would maintain that the divide between access or non access to those services is more based on socio economic status ( again the GLBTI community takes a hit here). I have a very mentally unwell relative. They will never get the support they need simply because of their financial status. One the measurements of the degree of mental health one has is the ability to deal with day to day issues. He has none. Many have none, and of course having none, they are unemployable, leading to a situation where financially they will never be able to afford help. That is the issue. If you can’t afford it privately it should be provided by the state. While you can be put on a health plan you can’t fix the issues people have in 12 weeks which is about all they will ever get from the government .
Nothing to do with gay marriage. Nothing to do with the plebiscite except that these issues will, due to the hate speech generated, put further pressure on some peoples mental state. This is not an either /or situation. In highlighting the dire situation of people needing mental health services it is not necessary to diminish those desiring same sex marriage as a right or those dreading the hatefest from the proposed plebiscite.
The language around marriage and the plebiscite has been focused on mental health. It wasn’t me that uttered the ideation statistics for the last 8 years. It was groups like Marriage Equality explicitly drawing the link between marriage and suicide prevention. Explicitly and repeatedly. Now, government has taken on the language long used in local and US campaigns. See promotions for the Trevor or Its Get Better foundations which explicitly use suicude and poor mental health as a reason to pass same sex marriage. We hear the language pioneered by very conservative advocates for a single issue used all the time. What we do not hear from politicians, many LGBTI advocates and “allies” is any proposal about how to address the problem of mental health.
This reflects a society wide trend of awareness raising around mental health.
We say that we must not say mean things to potentially suicidal persons lest the worst happens, and “equality” lobbyists have shamelessly echoed this, pressing the potential and actual deaths of people into their service. (Remember when Tory Johnson lost his life during the Sydney siege? Pro “equality” advocates lost no time in saying that he died without the legal right to marry his partner. No one checked that this was something he wanted to do. Still. No problem using corpses for the perceived good.)
It’s an explicit and repeated claim inside and outside of marriage equality and everywhere else : the solution to mental illness is not saying mean things.
This persistent claim has an outcome. I’m not alone in arguing that the idea that kindness is a therapy has actively reduced lobbying for real therapy. This is almost the entire agenda of the prominent and well funded group beyondblue. Their solution to mental illness in LGBTI and indigenous populations is to make ads saying “don’t be mean “.
I’m not conflating these issues. They’re already conflated.
Equal rights for marriage should be simply about equal rights. The anti plebiscite discussion is exactly about not allowing certain organisations an open season on the GLBTI community, a trend that is already apparent. The proposed torrent of abuse and outright bullshit these organisations peddle cannot help but affect the mental health of the vulnerable.
Marriage equality is not a panacea for mental health. It is a positive step in the right direction for acceptance of GLBTI relationships and hence a small step in alleviating a lifetime of abuse.
The funding for mental health is a much broader issue, deserving of discussion and support in itself.
Sure, Gwen. The point is, that discussion was abandoned in the ’90s. The LGBTI example is interesting in that it priveleges a perceived human right (and let’s remember that since 2008 thanks to pragmatic activists not invested in the idea of marriage or in plaudits, equal rights for same sex couples exist in law) above material equality. The movement has been entirely occupied with marriage. One cannot say that this focus has compromised a range of other struggles. Quite hilariously, I have as a writer received actual threats of violence for suggesting that the race to “equality” leaves out a lot of possibilities for the way in which intimate relationships of all kinds are understood in law. And the way in which this institution will impact the diverse bonds in queer communities. One just has to agree that it’s a good thing, without any evidence that this is so,and hush up until the marriage thing is won.
This really reflects the appalling midlife of progressive politics. Representation and comfort enjoyed by a few is construed to trickle down to the many. Marriage solves little. It doesn’t address homelessness and poverty, two great problems for LGBTI people. As I’ve said at length, it clearly does nothing measurable for mental health. But it is seen as a primary focus, and it is so often used to prove dodgy things like longevity. Again, very obviously, mental health. All the time. And I see no signs of the older and wealthy and often Coalition affiliated advocates loosening their grip on the consciousness of LGBTI people.
There’s just no room for thinking about anything but being “respected”. Which is another way of demanding “respectability”. Which you’ll know as well as I do if you’ve hung around gay politics is an obsession by many. And this inclusion for some as respectable always means exclusion for others.
It’s just nonsense to keep claiming that we want things for our mental health while doing nothing to demand services.
But the well to do advocates can already afford that. Everyone else can get stuffed.
This is not a democratic struggle. It’s a shameful time for activism.
Why am I reminded of Cher singing in the 60s “Home of the Brave”?
Twas ever thus, those who strike out from the norm should not expect it to be easy.