The GLORIAs – the Gay or Lesbian Outrageous, Ridiculous or Ignorant (Comment) Awards – were held again at NSW Parliament House on Tuesday 10 November 2015.

Organised by Penny Sharpe MLC, hosted by David Marr, and with entertainment provided by Barbra Blacksheep, the event is an annual opportunity to highlight the ongoing serious issue of homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and intersexphobia by making fun of what are, frankly, some of the most stupid and downright offensive things said in public life over the past year or so.

There are five main categories, with the overall ‘winner’ of the Golden GLORIA decided by a ‘boo-off’. Here are the nominees and winners of this year awards:

The most OUTRAGEOUS, RIDICULOUS or IGNORANT comment from the INTERNATIONAL category:

• Kentucky county court clerk Kim Davis, who has refused to issue marriage licences to same-sex couples
• Anti-gay radio host Bryan Fisher who compared a clerk who refuses to issue marriage licences to same-sex couples to a ‘clerk at Auschwitz’ who refused to murder Jews
• Ghanaian presidential hopeful George Boateng, who declared: “There is too much indiscipline in Ghana, under my presidency when a corrupt person, gay or lesbian are arrested the law will make it possible for the courts to sentence the offender to death by firing squad”
• Ed Straker, senior writer of com, the conservative news site, writing about the ‘Rainbow Doritos’: “Doritos are a product marketed to children, so they make the perfect gateway snack to introduce children to the joys of homosexuality”
• Texas Governor Rick Perry: “I may have the genetic coding that I’m inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that – and I look at the homosexual issue the same way”
• Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy criticised his country’s same-sex marriage law saying he “detested” the way he feels his successor, Francois Hollande, and his Socialist government “forced” the same-sex marriage bill into law in 2013. The thrice-married Sarkozy said he feels the statute is “humiliating families and humiliating people who love the family”
• Islamic State militants have reportedly murdered two more men for the ‘crime’ of being gay in an unnamed town in Iraq’s Nineveh province
• Rapper Azealia Banks tweeted that the “LGBT community (GGGG) are like the gay white KKK’s. Get them some pink hoods and unicorns and let them rally down rodeo drive”
• Kazakh Party Leader Bolashak: “I think it is very easy to identify a gay person by his or her DNA. A blood test can show the presence of degeneratism in a person”

And the winner was: Kim Davis. A well-deserved honour for someone who misguidedly thinks she is a martyr simply for refusing to do the straight-forward job of treating people equally.

MEDIA

• The Daily Telegraph for the front page “Gay Class Uproar – Parents outraged as Sydney school swaps lessons for PC movie session”
• Germaine Greer for her views on trans* women: “I didn’t know there was such a thing [as transphobia]. Arachnophobia yes. Transphobia, no.” “It seems to me that what was going on there was that [Caitlyn Jenner] he/she wanted the limelight that the other, female, members of the family were enjoying and has conquered it, just like that” … “Just because you lop off your dick and then wear a dress doesn’t make you a fucking woman. I’ve asked my doctor to give me long ears and liver spots and I’m going to wear a brown coat but that doesn’t turn me into a fucking cocker spaniel… A man who gets his dick cut chopped off is actually inflicting an extraordinary act of violence on himself.”
• Piers Akerman for telling a kid with two mums she is not normal: “Statistically, you are not in a ‘normal’ family, no matter how many LGBTIQ-friendly docos you may be forced to watch by politically-driven school principals”
• Andrew Bolt: “Truth is that marriage – the institution, tradition and ceremony – are indeed all public matters. Marriage is a social, not private, construct to bind men to women for the sake of their children, so that the next generations are properly socialised to the benefit of all”
• Keith Wheeler, writing in the Wagga Daily Advertiser: [the ‘No’ campaign in a marriage equality plebiscite should] “remind Australians that gay marriage would be encouraging homosexuality… AIDS and HIV are at a 20 year high. Perhaps the ‘grim reaper’ advertisements need revival as a reminder of the consequences of homosexual sex. … Australians should consider the plight of adopted children and those needing foster care, being sent to a homosexual home. Changes to marriage laws will change Australian society forever.”
• Melbourne GP, Dr Jereth Kok who wrote in a piece titled “A medical perspective on transgender”, that Christians should have empathy for these “broken people” but must understand that sex reassignment therapy is a “sophisticated and cruel myth”
• Miranda Devine for her blog that only just missed out on the nominations for last year’s GLORIAs ‘But woe betide the player who “offends the gods of homosexuality… Let’s get one thing straight. ‘Gay’ no longer just means ‘homosexual’. The word has changed meaning over the last decade. Young people use ‘gay’ to mean lame, or dumb or stupid, as in: “That’s so gay…” So why is anyone pretending that what Mitchell said had anything to do with homosexuality? It didn’t”
• Des Houghton writing in the Courier Mail: “Even people who like me who don’t go to church should be appalled that the gay lobby seeks to trample on their rights and customs in the name of equality. The media luvvies see gay marriage is another trendy fad like chai latte with yak milk and Lycra bike shorts. I’m tired of being lectured by people like Penny Wong who insist we must all roll over and toe the gay line in the name of equality. She and her followers demand we must agree that homosexuality is a good thing, and that it would be a good thing for homosexual couples to raise other people’s children. Enough already”
• Piers Akerman (again): “I for one, am heartily sick of the constant pro-gay marriage propaganda from the homosexual lobby and its media mouthpieces at the ABC and Fairfax. They have gone a long way toward destroying the natural family relationship of a husband and wife and a child or children… It is plain wrong to make the claim that redefining marriage to include consenting partners of the same sex is a mere bagatelle. It is not. It is a gravity-defying act”

Amid such fierce competition, the winner was perhaps always going to be Germaine Greer.

POLITICS/LAW

• Senator Eric Abetz for allegedly telling the Liberal Party room: “Lots of homosexuals don’t want to get married, Dolce & Gabbana never got married.”
• NSW Premier Mike Baird for saying he did not believe the film [Gayby Baby] belonged in the classroom: “I think tolerance is a good thing. But I think there should be some parameters around it.”
• A tweet by North Queensland federal MP George Christensen that linked US gun laws to the legislation of same-sex marriage: “I’m wondering how many people who look to USA and say we should follow them on “gay marriage” because they’re America the Great would want us to follow their lead on the right to bear arms?”
• Fred Nile: “The homosexual movement is aggressively aiming to normalise their agenda, lifestyle and ideologies into our society. I urge the Government to do the right thing by the majority of parents who do not want their children exposed [to] the queer and homosexual ideologies. This issue has inevitable detriments and consequences.”
• Fred Nile (again) for a speech in the NSW Parliament about the Safe Schools Coalition: “The material encourages a mindset of sexual exploration as if the very process of exploration were without risk, and is unashamedly driven by an agenda to promote homosexuality amongst children… So many Australians are disgusted at the sickening agenda behind the Safe Schools program. The program is absolutely abhorrent and disgusting in that it would normalise anal sex, oral sex, chest binding and homosexual sex.”
• Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce for warning us that Asia could see Australia as “decadent” if same-sex marriage is legalised, potentially damaging negotiations and out trading relationship in the region.”
• NSW Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli for issuing a ministerial memorandum to the State’s Principals ordering that: “Gayby Baby must not be shown in school time so that it does not impact on the delivery of the planned lessons.”

A surprising result in this category, with NSW Premier Mike Baird winning (personally, I thought the second of Fred Nile’s quotes, attacking the Safe Schools Coalition, was far more offensive).

RELIGION

• Nick Jensen and Sarah Jensen for preparing to divorce in protest against any change to the law to accommodate same-sex marriage: “My wife and I, as a matter of conscience, refuse to recognise the government regulation of marriage if its definition includes the solemnisation of same-ex couples.”
• Rev Mark Powell, writing in Fred Nile’s newsletter: “What we are seeing is nothing less than the attempted ‘institutional grooming’ of an entire generation of young Australians. Right under our noses boys and girls are being sexualised as part of their State-funded education.”
• Rev Robby Galatay, a conservative Tennessee pastor who implied that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people must remain celibate or should be put to death: “God said that the sins of the people had infected the very land in which they live. So what happens to people who engage in this activity, this sexual immoral activity? Go to Leviticus 20, God gives us the punishment for engaging in these sins… They must be put to death. And their blood is on their own hands.”
• Russian Orthodox Priest Alexander Shumsky who claimed that football players are promoting a “gay rainbow” by wearing green, pink, yellow and blue shoes. He said: “Wearing pink or blue shoes, [the players] might as well women’s panties or a bra. The liberal ideology of globalism clearly wants to oppose Christianity with football. I’m sure of it. Therefore I am glad that the Russian players have failed and, by the grace of God, no longer participate in this homosexual abomination.”
• Foundation Christian College Principal Andrew Newhouse for telling the father of a seven-year-old girl she would not have been welcome had it known her parents were gay: “The board also has a strong view that families with same-sex parents do not support a Christian world view… I mentioned to the parent that if his daughter was to continue this topic of discussion with his peers, then it would be in both his and his daughter’s interests to move to a school that would support his world view.”
• Lyle Shelton and the Australian Christian Lobby for its campaign against the Safe Schools Coalition. “Dressed up as an anti-bullying program, it encourages children to cross-dress at school and demands the school accept this. Children are presented with information that downplays the danger of sexually transmitted diseases and introduced to concepts every thinking parent hopes they won’t Google us. Its ‘seven-ways-to-bind your chest’ advice to girls is one of the most shocking things I’ve ever seen done in the name of a government program.”
• Australian Marriage Forum’s David van Gend for comparing marriage equality to slavery: “The Supreme Court’s slavery decision was eventually repented of and reversed, just as the homosexual ‘marriage’ decision will have to be repented of and reversed – but after how much social damage is done?”

Another surprising winner in this category, with Sarah and Nick Jensen taking out the honours. And, while their commitment to divorce should other people enjoy the same rights as them is no doubt stupid, I would have much preferred either Lyle Shelton of the Australian Christian Lobby, or Foundation Christian College Principal Andrew Newhouse, to collect the gong.

SPORT

• Jacques Potgeiter for using the word ‘faggot’ multiple times during the Super Rugby Clash against the Brumbies.
• AFL commentator Brian Taylor who said of Geelong player Harry Taylor “I don’t know whether you guys down there can hear me or not. I am up here getting ready for the game and I’ve just seen that crap from Harry – he’s a big poofter, I mean give them this one Harry” during a pre-game broadcast of Channel 7’s Saturday Night Footy show.
• Sam Newman for saying that Michael Sam’s draft kiss was an “annoyingly gratuitous act”, and that “no heterosexuals do that when they are drafted.”

A clear winner in this category: Sam Newman – who can surely now tick off homophobia as part of the lifelong game of ‘bigot bingo’ he appears to be playing.

GOLDEN GLORIA

The ‘boo-off’, from the above five winners, came down to two clear crowd favourites. And, despite the vocal jeers from people in the room who wanted to see Mr Baird win (possibly from the same people who wanted to see him lose at the State election last March), the winner, with an exceptionally loud, and sustained, boo, was Germaine ‘Gloria’ Greer.

It must be said that no-one in the history of the GLORIAs has ever campaigned so long and so hard to win the top honour, with Ms Greer making repeated, unjustified and downright malicious attacks on the trans community throughout the eligibility period of 2014 and 2015.

Now it is on to 2016 and, while we are always hopefuly there will be fewer homophobic, biphobic, transphobic and intersexphobic comments across society, sadly the fact that there is likely to be a marriage equality plebiscite sometime in the next two years guarantees there will be no shortage of outrageous, ridiculous and ignorant commentary in the months ahead.

Germaine ‘Gloria’ Greer