Diary

Wednesday, 22nd April 2009

Last time I spoke in Sydney, close to 600 university students turned out, and I was so startled by that delicious fact (take that, haters), and their obvious goodwill, that I forgot most of what I had planned to say about sex, politics and religion. I ended up extemporising, ranging wildly over diverse, sometimes barely related topics. Do not ask me whom it was that asked me to give my thoughts on anal sex — right after I had offered a half-mad reading of the Spanish Inquisition (as an improvement on preceding judicial methods) — I could not say. I was out of control. I had indicated, in fact I probably said, giddily, that nothing was off-limits, and I was taken at my word. The enthusiasm engendered was infectious. I ended up taking multiple questions from the floor, and I spent close to an hour afterwards in deep conversation with the mostly Catholic, always earnest, sometimes shocking young people.

So when I was asked recently to speak at a similar — albeit smaller — event at the secular University of Sydney, I said yes without thinking. Only afterwards did I realise what I had done. A courtesy call from the Catholic chaplain revealed that the speaker who filled my slot last year — Cardinal George Pell — had been the focus of a noisy demonstration. Apparently the Queer Action Collective (or QuAC, in their clever abbreviation) might return this year, and try to shut me down. It would be a shame, the chaplain said, because he quite liked the protestors, if not their message, and would sooner sit down with them over a coffee than berate them from a placard-strewn divide. ‘I just want to tell them’, he said, ‘that we love them, and want the best for them.’ I sent the collective an email with those sentiments, and added my own welcome. We are still waiting for a reply.

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