Open Letter to My Friends re Men's Health Ambassador Appointment Media Conference
12 midday - 27 November outside Cringila Pub, Five
Islands Road & Lake Avenue, CRINGILA NSW 2502.
It is a wonderful thing when people vilify you and tell lies about you.
Certain journalists have claimed that I am homophobic. You be the judge.
Is being homophobic bringing a young man into your home with your young
family who has the death sentence of AIDS? That same young man needed
shelter from the storm. A placed filled with unconditional love. He came
from a broken home. He had a father wound. He had been sexually abused by
other older men. That same young man ended up working the wall in Sydney.
This is not a good place for any young man to have to work. He needed
someone to tell him that he was loved and appreciated not for the sex he
could give to his paying customers who abused him but because of who he was
on the inside a wonderful young man, with a future and a destiny.
Is being homophobic giving an award at a public function in Parliament
House, Canberra in August 2005 to a wonderful Lesbian woman from Melbourne
who had the guts to set up an organization to help trafficked women caught
in the exploitative web of male driven prostitution. Unfortunately some men
still are bastards! Certainly not all but some. White Ribbon Day tells the
stories.
Is being homophobic inviting a Mayor of a local council in Sydney to give
awards to the men who have completed a fatherhood course? That mayor was a
homosexual man but as a Lord Mayor he deserves our respect and honour. After
all we are all someone's daughter or someone's son and as
such we all deserve that same honour and respect.
If I am attacked it is because I believe that our children matter. If I am
attacked it is because I believe that we should give our children the very
best we can give them. If I am attacked it is because I believe every child
has the right to a mother and a father. Children need a mother and a father
not two mummies or two daddies.
The document in question is public
information and is available for free download:
www.gendermatters.org.au 
<http://www.gendermatters.org.au/> '21 Reasons Why Gender Matters' has 34
different authors and contributors. Some contributed a lot and some a
little. Ten are doctors while many are practitioners and counsellors.
Several had experienced the gender wound first hand so they are well able to
write with both authority and
compassion.
'21 Reasons Why Gender Matters' shows from thousands of studies the world
over, that the natural way is the best way and when we break that natural
order the statistics show things just start to go wrong. People get hurt.
Children are abused. Father wounds are created. Families break up.
Relationships break down. Maybe we should rename the 'Father Wound' the
'Gender Wound'? The pain of the Gender Wound is a non-discriminatory pain.
This pain is felt by heterosexuals and homosexuals.
The story of this pain
is well told in the ground breaking Australian movie called the Men's Group www.mensgroupthemovie.com
'21 Reasons Why Gender Matter' was released some time ago in terms of the
news cycle. This document is old news. Every Member of Parliament received
a copy in the lead-up to the last election. So did the media in the press
gallery. Why all the fuss now?
I don't know where this story came from? I have not said anything about this
subject for quite some time. This sort of heterophobia baffles me.
A lady from the USA in the lead up to international Mens Day ( ) on the
19th November called me a 'father's rights advocate'. I would prefer to be
called a 'love advocate' or a 'new way to be human advocate'.
My main focus
is healing the father wound in the children of Australia and trying to turn
the tide of fatherlessness in our nation. Suicide is directly related to
Fatherlessness. Our children need live fathers not dead fathers. Men are
dying almost 5 years earlier than women. Most of this morbidity is
preventable. Men's Health has been a much neglected issue. The women of
Australia were granted a National Women's Health Policy in 1989. This
National Men's Health Policy has been a long time coming.
I applaud Nicola Roxon for her initiative in getting this policy off the
ground. She is a great woman and mother and she is doing a great job. I
congratulate the Rudd Labor Government for their courage to tackle the
shocking epidemic of male suicide and I am willing to continue as an
advocate for Aussie men as an ambassador on their behalf as well as the
government. We desperately need a national discourse on a National Men's
Health Policy. I am honoured to work alongside such great Aussie men as
Professor John MacDonald, Barry Williams, Tim Mathieson and others. All have
a story to tell. They need to be heard. It is sad that these vicious
unprovoked personal attacks are obfuscating the real message of Men's Health
and the many slurs that men still have to endure because of their sex.
I have received many encouraging phone calls and emails in the light of
these unprovoked attacks upon my character and I want to thank those
Australian men and women for their support and encouragement.
Yours for our children
Warwick Marsh
0418 225 212
Fatherhood Foundation
02 4272 6677
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