This was published 7 years ago
Good news: swearing about politicians is now officially sanctioned
The legal precedent for public f-bomb deployment has been set.
By Andrew P Street
Swearing, my late father insisted, was neither big nor clever.
It was the sign of a limited vocabulary, he would tell me back when I was a child first experimenting with the marvellous diversity of human vulgarity, and that anyone who truly appreciated the depth of the English language would have little reason to resort to the use of common, easy profanities in their daily speech.
And I don't like to contradict a man whose memory I revere, not least since he's no longer around to defend his corner, but I would like to present an opposing view, which is this: dad was wrong and swearing is great.
I say this as a person whose vocabulary, if anything, could stand to be trimmed by a significant margin. Indeed, its fair to say that my tendency to loquaciousness has garnered me more enemies than friends.
Says we should donate to the war on ISISCredit: Ryan Osland
And Dad was right in pointing out that words are excellent and the English has no shortage of them - it's been determined to be the language that (probably) contains the most words, not least because English has been historically enthusiastic about stealing wildly from other languages.
However, the unique beauty of swears is that they're marvellously versatile while also being refreshingly unambiguous. Telling someone that their work is of an unacceptable standard may be accurate, sure; but advising them to euphemistically ram said work into their southernmost hole adds an undeniable frisson to the conversation.
And thus the ruling on Tuesday by Sydney magistrate Geoffrey Bradd pleases me greatly, since it has determined that the use of my beloved f-bomb is legitimate language of protest and not offensive in a legal sense, when deployed in context.
Because this column will no doubt act as a source of information and instruction for generations to come, I shall use genteel alternatives for said f-word throughout, but readers from our distant, sci-fi future should take note: please be assured that we actually effed and blinded all the time in our daily interactions, because we were cool.
To resume: Magistrate Bradd was ruling on this important and sweary issue because three protesters were charged with using offensive language during a rally in September 2015.
The protest was in support of marriage equality, protesting an anti same-sex marriage march organised by Christian Democratic Party leader and NSW upper house MP Fred Nile.
Sydney's notoriously polite and easily shocked police took issue with chants of "fronk Fred Nile" and "bigots frilb off", issuing $500 fines to April Holcombe, Cat Rose and Patrick Hildehand.
Rose and Hilehand were co-convenors of Community Action Against Homophobia, and Holcolmbe was the LGBTI Officer for the National Union of Students. Hence the zeal with which said fines were levied looked a teeny tiny bit as though The Man was trying to shut down legitimate protest by deliberately targeting its coordinators.
Penalty notices for offensive language aren't legally valid for "an apparently genuine demonstration or protest", but charges were laid and the trio had to appear in court on the grounds that naughty words might have shocked children who were innocently playing in the park at the time. Especially those children that were fiercely in favour of the current wording of the Marriage Act.
Magistrate Bradd, however, ruled that the use of the big F was "to dismiss the argument against marriage equality" rather than "calculated to wound the feelings, arouse anger or resentment or disgust and outrage in the mind of a reasonable person". Frunch yeah!
And the best part is that deploying verbal fudge-blasts is now a legally recognised riposte to Fred Nile specifically and anti-marriage equality arguments generally. And this sets a spicy legal precedent ahead of what seems certain to be a whole lot of continuing protests after the same sex marriage plebiscite is humanely euthanised in the senate and the calls for a free parliamentary vote on the matter become deafening.
But most importantly, it recognises that abrasive language is useful, indeed valuable, and that the laws around its use have been used more often as a way to shut disagreeable people up than in recognition of delicate personal sensibilities - or, in the words of Rose's solicitor Christian Hearn, "for too long been used as a social control applied disproportionately against marginalised and vulnerable people".
So the take away is this: swearing is a legitimate form of protest and language - and society - is the richer for it.
So let us f away with impunity, friends. Let us f the fulg away.
Andrew P Street's new book The Curious Story of Malcolm Turnbull: the Incredible Shrinking Man in the Top Hat is out now through Allen & Unwin