Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Ken Campagnolo

A blog belonging to one of the commenters, Doug Pollard, in the previous post tells a story worthy of notice; indeed it appears to have had some attention in bnews and the local paper but only minimal coverage in the mainstream media. Ken Campagnolo, sacked, harrassed and discriminated against. Not for being gay but for being bisexual.

Take a look at the April entries to get up to speed with the story. The blog isn't very big and you can probably read through the entire thing in a few minutes, but Ken's story does look to be deserving of wider attention.

And I've just realised I probably need to create a more appropriate tag, given that Ken's experience of discrimination appears to stem from people taking issue with his bisexuality after discovering that he wasn't gay. Any suggestions?
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4 comments:

Unknown said...

hi thanks for the inclusion in your blog.

Had a little win at the Victorian Equal Opportunity an Human Rights Commission with the VCFL (Victorian Country Football League ) who are about to hold a mainstream media-conference on or after the 20 June 08 with new policies for all AFL games and netball that must include new sexual harassment and sexual orientation policy into all games simular to the racial vilification rules, introduced a few years ago.
That is a good out come for everyone that plays sport but not too good for me. It is getting bloody cold and we are expecting snow in the next few days at the foot of Mt Buller. I am locked out of my home. And homeless and living on the street.
No compensation or anything even though it is 100% illegal to sack someone on account of their sexuality

Thanks
Ken

11/6/08 9:14 pm
Sarah said...

Geez it's incredible to think that someone would have to confront a situation like this in Australia. I'm glad you had a win in principle, but sorry to hear it doesn't really help you, Ken.

12/6/08 1:38 pm
Mikey_Capital said...

That's fucked up. What a fucked in the head society we live in where people rag on someone because of their biologically determined sexual identity. Dickheads.

12/6/08 9:49 pm
Unknown said...

Discrimination is very wrong, but as someone who lived with Ken for over six months I figure there is more to the story.

I felt sorry for Ken when he answered my add for a flat mate and so even though he couldn't afford a bond and was living in his car at the time, I thought I'd help him out and let him move in.
I found Ken very hard to get along with; he never paid rent on time (if at all), never paid any money towards utility bills despite me working out what he owed and despite him wasting so much electricity (he had two bar fridges running in his wardrobe and constantly left things running). I ended up giving him three months to find somewhere else to live, as I couldn't take it any more and felt it was only a matter of time before he did something that burned the house down. He ended up skipping out owing me over $1000 in rent and did so much damage to the walls that I won't be getting my bond back when I move out.

During that time, I also got the impression that Ken never took responsibility for his actions and when anything didn't go well for him in life, he tended to blame it on the other people being homophobic. "They had a problem with my sexuality" was a very handy scape goat.
I'm sure that's why he thinks I didn't get along with him, even though I'm gay myself.

All in all, he is someone I wish I had never met.

M.

27/6/09 12:16 pm

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