Dan Andrews has issued a proclamation telling public servants that they should desist from heterogenic terms like husband and wife, or his and her.
Zie and Hir are his preferred words.
Public servants meeting Dan should click their heels, raise their right arm, salute palm outwards and say these two words together quickly. In the German tradition, if you get my drift.
One of the key characteristics of our Western Civilisation is that things evolve from the bottom up rather than being imposed from the top down. It is the basis of the common law that has served us so well.
Interestingly, it has contributed to the dominance of English as the world language. Unlike French, for example, words can be added and grammar modified to suit new requirements. The language is forever changing. It is being changed by the people. Like other markets, ideas which do not meet public desires fail. Only the useful changes endure.
The idea that it is the role of the State to determine what words we may use should be anathema to us all. In a year in which the Human Rights Commission has conspired to denigrate students for daring to challenge their University, and to attack a cartoonist for raising important social issues, it is time to take a stand. We should limit the role of the state. We should insist that our politicians desist from forcing their ideologies on us and our children.
We demand the right to be free. To assemble with friends of our choosing. To form our own religious and political beliefs. To have our own opinions and to express them freely. To salute Dan Andrews in the Australian way.
