It’s been quite the saga involving former rugby player Israel Folau, hasn’t it?
After getting (rightfully) fired for posting some seriously homophobic stuff on Instagram, he tried to play himself off as the victim in all this, only to be raked through the coals.
When that didn’t work, he decided to ask people to give him $3 million via a deeply suss GoFundMe campaign so he can go to court against Rugby Australia, which copped a bigger roasting than a turkey on American thanksgiving since it was taking attention away from legitimately worthy causes.
Look, it’s all been a pretty ugly affair but I’m happy to report that something good has come out of all this.
After Folau launched his GoFundMe campaign, a rival campaign, called “Support LGBTI + Australian people of colour” was set up by Sydneysider Ryan Carter in direct response to it.
This competing GoFundMe is seeking $100,000 in donations to support Black Rainbow, which describes itself as “Australia’s first and only National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander [LGBTQI] Suicide Prevention National Advocacy Platform and National Touchpoint“.
As far as making something good out of something bad goes, this is a great effort. If Folau is willing to swing his dick around on GoFundMe, then I don’t see why others shouldn’t do the exact same thing for an actual good cause.
At the time of writing, the Black Rainbow campaign has raised $8,845 and is likely to raise a lot more as it is quickly gathering steam. By comparison, Folau’s campaign has raised over $500k, which speaks to more about the number of anti-LGBTQI people supporting him than it does about the man himself.
So if you want to do something about this whole mess that involves helping out a worthy cause while simultaneously giving Folau the middle finger, pop on over to the Black Rainbow GoFundMe page.
In the written words of Ryan Carter for the Black Rainbow campaign, “I believe most Australians want the best for each other, and when our mates are down, we rally together and help them out.“
Could’ve have said it better myself, mate.