English composer Benjamin Britten was born on this day in 1913. A central figure in music in the 20th century he composed well known operas, orchestral and vocal music. He is best known for the opera Peter Grimes, War Requiem and The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. 

Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, Britten was the son of a dentist, and he showed a talent for music from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music and privately with the composer Frank Bridge.

He garnered attention with his 1934 composition A Boy is Born. The choral work sets a variety of religious based texts to music and was scored as a cappella for a boys’ choir. HIs 1945 opera Peter Grimes made him world famous.

Over the next 28 years he wrote 14 more operas, making him one of the most prolific composers of opera in the 20th century. Alongside large scale works he also wrote smaller pieces designed for smaller venues and companies. He often wrote works with particular singers in mind, many of his works were written specifically for his partner, the tenor Peter Pears.

Prior to his death Britten was given a peerage becoming Baron Britten of Aldeburgh in June 1976. He passed away in December of the same year from congestive heart failure.

Listen to Lawrence Power play Britten’s Elegy for a Solo Viola. 

Billie Jean King is also celebrating a birthday

Tennis champion Billie-Jean King (nee Moffitt) was born on this day in 1943. A former World Number 1 she won 39 Grand Slam titles during her long career.

Regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time she was named Time magazine’s person of the year in 1975. King has been a long standing advocate for gender equality and social justice.

In 1973 she took part in a series of tennis matches dubbed the Battle of the Sexes which saw male and female tennis players take each other on. King beat her male counterpart Bobby Riggs, it’s seen as a defining moment in the acceptance of women’s sport. In was dramatised in the 2017 film Battle of the Sexes starring Emma Stone and Steve Carrell.

King married her husband Larry in 1965. In the early 1980’s King acknowledged she’d been in a relationship with her secretary for many years, when she was the subject of a palimony lawsuit. She remained married to her husband for several more years, but the couple divorced in 1987 when she fell in love with her doubles partner Ilana Kloss.

King and Kloss were married in 2017.

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In the lead up to the Wimbledon tennis finals last week Margaret Court’s name began to trend on Twitter.

People shared their outrage that the sporting star, turned evangelical preacher, was travelling to the United Kingdom to watch the tennis.

Questions were asked, did the politically connected pastor pull some strings to get permission to leave the country during the Covid crisis? What about the thousands of Australian’s who’ve been waiting months to re-enter the country?

Other commented that they didn’t mind Court leaving the country, just as long as she wasn’t let back in again. Some posts even suggested that Prime Minister Scott Morrison may have picked Court up when he visited Perth on his way to the G7 conference last month.

As Australian Ash Barty went on to win the women’s singles championship, the first time an Australian has won since Evonne Goolagong Cawley’s 1980 success, people continued their online rants about Court’s presence at tennis’s greatest event.

Had Court, world famous for her anti-gay rhetoric, been insensitively seated next to lesbian tennis champion Martina Navratilova? Footage of Navratilova chatting to Billie Jean King quickly turned into a meme.

In turn conservative commentators started to get worked up about Court not being featured in television coverage, censorship they cried!

The only problem with the outrage is that Margaret Court was never there, and she’s probably not left the Perth metropolitan area for months.

On Thursday night she appeared on Alan Jones Sky News program in a live cross from Perth, so clearly she had not hitched a lift with the PM, but that did nothing to stop the online accusations.

Court was at also highly visible at her Victory Life Church preaching the gospel on Sunday morning – her sermons are live streamed.

Sky News host Rita Panahi commented on the response to Court’s apparent Wimbledon appearance saying it was “based on the absolute hate and hysteria of the left.”

“There seemed to be more tweets about Margaret Court and how dare she be there… and what right has she got to be there.

“Even in this jubilant moment, the hate is what just dominates their thinking.” Panahi said, apparently unaware that Court hadn’t even left the country.

In The Spectator magazine conservative writer James McPherson hit out the Court haters, noting that Court was barely visible in the television coverage, as broadcasters focused more on Evonne Goolagong Crawley’s achievements and Court’s achievement’s barely rated a mention.

Conservative group Family Voice Australia fired off a missive claiming the online comments about Court over the last week were precisely the reason Australian needs strict religious freedom laws as quickly as possible.

Whatever your political persuasion is, as Winston Churchill famously said; “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on”.

Graeme Watson
Managing Editor 

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Tennis great Billie Jean King says she’s prepared to stop calling for Margaret Court’s name to be removed from the Melbourne Tennis Centre arena if Court learns to be “more loving” towards the LGBTIQ+ community.

Speaking to the New York Daily News, King reflected on her disagreements with the Perth based former Tennis champion turned religious leader.

“When someone has their name on something, you’ve got to be really hospitable, and I feel that Margaret’s not doing that,” King told the paper at Carnegie Hall after she took part in a panel on women’s rights as part of History Talks, put on by A+E Networks.

Margaret Court has often defended her negative comments about gay and transgender people by saying she loves all people, and regularly notes that many gay people who have attended her church have gone on to have heterosexual relationships and start families.

OIP Staff

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Margaret Court has sat down for an interview with one of the world’s most watched sports program to defend her beliefs about gay people and marriage, claiming that she’s been the victim of unfair bulling from the LGBTIQ+ community.

Veteran sportscaster Mary Carillo recently spent several days in Perth with the former Tennis champion turned religious leader and had filed a report for HBO’s Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. 

During the story Reverend Court reportedly highlights her work in helping the homeless in Perth, while also sharing her view that homosexuality can be cured.

“Marriage is between a man and a woman,” Reverend Court declares in a promotional video for the upcoming episode of the show. When asked why people of the same sex should not be married Reverend Court replies “The Bible says it.”

Court comments that “I should be able to share it without people throwing stones at me.” The religious leader, whose mega-church is based in Osborne Park, goes on to reaffirm her belief that people choose to be gay.

“Well they haven’t proven that they’re born like it.” Court said.

“I’m getting bullied by gays, by this whole fierce gay movement. I’m just going by what the Bible says and that’s a sin” Court claims in the report, according to Carillo.

US publication The Advocate has reported that during her visit to the Victory Life Centre Carillo was also introduced to parishioners who claim that Court has cured ailments including cancer, not being able to walk and drug addiction.

Carillo told the advocate that she believes she’s been unfairly bullied by the LGBTI community and the recent postal vote on marriage equality was only successful because ‘cashed-up’ Americans funded the Yes campaign.

Also appearing in the report are champion tennis players Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova. King says if she was a tennis player today there’s no way she’d ever play a game at the Melbourne Area named after Court.

Navratilova says Court will be remembered “as a great tennis player, as a pastor who did a lot of good for a lot of people, and as a raging homophobe.”

Speaking to The Advocate Carillo also notes the reverend’s latest book is called Train Your Brain and it promotes Court’s belief that you can learn not to be gay.

“The latest is called Train Your Brain, and she says the brain controls everything. If you want to be homosexual, you can train your brain not to be homosexual,” Carillo explains.

OUTinPerth previously reported that in 2014 Reverend Court had voiced her opposition to the Safe Schools anti-bullying program sharing that she believed that thoughts became physical manifestations. Reverend Court warned her followers not to let certain thoughts into their ‘thought realm’.

In recent week’s Reverend Court has been working hard to promote her work in helping the homeless, including a feature article in the Daily Mail.  While former Labor leader Mark Latham has commented that she should be considered for Australian of the Year.

The full story aired in the USA on Tuesday night, watch the promotional clip below.

OIP Staff

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Little Miss Sunshine directors Valarie Faris and Jonathan Dayton’s latest film Battle of the Sexes (★★★★★) is about a misogynistic egotistical man who performs for the public challenging an intelligent, capable woman who wants a better deal for her gender. No … it is not a film about the 2017 American presidential election, but about the most watched sporting event of 1973.

Former world number 1 tennis champion Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) challenges the women’s champion tennis player of the time Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) to a display match that was globally televised to show that men are the superior species.

Riggs described the match as “male chauvinist versus hairy legged feminist” even though King shaved her legs. But the challenge was given at the time when King had been battling the US Lawn Tennis Association for equal prize money. Males were getting eight times more than females and King launched her own touring Virginia Slims women’s tournament with the help of Gladys Helman (Sarah Silverman).

Prize money for female tennis players has certainly improved, but some of society’s ingrained misogyny seems to echo in present times. While Riggs’ bombastic antics are both funny and outrageous, they are disturbingly familiar to recent historical events in America … and around the world.

At the same time as she is fighting the feminist battle on the court and in the board rooms, the married King is fighting her developing affection for the sensuous hairdresser Marilyn Barnett (Andrea Riseborough). Tennis takes a back seat as their relationship blossoms and King struggles with the ramifications. She hopes that “some day we will be free to be who we are and love who we love”.

I am ashamed to say that I wasn’t aware of how much Billie Jean King did for women in sport and beyond but I am glad that someone has finally made a film to enlighten us.

Writer/director Miguel Arteta wanted to convey the emotional pain felt by those on the margins in the frightening cultural climate of today’s United States and his film Beatriz at Dinner (★★★1/2) is a battle of class as well as gender.

Beatriz (Salma Hayek) is an immigrant from a poor Mexican town who works as a holistic healer at a Los Angeles cancer treatment centre. After visiting a wealthy client who wants a distressing massage before hosting a dinner party, her car won’t start and she is invited to stay for dinner. The usually grounded Beatriz finds herself becoming more and more unsettled as she listens to the smug billionaire property developer Doug Strutt (John Lithgow).

Even before the dinner starts, Beatriz in on the outer as she has nothing in common with the wealthy wives gossiping at one end of the palatial forecourt or the men talking business at the other end. As the evening progresses, it becomes clear that her dinner companions have no regard for the environment or the people they displace.

Beatriz’s concerns are brushed aside before the gap between the healer and the hunter widens into a chasm when the entitled Strutt boasts about killing a lion on a recent hunting safari to Africa. It’s a pity the film hedges its bets by giving alternate endings to this thought-provoking dinner party as it raises a swarm of controversies that really need to be addressed.

Lezly Herbert

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Tennis legend Billie Jean King has said that she’d like to have a chat with former Wimbledon champ, turned religious leader Margaret Court.

King was at the Toronto Film Festival for the new movie Battle of the Sexes which focuses on the famous 1973 tennis match between King and former men’s champ Bobby Riggs. In the film Emma Stone portrays King, and Riggs is played by Steve Carell.

Australian actress Jessica McNamee portrays Margaret Court in the film. Prior to launching her career as a minister of religion, Court won a record number of grand-slam tournaments.

King said she and Court had always sat together for lunch when they played at the same tournaments, but said their relationship was very superficial. King said Court’s recent comments about the LGBTIQ community and marriage were disappointing.

“I would love to talk to Margaret, and I think probably now I need to talk to her about what she’s saying.

“But she’s a Pentecostal minister with her own congregation so I don’t think it will help much or that she will change or adapt.”

King also said she had mixed feelings about calls to remove the Tennis superstar’s name from the Melbourne Arena named after her.

“It’s a shame because I really promoted getting that court named after her and I wanted her and Rod Laver to have the same court,” King said.

“The Aussies were furious at me for even bringing it up but I strongly felt she deserved it because she got 64 grand slams which is more than anybody else to this day.

“Now I have questions about it, because of how she’s come out against the LBGT community and against marriage equality.

“Everyone has a right to state their opinion, but I also grew up as a Christian and I was a very religious young girl and always remember reading ‘judge not that ye be judged’ – that one always jumped off the page for me.

“Sadly, you can take any page in the Bible and use it your own way and she takes some other parts.

“If Jesus Christ was here, I think he’d agree that kindness and generosity and difference of opinion is OK.”

King, who won 39 Grand Slam titles herself, came out in as a lesbian in 1981. When she made the announcement she lost all her professional endorsement deals.

OIP Staff

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Rock star Bruce Springsteen has cancelled his show in North Carolina as a protest against the state’s new anti-LGBTIQ laws.

On his website ‘The Boss’ posted a notice stating that the cancellation of Sunday night’s show was due to the state’s new laws.

“As you, my fans, know I’m scheduled to play in Greensboro, North Carolina this Sunday. As we also know, North Carolina has just passed HB2, which the media are referring to as the “bathroom” law. HB2 — known officially as the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act — dictates which bathrooms transgender people are permitted to use.

“Just as important, the law also attacks the rights of LGBT citizens to sue when their human rights are violated in the workplace.” Springsteen said.

“No other group of North Carolinians faces such a burden. To my mind, it’s an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress.

Springsteen said he was cancelling the show to show solidarity with those fighting to reverse the state government’s decision.

“Right now, there are many groups, businesses, and individuals in North Carolina working to oppose and overcome these negative developments. Taking all of this into account, I feel that this is a time for me and the band to show solidarity for those freedom fighters.” the singer explained.

“As a result, and with deepest apologies to our dedicated fans in Greensboro, we have canceled our show scheduled for Sunday, April 10th. Some things are more important than a rock show and this fight against prejudice and bigotry — which is happening as I write — is one of them.

“It is the strongest means I have for raising my voice in opposition to those who continue to push us backwards instead of forwards.” Springsteen said.

Via his Twitter account Springsteen encouraged fans to voice their opposition to the laws.

Voice your opposition of discriminatory legislation like #HB2 by contacting your elected officials. Find them here: https://t.co/OBpJsZpXRi

— Bruce Springsteen (@springsteen) April 8, 2016

Stevie Van Zandt followed up Springsteen’s comments saying he was rpud to be a member of Springsteen’s E-Street Band.

Proud to be in the E Street Band. https://t.co/4OpgGageXz

— Stevie Van Zandt (@StevieVanZandt) April 8, 2016

The roughly 15,000 fans who had bought tickets to the show have been told they will be able to get a full refund.

Springsteen is just one of a growing number of artists boycotting North Carolina

The new legislation was rushed through the state’s General Assembly late last month and was signed into law by Governor Pat McCrory just hours later.

It compels transgender people to use the bathroom of their biological birth gender. The law also allows LGBTI people to fired from their jobs because of their sexuality.

The move has been widely criticised and the creative community has shows it’s disbelief by launching boycotts on the state.

Earlier this week ‘Wicked’ composer Stephen Schwartz said he would no longer allow the hit musical to be performed in the state by professional of community theatre groups.

Springsteen’s announcement puts pressure on other performers scheduled to play at the Greensboro Coliseum to follow his lead. Both Dolly Parton and Justin Beiber have shows scheduled at the venue.

One more incredible reason to love Bruce Springsteen.Your integrity is inspiring! From one boss to another @springsteen thank you for NC! XO

— Melissa McCarthy (@melissamccarthy) April 9, 2016

“More important than a rock show” – applaud @springsteen for cancelling North Carolina gig over foul anti-LGBTQ law https://t.co/DAYessMwiZ

— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) April 8, 2016

Hey @springsteen you make me proud to be a new jerseyan.

— Charlie Puth (@charlieputh) April 8, 2016

Thank you @springsteen for canceling your concert in NC in the fight against prejudice. You Rock #actions speak louder than words.

— Billie Jean King (@BillieJeanKing) April 8, 2016

There’s a reason they call him THE BOSS. Thank you @springsteen You are awesome. https://t.co/ebdM5i0Yck

— Jillian Michaels (@JillianMichaels) April 8, 2016

I Bruce @Springsteen.

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) April 8, 2016

Thank you Bruce for standing up to bigotry!
Springsteen cancels North Carolina concert over ‘bathroom law’ April 08 https://t.co/aZtUqst5d6

— Bradley Whitford (@WhitfordBradley) April 8, 2016

@springsteen are you kidding me Bruce! I have lost all respect. Stop bullying your ideologies onto others who differ. You suck 4dping this

— 4ThePeopleTrump (@RoadhouseBlues4) April 9, 2016

Damnit NC why couldn’t you have come up with this law a lot sooner so we would never have had to listen to Springsteen in the first place

— Ranse Stoddard (@zcutler45) April 9, 2016

Yes, Bruce. Some things ARE more important than a rock show. Like keeping men out of women’s public washrooms. @springsteen #BlunderRoad

— Damian Goddard (@heydamo) April 9, 2016

OIP Staff

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The inclusion of a high profile lesbian athlete has been seen as a direct response to Russia’s controversial anti-gay laws.

On her Twitter account King posted,
“Honored to represent USA in Sochi and I hope these Olympics will be a watershed moment for the universal acceptance of all people.”

The US delegation has been paired down in light of Russia’s anti-gay laws and it’s harbouring of US intelligence fugitive Edward Snowden. At the last Winter Olympics the USA delegation was led by Vice President Joe Biden, this year no member of the US cabinet is included.

image: from Billie Jean King’s Twitter account.

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