I can confidently say Marriage Equality is completely doomed in Australia thanks to the sheer brilliance of the position put forward by the Australian Christian Lobby. Before I reveal this master stroke, a little bit of background:
Former Prime Minister and still very important person in his own deluded mind, Tony Abbott, is staunchly opposed to marriage equality. While PM, his strategy for refusing to allow marriage equality was to say he wanted to take it to a public vote, known as a plebiscite to allow the public to make the decision but this wouldn’t happen until the next federal election – so no action until 2017. He may have been doing this under the mistaken impression that a “no” vote would win (every opinion poll has shown strong support for marriage equality) but it was more likely simply a stalling tactic and he would have come up with another reason to not have a vote closer to 2017.
Whatever his let’s call it “thinking” was, it became much less relevant when he was hilariously dumped by his own party and replaced by the more socially progressive Malcolm Turnbull, a known supporter of marriage equality. Turnbull, however, is hobbled by the fact that a vocal ultra conservative minority of his own party seriously hates him and the even more conservative coalition partner, the National Party, hate him and his progressive ways even more. So in order not to drive them over the edge he stuck with Abbott’s proposal of a 2017 plebiscite and said the outcome of that would dictate whether or not the law changed.
Time passes and some facts started to penetrate even the thickest skulls of the marriage equality opponents in the government. The big one is that it is almost certain that the outcome of a plebiscite would be a win for the “yes” vote. This led to some of the more grotesque conservative voices in the government saying even if the plebiscite result was “yes” they would still vote against marriage equality. Which I’m sure makes sense in their diseased little minds:
“There can’t be a free vote in parliament because my side would lose so it has to go to the public but if my side loses there I’m still going to be a total jerk about it.”
To summarise, they said you couldn’t have a free vote in parliament (which would have almost resulted in a “yes” result), it had to go to a plebiscite. Then they said if they didn’t like the way a plebiscite went they’d vote against what the majority of the voting public wanted. This makes a plebiscite expensive, pointless and flat out stupid but opponents of marriage equality say it’s still necessary because… reasons. In short, they are utter pricks.
I’ve seen quite a few concerned LGBT commentators say a plebiscite on marriage equality would actually be quite dangerous for them because it would be used by opponents as a platform to spew hate and instigate violence. This seems to have been justified as the ACL are asking for anti-discrimination laws to be suspended so they can say what they want. Not that they’re planning to be obnoxiously bigoted or hateful mind you, they just don’t want to be prosecuted if they accidentally incite hatred and violence.
But the ACL are not just a hate group, they are purveyors of flawless logic and that’s how they will defeat any move towards marriage equality. In a recent interview, the leader of the ACL, Lyle Shelton, gave an utterly irrefutable argument as to why marriage equality is wrong.
In response to how he would be affected by someone else’s marriage he pointed out the “obvious”: if he told someone he was married and the gays were allowed to be married people might not automatically assume he was married to a woman. Because some men would be married to men some people might think he could be married to a man. And there are definitely people out there who give a shit who this clown is married to. But surely in the face of this unassailable logic the gays and the majority of the population who support their rights to marriage equality will simply give up.
Now you might argue that following this logic means because he’s male and some males are gay people might wonder if he’s gay but that’s just nitpicking. And if you searched for cases of leading anti-gay campaigners turning out to actually be gay you would only find dozens of examples. Or maybe hundreds. I can’t imagine what you would be getting at.
The chances of this guy being a closet case are barely above 50%.
Angry 365 Days a Year 