Greg Barila: Whipping up outrage is Bernardi’s stock-in-trade

CORY Bernardi’s stock-in-trade is outrage and the mock scandal over primary school boys wearing dresses is just grist for his mill, writes Greg Barila.

• Tory Shepherd analysis: Cory’s Alice in Wonderland ‘reality’
• Cory in a dress: See Senator, it’s not so bad

PART of what it means to be a responsible member of a civil society is to respect those whose opinions you find disgusting and abhorrent.

Lord knows, I try. But there’s one thing I can’t come at.

And that’s people who espouse controversial views, in large part because of the reaction, the anger, the offence they know their utterances will cause and will provoke.

It’s a low-rent game and politicians like Cory Bernardi and Pauline Hanson have built careers around it.

Bernardi’s stock in trade is outrage and the mock scandal over primary school boys wearing dresses is just grist for his mill.

The moment folks like Bernardi cease to be angry or offended at the way other people choose to conduct their lives is the moment their tenuous relevance evaporates.

And so it is when a group of primary school children decide to wear dresses to school to raise money for less fortunate children in Africa, folks like Bernardi cannot see it for the positive and innocent gesture it is and instead must fan the flames of a fire that wasn’t burning until they ignited it.

Do we really need to point out the obvious?

Boys wearing dresses has nothing whatever to do with marriage equality, except the fact that those who feel a bit icky about issues to do with gender and sexuality keep trying to link them.

This confected outrage is all part of a vague campaign by the ‘No’ side to sound the alarm on the debasement and debauchery that’s about to come our way if we let gay people get married.

Letting boys wear dresses is just the start of a slippery slope that leads who knows where?

To congress between people and goats?

To girls wearing business ties?

To it being against the law for Australians to not watch Eurovision?

It’s all of it. It’s Mabo. It’s the vibe.

Gender-morphing. What does that even mean?

That if I put on a dress I’ll suddenly develop a deep and instant attraction for lipstick and couture handbags?

That I’ll stop liking power tools and the AFL?

And yet I’d wager that, if pressed, not one of the people equating this harmless primary school fundraiser with The End Times could defend their position in any way that comes close making sense or that is in any way proportionate to their bleating.

But for all their hand-wringing, those who support the ideals of people like Bernardi, fail to say what it is, I think, they really mean.
That boys wearing dresses is “gay” and gay is disgusting.

The only heartening thing about this whole episode is that kind-hearted Australians have met Bernardi’s attempts to politicise a primary school fundraiser by donating to the cause in staggering numbers, more than $50,000 and counting.

Note to schools; Get your ‘Do it in a dress’’ day rolling.

And don’t forget to send the links to Cory Bernardi.