Tim Blair: Opponents of Margaret Court are trying to erase her
Previously one of Australia’s most adored sports heroines, Margaret Court now faces opponents who don’t wish merely to defeat her but to make her invisible, writes Tim Blair.
Opinion
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Along with the nearly five million Australians who voted no in 2017’s postal survey, tennis great Margaret Court is not a fan of same sex marriage.
“On the issue of marriage I think the reality is there is a cultural, religious, historical view around that which we have to respect,” Court said a few years ago.
“This is an institution that is between a man and a woman.”
Invited to later reconsider that opinion, Court stuck to her guns. “Marriage,” she again declared, “is between a man and a woman.”
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For these and related comments, the 64-time grand slam tournament winner was last week banished to a wasteland of misery and plague by no less an authority than Lawrence Mooney.
Besides hosting Triple M Sydney’s breakfast program, you see, comedian Mooney also maintains a keen interest in demanding elderly retired tennis players conform to his particular marital views.
“If you’re homophobic there’s no space for you in public life,” Mooney told Nine’s Today Show.
“Margaret Court’s opinions on same sex marriage and sexuality are abhorrent and she should be hounded out of the sport until she falls into line.
“It’s absolutely abhorrent.”
Elsewhere, comedians fight for freedom of speech — largely because their careers depend upon it.
In Australia, by unimpressive comparison, comedians call for perceived wrongthinkers to be “hounded” from the public square until they “fall into line”.
Considering the doctrinaire leftist swamp that presently passes for local comedy culture, this decision may also involve an element of self-interest. Offend the woke crowd here and you’re out.
You may recall that, in the manner of Stalin’s executed enemies being erased from photographs, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival this year stripped Barry Humphries’ name from one of the festival’s awards.
He’d been found guilty in absentia of violating some kind of transgender commentary law. Anyway, let’s go back to those Court quotes.
They aren’t from the former world number one at all.
The first is from Labor senator Penny Wong in 2010.
The second is from then Labor prime minister Julia Gillard in 2011.
Unlike private citizen Court, this pair had considerably more power in the gay marriage debate, what with being in government and all.
Yet neither endured anything like the condemnation reserved for one of our finest athletes.
The general view on the left seemed to be a faintly disapproving but resigned acceptance of the requirement for both Gillard and Wong to support Labor’s policy, which at the time opposed same sex marriage.
These people place belief in a rubbish political party’s temporary policy stance above a person’s sincere and lifelong belief in God. Interesting.
Speaking of faith, the woke left sure do have a religious zeal about them. It kicks in at the very moment of conversion. In 2013, when Labor “fell into line” on gay marriage, then-PM Kevin Rudd provided a perfect example of instant piety.
Appearing on the ABC’s Q&A, Rudd righteously slapped down a Christian pastor in the audience who was against gay marriage. The crowd lapped up this bullying, presumably unaware or otherwise not bothered that Rudd’s support for gay marriage was then just 107 days old.
He’d voted against gay marriage in September of the previous year. Rudd had been on the same team as that pastor for 98 per cent of his federal parliamentary career.
When wokeness calls, these types turn on a dime.
For that matter, the Scold War featuring the likes of Mooney and Rudd is escalating and mutating at such a clip that those of us capable of maintaining an opinion find it difficult to keep up.
I recently wrote a little column mentioning that just about any mild, inoffensive remark may now immediately be used for the generation of outrage.
As an example, I imagined this conversation between a parent and a woke child:
Parent: “Let’s all enjoy some delicious ice cream.”
Kid: “Thanks for the type 2 diabetes, fascist.”
Ridiculous, right?
But just last week that absurd scenario came to life. Following a single complaint to the New Zealand Advertising Standards Authority, a Whangarei shop owner was ordered to remove a storefront advertisement for Streets ice cream.
According to the lone complainant, the ad promoted an unhealthy relationship with food.
And the Advertising Standards Authority agreed.
So, what was presented by this terrifying billboard?
What frightening words were ordered removed lest Whangarei citizens fall victim to its insidious message?
Here is the ad in full: “Ice cream makes u happy.”
Just like Margaret Court, ice cream-related happiness evidently has no space in public life. Anyone promoting ice cream must be hounded until they fall into line.
That’s some future you’re building for us, wokelings. The food is going to taste terrible and we won’t be allowed to complain about it.