Tim Blair: Yes, you’re idiots and you’re ruining the same-sex marriage debate
WITH the Yes campaigners for same-sex marriage carrying on outrageously, it’s no surprise their antics will more than likely lead to a rise in the No vote, says Tim Blair.
Opinion
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- Sydney goes rainbow for same-sex marriage debateWhy people are putting out fairy lights for same-sex marriage
IN any debate, it usually makes sense to back the side that sounds the least insane. For example, this is how it works in the debate over climate change:
Person A: “Australia must immediately ban coal exports and decommission all coal-fired power plants because otherwise coastlines will be erased by human-caused hurricanes and floods, millions of climate refugees will swarm the globe, polar bears will fall from the sky and your suburban house will be consumed by lava.”
Person B: “None of those things will happen.”
And thus Person B wins. In the debate over same-sex marriage, however, things are slightly less clear. It is true that opponents to same-sex marriage include certain types who exaggerate the likely after effects of a successful Yes campaign: eventual weddings between humans and cabbages, enforced homosexuality, complete societal collapse and so on.
But just as same-sex relationships have little bearing on heterosexual relationships, it’s difficult to see how same-sex marriage might impact on traditional marriage. So I’ll be a Yes voter, in line with my previous acceptance of same-sex marriage.
That acceptance goes back several years, by the way — well before conversion to the cause by the likes of latecomers Penny Wong and Kevin Rudd. More than a decade ago, I wrote that while not being opposed to gay marriage, I was resolutely against gay divorce. This line subsequently won endorsement from Australia’s Gay News Network: “Blair was highlighting one of the strongest arguments in favour of same-sex marriage — the conservative argument. Any genuine social conservative cannot argue that the obligations and responsibilities, as well as the benefits, of traditional marriage would not compel two same-sex partners to the stable, long-lasting relationship ideal.”
It’s a Yes vote for me, then. Sadly, however, the Yes campaign is not making this easy. Compared with the centrist voices opposed to same-sex marriage, many Yes campaigners seem completely out of their minds.
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Consider, please, the reasonable and cogent view put forward last week in The Daily Telegraph by the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher: “Many Christians know and love someone who is same-sex attracted and we want only the best for them. We also love real marriages and want to keep supporting that special relationship. We are being pressured to choose one or the other. But I’m determined to keep respecting both, to keep calling on Catholic Sydney to do the same, and to work to keep the debate civil.”
The Archbishop is a reasonable fellow with whom it is possible to have a reasonable difference of opinion. The same might not be said of same-sex marriage advocate Jessica Payne, who turned up last week at a Brisbane church during a protest against No voters. Payne told Nine News she was injured during the protest “because people drove their cars nearly at full speed into the Yes campaigners here”.
Most modern cars have top speeds well beyond 180km/h. Achieving that velocity on a suburban Brisbane street must have required incredible skill and daring. Remarkably, despite this high-speed, two-car assault, only Payne was injured — and so slightly that within minutes she was easily able to give a television interview.
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A Queensland Ambulance spokeswoman later reported the service received emergency calls from the protest for an “alleged assault” of a woman, but she declined treatment or transport.
Unfortunately for Payne, Nine’s footage of a vehicle driven “nearly at full speed” into the crowd instead showed a single 4WD stationary and blocked by demonstrators before nudging forward at below walking pace as police tried to clear a path.
The thing was barely moving. According to Nine’s footage, the vehicle’s wheels possibly completed only two or three halting revolutions during its terrifying top-speed attack.
Despite her own network’s evidence, Nine’s Aislin Kriukelis nevertheless claimed the non-incident showed something frightening. “Certainly some ugly scenes overnight,” Kriukelis told the Today Show, “the kind that people feared we’d see with this national debate underway now.”
We all remember Bill Shorten’s grave warning about cars briefly being delayed by 20 or so Socialist Alternative children. This is the bloody cost we’ve imposed on ourselves for fostering this atmosphere of violence and hatred. If we’d known 4WDs might pause momentarily while seeking a parking place, surely Australians would have agreed to a parliament-only same-sex marriage vote.
“It was extremely scary, extremely irresponsible,” protester Payne continued, and she was right, if her comments were aimed at Nine’s absurd coverage and Payne’s own ridiculous assertions. The whole saga was reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s recent claim that Donald Trump stalked her on stage during one of last year’s US presidential debates.
“No matter where I walked, he followed me closely, staring at me, making faces,” Clinton alleged in a book extract. “It was incredibly uncomfortable. He was literally breathing down my neck. It made my skin crawl.”
Again, this was contradicted by news footage. Trump was never “literally” breathing down Clinton’s neck. This is the sort of fact-free nonsense that’ll help Trump win re-election in 2020.
And the same thing might happen here in the same-sex marriage debate. Yes campaigners are giving undecided Australians every possible reason to vote No. They may not wish to be associated with those who are compelled to twist the truth in order to demonise their opponents.
I’ll be voting Yes while voting No to the Yes campaigners. Others will vote No outright for the same reason. The Yes campaign is doing a great job of trying to lose this.
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