Culture

Bill Leak Just Gave Us A Preview Of What The Anti-Marriage Equality Debate Is Going To Look Like

Remind us again how respectful the plebiscite debate is going to be?

by Tom Clift  21 September 2016

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You know that stuff conservatives have been saying about how the public debate around same-sex marriage in the lead-up to the plebiscite will be respectful and evenhanded, and won’t in any way descend into a vicious, toxic cyclone of hate-speech that will adversely affect the mental well-being of LGBTQI Australians and their families? Well, it turns out that’s a big old crock of shit. And who better to prove it than Cartoonist of the Year Bill Leak, who penned this little beauty in today’s issue of The Australian.

Just in case you can’t appreciate ~brilliant satire~ when you see it, what’s happening here is that Bill Leak is comparing advocates of marriage equality to members of the Nazi party. Pretty #edgy stuff, especially when you consider the fact that the Nazis rounded up and murdered thousands of gay people during WWII.

Of course that’s just the kind of measured, high-quality commentary we’ve come to expect from The Australian, who will presumably be publishing an editorial any day now in which they congratulate Leak for forcing us to “examine the core issues in a way that sometimes reporting and analysis can fail to do.”

One imagines that Bill Leak will read every one of these tweets and then draw another cartoon about how everyone on the internet is persecuting him.

For the record, LGBTQI groups and their allies have long argued that a plebiscite on marriage equality will result in a sustained (and tax-payer funded) campaign of homophobic rhetoric by the ‘no’ camp. Malcolm Turnbull wants to hold the public vote on February 11. That’s four and a half months away. That’s four a half months worth of respectful contributions from people like Bill Leak.

As for anyone reading who would downplay the impact that this kind of inflammatory commentary can have, consider this: in Melbourne overnight, LGBTQI radio station JOY 94.9 had to be evacuated because of a bomb threat.

A bomb threat. Because people want to get married.

Representatives from the station released a statement today saying they would not be silenced by the threat, while asserting that it ” highlights the damage that can be done through a divisive public debate about our community’s aspiration to be equal members of society.”

But sure, go ahead and tell us how respectful this debate is going to be.