One of the truly remarkable developments around the ‘gay marriage’ campaign which has come to eclipse so much in Australian public life in recent years is the bullying and violence that has come to characterise and define it – as opposed to the notional support it receives from some ordinary Australians to whom gay ‘marriage’ seems like just a generally decent idea. The movement appears now to be largely defined by its intimidation of anyone who doesn’t agree with it – and that’s no exaggeration.
The self-righteous ways it uses any means it likes to achieve its ends and the rapidity of the ascent of its intimidatory methodology are truly remarkable. Consider just some of the recent examples: death threats, threats to destroy businesses or individuals who don’t agree with the same-sex marriage lobby, persecution of employees who don’t want to go along with the imposition of gender ideology practices or staff exercises as part of their employment, the hounding of any individuals with personal ties to Christian organisations off corporate boards of management, and the not-unrelated imposition of gender ideology (itself a form of ideology-driven sexual and psychological abuse of children) through schools.
If the pattern seems familiar it’s because it’s been used before. We don’t need to remind readers in which countries and at which points in history such methods have been applied: such societies have become watchwords for intolerance, authoritarianism and the you-will-join-us-or-face-the-consequences movements that became known as totalitarian. The hounding of political opponents (real or imagined, it apparently doesn’t matter anymore) from public life, from business, from employment is one of the clearest hallmarks of the new McCarthyism.
One of the major advantages the ‘gay marriage’ lobby has going for it is the collapse in professional standards in the media. In terms of sheer standards and the craft of journalism alone, the news rooms of newspapers and programmes with once-proud reputations for conducting searching examinations which went beyond the mere public announcements and spin of politicians, business leaders and lobbies are now nothing more than constantly shrinking undergraduate tutorials in whatever is the latest Arts or Humanities ‘paradigm’ they were taught.
Capturing the media and holding its spirit in fast suburban ideological chains of mediocrity is one of the greatest accomplishments of the same-sex ‘marriage’ movement. It has, basically, suborned journalism – thereby preventing any possibility of critical or independent assessment of the consequences of redefining marriage. One consequence? Civil debate now seems almost impossible.
The ‘gay marriage’ lobby has rapidly has become something much more potentially dangerous to civil society. It has, after all, succeeded in redefining disagreement as hate, thereby making disagreement the Thoughtcrime justification for silencing opponents (and it follows quite logically that if we can have Thoughtcrimes, sooner or later we are going to need Thought Police). Orwell would be amazed.
And just as Senator Joe McCarthy and his allies hounded imagined communists from public life, academia, government and the arts in Cold War America of the 50s, so the ‘gay marriage’ movement, emboldened by the palpable fear now of many average Australians to say what they believe for fear of having themselves, their businesses and/or their families persecuted, is morphing into a movement to root out all opponents from the public square.
The ‘gay marriage’ movement is not about democracy. It is the new McCarthyism. And just like its ideological grandparent, it’s fashionable, ugly, harmful and dangerous.