Think of the children

Opponents of marriage equality are ramping up their attacks on same-sex marriage and the Safe Schools Program in a flyer delivered to Melbourne homes last week. The shadowy Marriage Alliance group, which reveals little about who runs it and whom it represents, delivered a glossy pamphlet entitled “An important message for your family” to homes in the leafy suburbs of Melbourne’s south-east, in the electorate of Goldstein, held by gay Liberal MP Tim Wilson. Wilson publicly supports marriage equality and has previously opposed a national plebiscite on allowing same-sex marriage.

The pamphlet only mentions marriage once, but it spends many pages talking about the Safe Schools program, which has been the latest focus for anti-LGBTI groups, claiming that “Safe Schools promotes the idea of gender fluidity to children as young as four years old”.

It includes headlines from the Herald Sun and The Australian and references picture book The Gender Fairy, as well as the Safe Schools All of Us resource.

It only becomes clear at the last page that all of this is related to marriage equality, not to education policy.

Is this what we can expect from the same-sex marriage plebiscite debate?