The media hall of shame is now giving out same-sex marriage plebiscite showbags:
On the Monthly blog, Sean Kelly says that non LGBT people should stop making comments on the Yes case’s piss-poor strateg-, sorry, on the Yes case’s strategy. If the Yes vote loses, it won’t be anything to do with strategy, it will be because the nation still has vast reaches of homophobia. Really? How does that square with throwing away 60%+ support? If the Yes vote loses — unlikely, but they could really Hillary this — it will be because the Yes case favoured almost wholly a get-out-the-vote strategy, and had all but zero headline media, advocacy and direct explicit argument. It will be because the leadership encouraged the politically demobilising idea that the issue doesn’t have to be debated, and the argument won. “This is not a two-horse race,” Kelly says. Well, that’s right. If you’ve got a finish line, a track and two horses named Yes and No, and one of them thinks it shouldn’t even have to race … then it’s a one-horse race.
Still in the Monthly stable, Alex McKinnon gives the most oppressive version of the “no debate” mantra in The Saturday Paper, saying some within the ABC suggest the public broadcaster shouldn’t even allow the No case to present itself, and that its arguments are inherently “invalid”. Where’s the court of adjudication that says that a traditional arrangement lasting millennia has no validity in argument? The tradition does not make the argument per se, but it gives obvious standing for an argument to be made. Is Roger Corbett’s bizarro Jim Crow argument about “white men” and “black men” really that much of a threat? I would have thought it was a gift to the Yes case. Where did this idea — that there’s some meta-political court of appeal deciding which opinions can and cannot be presented — come from? From the fact that much of the LGBT and marriage equality leadership are, in other parts of their lives, part of the power structure, and don’t want to be in a politically petitioning position. What’s the next argument that people will say shouldn’t even be allowed to be made? That Anzac Day is a crock of crap? That offshore detention is not justified by the prevention of drownings? Thanks, but don’t trash our free speech just because the No campaign has proved more spry than a complacent Yes leadership thought it might be.
Back to the Kelly gang, and Paul this time, who has in the past few weeks given the country a masterclass in fact-free bloviating, on the issue of “religious freedom” in the wake of a Yes vote. I challenge anyone to find an actual point or argument in Wednesday’s piece, the latest in the series. Kelly, P, is worried that a Yes vote will make, err … he doesn’t say. For obvious reasons. Kelly’s an old Catholic rightist who likes the idea that some religious hum in the background will undergird a conservative order. He thinks marriage equality will be a step in the secularisation of Australia. But he’s not crazy enough to think that it will mean you can marry your ute (pity — I know many straight men who would be persuaded to a Yes vote by that provision), and he doesn’t want to sound crazy. So he has nothing to say. Since the plebiscite is non-binding, how can it, of itself, do anything to change the religious status quo? If Kelly has a concrete example of anything it will necessitate, he should produce it. Tumbleweeds. It’s unquestionably Kelly’s worst, most abnegating culture war performance to date, and given his record, that’s saying something. Coming next week: Paul Kelly warns that a Yes vote will put religious freedom under pressure because oh look, geese.
Well, it’s all very interesting, even if discussion of strategy is now banned. Me, I’m watching it like the World Cup, trying to work out whether the Yes case is Brazil, that team of fat multimillionaires who lumber out onto the field, after no training, and destroy the opposition, or England, when it was down 0-1 to San Marino in a qualifier, and the BBC announcer said, “I have just realised we are losing to a mountaintop.”
Back to the horse race metaphor. On we go, into the, er, straight.
In terms of avoiding ‘direct explicit argument’, I suspect that the assessment is that there are big risks in tackling the ‘no’ campaign directly – actually arguing the myriad irrelevant nonsense points about boys-wearing-dresses and radical-gender-ideology-in-schools and religious/speech freedom being under attack – is falling into the trap of accepting and reinforcing the framing from the ‘no’ campaign.
I think strategically it does make sense to ignore all this guff, and for the yes campaign to avoid engaging the no campaign. Having said that the yes campaign could have focused on its own framing (well, they kind of have – the meta ‘let’s get it done’ is an argument, and I imagine there is a section of the wavering/apathetic middle that responds to the whole idea of just getting on with it so we don’t have to talk about it anymore…) rather than just get-out-the-vote.
Agree. Given Safe Schools and similar programs are viewed with a fair bit of suspicion by many, it doesnt make sense to be rebutting the No case arguments with a defence of gender theories etc.
I hear what you are saying, Guy, but some arguments actually “are inherently “invalid”. It all depends upon the argument, of course, and the temptation is how silly one must go in order to demonstrate the folly in the counter suggestion that all arguments must be inherently valid.
Do we need to have a debate about whether domestic violence is permissible? Or, perhaps, making religious observance across the country compulsory? Or, the complete removal of tax obligations once your annual income reaches 1 million buckaroonies? Are those arguments also inherently valid?
I would put all those in the same category as Australians being asked to offer their opinion as to whether some of their fellow citizens should be able to enjoy the same rights as they themselves enjoy. The fact that the results are non-binding just make the whole argument even more invalid, if that is even possible?
“Do we need to have a debate about whether domestic violence is permissible? Or, perhaps, making religious observance across the country compulsory? Or, the complete removal of tax obligations once your annual income reaches 1 million buckaroonies? Are those arguments also inherently valid?”
All these ideas have been regarded as valid in Western Civilisation within the last 200 years. They had to be defeated by argument, protest and in some cases revolution. It is sad that others do not immediately agree with increasing rights but the reality is that changing the status quo requires an active response.
Context is everything. In 2017, the argument that ‘domestic violence is permissible’ is in no shape or form valid. Neither is the principle of equality under law.
Rundle, there will be consequences for revealing Secret Men’s Business with that bit about wantonness of their utes.
What really puzzles me is Toned Abs’ oft-repeated statement that “If you want to stop political correctness, vote no.”
I can’t even begin to parse that. Anyone help out?
John,
The only answer I can come up with is that he really nails simple messages – Stop the boats, etc. His base are not overly complicated.
Yes, but ‘stop the boats’ is easily understood, if wrong-headed and simplistic. But where’s the link between PC (whatever that is) and voting no?
I think it’s actually a very clever line indeed. Lots of people who would be indifferent to SSM nonetheless bristle at the level of self-policing of thought now demanded in daily life in the name of tolerance and inclusion. After all, how many ways can you trip up these days simply for using the wrong word, or an outdated expression, or making a throwaway comment or tasteless joke? We’ve all done it. And, the worst thing is, not only do the domains that require policing always seem to keep growing, but the penalties for transgression seem to be getting ever more serious.
Abbott’s line is suggesting that extending SSM rights to gay people is being done in the name of the very tolerance and inclusion that you’re suffering from. That is, granting them rights is directly linked to you losing yours, i.e. the right to unguarded speech, in ever widening areas. It’s clever because Abbott’s making it about you (someone you love), not them (who you don’t care who they love). And it’s doubly clever because it rings true. The Yes campaign’s line that the only question at issue is marriage equality is patently misleading. Everyone knows that SSM is a threshold issue of massive symbolic importance to the ongoing historical project of extending civil and political rights to combat injustice. You’ve got to give it to him: Abbott’s a natural-born brawler.
‘tolerance and inclusion that you’re suffering from’ How can we suffer from tolerance and inclusion unless we are bigoted and against human rights? Yes, I’ve told a tasteless joke and made crude remarks. But as as I learn more and more about inclusion and tolerance the less I’m inclined to want to insult or deride others. What Abbott represents with this vapid line is a reversion to the values that he holds dear: the monarchy, blind obedience to authority and keeping minorities in their place.
I’m betting that most Australians have moved way beyond that, and see this moronic tag ‘politically correct’ for what it is. An excuse for the Bolts and the Abbotts of the world to attempt to crush rights and freedom. We live in the world where one of the most respected Australians, past Chief Justice Michael Kirby is gay: where shows and films like Priscilla and Black Comedy and The Sapphires and Please Like Me tell black and gay stories. Abbott and his ilk are living in the past. and if I’m wrong, then we’re in deep shit.
You can actually suffer from the demand for tolerance, John, if you have to police your own thought to an intolerable degree. Universities – in the US in particular – have become killing grounds of academic careers for the crime of insufficient political correctness. (Rod Dreher in TAC is an unrelenting hoot about this. But then, he makes Abbott look like an apostate.)
The question is, what is a tolerable degree of thought self-policing? Abbott & Co would say basically none more than proscribed by law (because, famously, you’ve got a right to be a bigot). I think both you and I would say, as much as politeness and comity demand. There are those however who demand unceasing confession and contrition (hysterically portrayed in last night’s Get Crackin’ with the ‘eat my black sh*t for reconcilation’ skit. I nearly sh*t myself laughing at that. Well done, girls. Ah . . . , doh!)
Might I suggest that in our society if you have to police your own thought to a an intolerable degree, you need to seriously look at yourself.
Well said, Will. For all his manifold faults, Abbott is no simpleton.
John you may be interested/horrified to learn that “PC exists, can be reliably measured, and has two major dimensions… PC-egaliratisnism and PC-authoritanism.” See hyar: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-personality-of-political-correctness/
Dang mobile typing! Clearly PC-egalitarianism and PC-authoritarianism.
I’ve saved this to read later. Thank you JQ (Aren’t civil informed discussions rare these days? Compare comments on Crikey with comments on the Daily Smelly)
I struggle with the idea the Yes case has to build the argument for change. The only argument of substance is that the existing laws unfairly discriminate against consenting homosexual adults who wish to get married. This is self-evident and is strong enough as it stands. I don’t think the yes campaign would be well advised to try to build secondary arguments or to create ridiculous straw man arguments like the no side has.