Feelings Trump Free Speech

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Over here in the sunny Australian climes, we have been having a little battle regarding gay marriage. Ostensibly the battle is whether the definition of marriage should be altered from that of being exclusively between a man and a woman. But it’s really a battle as to whether people should even be allowed to discuss the implications of such a proposal. It’s a battle of whether feelings are more important than freedom of speech, and feelings are winning by a long margin.

The very act of debating gay marriage in a calm, reasoned, and respectful manner is now verboten as far as the gay mafia are concerned. A seven-minute video hosted by the Bible Society which depicted such a debate between gay conservative MP Tim Wilson and Christian conservative MP Andrew Hastie has set off a firestorm of abuse from gay marriage advocates in the last couple of days. I would like to show you the video, but it has comprehensively disappeared from the internet. The Bible Society itself has removed their own video.

I watched the video a couple of times before it was taken down. There was nothing outlandish about it at all. If anything, it was a little boring. Each of the MPs set forth his case and then the moderator asked each in turn to summarize their opponent’s argument. And all over a few bottles of Coopers beer.

Now, in response to enormous social media pressure (read about a hundred committed members of the rainbow offenderati brigade), Coopers has capitulated, cancelling its long-planned run of commemorative 200-year Bible Society anniversary cans and promptly signing up to the Marriage Equality Australia union mafia. They then released this cringe-worthy announcement:

I particularly like the part where Melanie Cooper attests to respecting everyone’s individual opinions and beliefs and then with her next breath proceeds to throw the Bible Society under the bus. The magnitude of the confected outrage demonstrates that marriage equality advocates possess no desire to win members of the public over to their position. Their sole purpose is to shut down all debate on the matter while publicly bullying and humiliating those that stray from their PRAVDA inspired line. The vitriol they employ is exactly the type of behaviour that they themselves warned would occur if a public vote on the issue was allowed. So it turns out that their warnings were accurate – they were warning us about themselves.

From an article in The Australian on the matter comes this little gem:

Melbourne activist Michael Barnett, who said he was a campaigner for human rights and equality, sent a trail of expletive-ridden tweets directed at the company: “Your statement is bullshit. My life is not up for a light-hearted debate. F..k you. F..K YOU.”

Apparently the debate between the two MPs was so terrible precisely because they were relaxed about it. The fact that they did not appear to take themselves too seriously is the only outrage tack that the gay mafia have been able to protest about in a semi-coherent manner.

But poor little Michael’s life is the real issue here. It appears that feelings are now more important then freedom of speech, which is fine I suppose while you’re in charge and able to dictate public speech codes. And the gay mafia are very indeed in charge. One only has to observe the behaviour of Coopers Brewery, a private family-owned business with no shareholders, to form a conclusion of who is calling the shots here.

And now a number of CEOs from major Australian banks and businesses have demanded that the Prime Minister legislate on gay marriage so “the government can get on with its core economic agenda”. Funny, it must have slipped past me that businesses have been hamstrung because the government is honouring its election promise to not legislate on gay marriage but instead allow the people to decide in a national plebiscite (to be honest, they haven’t allowed the plebiscite yet, but they have so far refused to legislate on the matter).

“Enabling loving, committed couples to be married, regardless of their sexual orientation, will contribute to a stronger economy and a more inclusive Australia,” the final draft of the appeal circulating through corporate Australia says.

I wonder how inclusive those CEOs would be of their own employees who don’t agree with their CEO’s “corporate social responsibility”? I dare say that any employee that voices the opinion that they are in favour of traditional marriage could well find themselves out on the street. It’s all inclusive as long as you go along with the agreed party line.

The Soviets had to fight a civil war, take control of government, and then terrorize the population into capitulating to their perverse ideology of class hatred and envy. A hundred years later and our businesses are queuing to sign up to the gay mafia brigade while they picket government to continue the process of radical cultural Marxism cunningly disguised as “inclusiveness” and “human rights” and “corporate social responsibility”. Lenin wouldn’t have been proud – he would have been lining up with cap in hand to get on the winning team.

Up until this week Coopers was known as a smart family-owned business spanning five generations that produced excellent beer. A true Australian success story. Now it is best known for not daring to toe the line on gay marriage and then buckling under. Are we really to believe that a family company with such a long association with the Bible Society now suddenly truly believes in gay marriage? I would lay a decent bet that they don’t – but they can’t say so. They have been forced to bend their heads to their betters – they know who wields the power in corporate Australia. More than that, they have been forced to disassociate themselves from their beliefs or risk ruination.

A sequence of events that should give many of us pause.

This article was originally published at https://pushingrubberdownhill.com/2017/03/15/feelings-trump-free-speech/ where Adam Piggott writes regularly and brilliantly.