I hate to say it, but the Age made some solid points about the gay marriage plebiscite in their August 29th editorial. The reasons it’s a positively retarded idea are far too many to count, though they do a pretty good job. It’s just dragging out the inevitable, it’s a massive expense we just can’t afford – all arguments a conservative pessimist (like me) could get behind. But then they go and drag up that miserably hypocritical line about ‘knowingly exposing [LGBT people] to extended public vilification, in which prejudiced and unfair positions will be given undue credence.’ Yes, it’s true that ‘16 per cent of LGBTIQ young Australians had attempted suicide and a third had harmed themselves, primarily as a result of homophobic abuse.’ It’s true that ‘more than four in 10 had thought about self-harm or suicide – making them six times more likely to consider taking their own life than their heterosexual peers.’ But ask yourselves, the Age: who the heck do you think will be giving homophobes that ‘undue credence’ which drives queer youths to such terrible acts?

Regardless of what the mainstream media would have you think, the vast majority of Australians are not homophobes. They don’t use derogatory language about homosexuals. They’re not out to deny gays their ‘human rights’. They’re as appalled by every gay teen suicide as those who earn their keep by being appalled about everything… such as the editors at the Age. Actual instances of hate speech – truly vile, bigoted, language meant to cause psychological harm in LGBT people – are rare now, and will be rare if and when the plebiscite takes place.

But I promise you this: if the plebiscite goes forward, the same mainstream media now fear-mongering about hate speech will ensure it fills the airwaves for the duration of the campaign. No matter how rare or irrelevant the homophobic yobbo, they’ll make damn sure he gets his fifteen hours of fame. The same sanctimonious twits who now warn you about a proliferation of homophobic language will be giving months of free airtime to every two-bit hate preacher in the country.

LGBT Australians, you need to realise that the media isn’t your friend. They don’t care about you. They don’t care about your rights and they don’t care about your mental health. They care about their progressive agenda, and that’s it. You’re rightly concerned that you and your community will be bombarded by vile and appalling slurs. But the people who subject you to that abuse won’t be ordinary Australians. It will be the left-wing media. They’re the ones who will broadcast it into your television, your radio, and your newspaper. 9,999 out of 10,000 Australians would never wish you any harm. But the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, the ABC, and all their noisome ilk will search high and low for that 1 in 10,000, and make sure you know exactly what he thinks of you. Why? Because they want you to believe you live in a homophobic country. They want to scare decent Australians into thinking that a vote for traditional marriage is a victory for this non-existent horde of bigots and haters.

If I were a betting man, I’d make you a wager that I’d hope against all hope to lose. I’d wager that, thanks to the media’s red-carpet treatment of the tiny homophobic minority, there will be a spike in gay teen suicides during the campaign. And I’d wager that the media glorifies them as ‘martyrs for the cause of marriage equality’, promising that ‘they didn’t die in vain’. I’d wager they’ll use every instance of self-harm as a tool to push the Same Sex Marriage agenda. That’s how much they care about you: they’ll make sure every tragic and untimely death is put to good use in their campaign of wonton scare-mongering. A million deaths is a statistic, as Uncle Joe said, but one death is a damn good headline.

I’m on record in these pages as saying I support same-sex marriage, mostly because I hate this whole damned stupid issue and want it to be over. I don’t care about torpedoing the media’s pro-Same Sex Marriage agenda. What I do care about is the thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Aussies who are daily subjected to an uninterrupted stream of hate-speech from the left-wing media – ‘news’ outlets who spend half their budget trying to convince LGBT people that every other person they meet in the pub thinks of them as second-class citizens. It’s a lie, and it’s a lie that has serious consequences for those already at risk of depression and self-harm.

Again, I hope I’m wrong about all of this. I hope the media shows a little restraint for once, and resists the temptation to smear Australia as a nation of little Hitlers who want to brand queer people with a pink triangle and ship them off to ‘pray the gay away’ camps. I hope they show more respect for their countrymen, and more consideration for the LGBT community. But forgive me if I’m not too optimistic.

I fully expect it will be the left-wing media who spend the upcoming months serving as a public rostrum for every despicable loon who thinks homosexuality causes natural disasters and that gay couples adopt children so they can molest them. And I’m heartbreakingly sure that young people struggling with their sexual identity will suffer immeasurable harm for it. If their blood is spilt, it will be on the media’s hands, not this great country’s.

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