The apparently simple act of placing a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’ in a little black box and posting a form back to a government agency, is actually fraught with danger. Especially for those of a certain age and disposition who wish to survive the so-called Marriage Equality vote without provoking a complete mental breakdown or a visit from the local Antifa.

The debate thus far has been illuminating. Anyone whose intention it is to vote in the negative is obviously a homophobic disgrace who should be cast adrift from society forever. And preferably lose their job, and their livelihood and any hope of being able to virtue signal their worthiness ever again.

Voting ‘No’ is ‘hate speech’, according to Madlin Sims, a small business owner from Canberra, who earlier this week sacked an 18-year-old employee for announcing on Facebook that her vote supported traditional marriage. Quelle horreur! What had she been thinking – announcing such an inflammatory position on the world’s largest social network? Silly girl! Not the way she voted, which is her right (and eminently sensible) but her choice of delivery, that sinister bastion of political correctness, Facebook. No one in their right mind should post anything more divisive than a weather report on that site. Oops, no, that’s been politicised too. Don’t want to be accused of being a climate denier, either.

If you have your ballot paper to hand and are nervously weighing up the pro’s and con’s of the debate, you are quite probably one of the lucky ones. Dozens of ballots have been stolen this week and scores more have been dumped in bizarre places. One Melbourne mother, Kerry Ford, who was aware that many of her neighbours had not yet received mail from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, discovered 17 forms strewn in the dirt by her daughter’s cubby house, being eaten by snails.

It’s not that surprising that gangs of snails in Victoria are pilfering ballot papers – many of them are hermaphrodites, possessing both male and female sexual organs, and would quite justifiably feel entitled to be part of the LGBTIQetc community. Although how they would vote is anyone’s guess.

One can only hope that the snails aren’t too tardy returning the ballots.

As your pen is poised to put your marks in the fateful box, consider this: It is not just religious freedom that will be jeopardised by changing the definition of marriage. Nor is it just the looming threat of Safe Schools, the faux anti-bullying programme, where parents rights to responsibility for their kids’ sexual education is being hijacked. It’s more the incremental erosion of that hard-won concept, ‘free speech’.

The ’emergency’ (what emergency exactly? That common sense might prevail?) legislation passed in the last sitting week of parliament, is designed to last for the duration of the SSM debate. It allows debaters to be accused of vilification if feelings are hurt, and be slapped with a $12,000 fine. It’s nothing less than a gag order from the Attorney General, George Brandis. That alone should have those ‘Nos’ writing themselves.

The whole SSM nightmare seems to be hitched to a whole host of other Marxist ideological agendas. The weird LGBTIQ desire to outlaw pronouns, for example. In Canada now, you can be prosecuted for using them incorrectly. That the ‘correct’ word, ‘ze’ or ‘zir’ (strange substitutes for the gender-specific varieties) is a hasty invention and meaningless to millions, has not stopped it being written into Human Rights legislation and onto the statute books. And beware, hefty penalties apply. Your reputation and future career prospects could well depend on your cooperation. Sounds Orwellian, doesn’t it? Watch this space. Coming to a High Court near you soon.

It’s possible to imagine a time when pronouns will be dealt like drugs in dark alleyways. You’ll skulk off to meet your dealer. ’50 grams of “Hes” and “Shes” please’, you’ll call out softly into the gloom, ‘and a baggie of “His” and “Hers” too. Hurry up Mate, I’ve got shocking withdrawal symptoms, haven’t spoken a real pronoun for months!’.

Once it would have seemed impossible that pronouns could be treated like controlled substances — but no longer. In the rational world, it is surely a miscarriage of justice and plain common sense.

In that case, there really is only one possible conclusion. Instruct that pen to write ‘No’.

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