This has been a pretty damn depressing election campaign for all of us, I think. It’s been filled with bigotry and gossip about ALP internal politics, and there’s been very little analysis of policy or what either major party is really offering to voters. But today, at least, I saw something that made me happy.

Unfortunately, the story starts with yet another stunning display of bigotry: an SMH article reports on the homophobic tweets of QLD senate candidate Wendy Francis. Definite trigger warning there — this woman is against marriage equality because she believes that allowing children to be parented by same-sex couples is a form of abuse.

What then, you may ask, is this bright spot I speak of? Why, it’s the comments in response to this article. Now, usually I avoid comment threads on MSM sites — usually they swing conservative, and privilege the bigots. But — not on this issue. Yes, there are a few people in there ranting on about their homophobic interpretations of the Bible, and we have our old favourites, such as “BUT TWO PEOPLE OF THE SAME SEX CAN’T HAVE CHILDREN NATURALLY”. Overall though, these arguments are being called out for what they are — homophobic drivel that has no basis in fact or rational thought.

It is a shame that the politicians in both major parties haven’t caught onto this yet — but the electorate is largely pro-marriage equality. I know that an SMH comment thread is hardly reliable data, (so here is a poll that shows the same), but it’s certainly heartening to see that so many Australians are willing to speak out against this sort of homophobia — particularly when these sorts of comment threads so often swing in the direction of bigotry.

Categories: culture wars, media

Tags: bigotry, GLBQ, marriage equality, SMH, social change