Things happen, who knows some of the YES votes could go missing in transit. If it can happen in the US it could happen here. Would solve the problem.
Maybe its better to watch.
What did you do in the Macklemore War, Dad?
The Australian1:39PM September 29, 2017
JACK THE INSIDER
ColumnistCanberra
@JacktheInsider
In years to come our children might ask, āWhat did you do in the Macklemore War, Dad?ā My response will be, āLike a lot of people, I fought and died just a little bit inside.ā
The noise around the same sex marriage voluntary postal survey has turned this country into a dismal, joyless place, where proponents and opponents quibble over meaningless symbolism like seagulls over a chip.
I confess I didnāt have the slightest idea who Macklemore was until earlier this week. I would be perfectly happy to bathe in that ignorance today. I might even have watched him perform in the NRL Grand Final pre-match, wondered out loud who he was before going to the fridge and grabbing another beer before the kick off.
By the time the match ended and the premiership trophy was held aloft by the victorious captain, Macklemoreās performance would have been a distant memory, rather like my knowledge of the 2004 coup dāetat in Equatorial Guinea in that it was a long time ago and didnāt really make a whole lof of difference to my life.
Not only now do I vaguely know he is ā his real name is Benjamin Haggarty, heās 34 and hails from Seattle ā but now I have a working knowledge of his discography. Iāve watched him perform the song, Same Love and Iāve perused the lyrics. Now, it aināt Byron or even Lennon and McCartney but it contains a fairly simple albeit garbled message of tolerance.
Iām getting to that age where processing new information like this tends to push other, more important things out of my brain. It wonāt be long before I forget how to use a can opener.
Sport and politics donāt mix? Give me a break. Sport is politics. In fact the only time sport and politics are not deeply entwined is the brief period when the players kick a ball around the park but even then there are politicians in the crowd. Well, not in the crowd. In the good seats enjoying the corporate hospitality.
We should all understand that over the festival of the boot this weekend we poor, put upon taxpayers, reduced to watching the game on television are actually funding politicians to attend these events. Fly āem, fly āem out. A few cold ones over the gourmet party pies. Partners, children, hangers on, third cousins twice removed. The best seats in the house. All expenses paid. Iād put the bill somewhere around half a million in total possibly more.
Donāt tell me these clowns donāt use sport for their own political advantage. They literally do it all the time and especially at this time of year. On the eve of the finals, theyāre out there with a media throng, fumbling footies and guffawing at their sporting ineptitude in a desperate and obvious attempt to prove themselves men and women of the people.
If these tepid appearance werenāt just ghastly political media stunts but offered something worth seeing, a club official would hand the visiting nuisance the footy and say, āOK, Prime Minister. Youāve got the ball and see that man there? Thatās Jason Taumalolo and heās going to try and stop you. Everyone ready with the cameras? All right, letās go.ā
Fetch me my cheque book. Iād pay good money to see that.
I am of a group that believes any grand final pre-match entertainment should begin and end with Barnesy on the back of a truck, belting out Khe-Sanh. Of course now we canāt have that without enduring the shrieks of protest from those who were all for the Vietnam War.
That we have seven more weeks of this fills me with despair. It is damaging this country every day. It tears at national unity, legitimises abuse and gives a voice to ugliness that had fallen silent in this country long ago.
My daughter has a friend who is 17 and gay. He hasnāt told his parents yet. But his mother and father informed him they were voting ānoā in the same sex marriage postal survey. It is too early to say what enduring harm this does to this young manās development and his relationship with his parents but it is bound not to be good.
When the postal survey caravan moves on and one way or another it will move on later this year, this young man and many others like him will be left with a personal existential crisis that will last for years and perhaps never be resolved.
These young gay men and women will have seen for themselves that a large group of Australians would prefer they didnāt exist. This young man in particular knows that his parents, for whatever reason, do not believe the same legal rights should be extended to him as are extended to all other adults, purely on the basis of his sexuality.
I donāt blame the parents. I donāt blame Bob Katter. I donāt blame Lyle Shelton, Tony Abbott, John Howard or Cory Bernardi. They are entitled to their views and in the context of this rolling national vox pop, they are entitled to express them. I understand the more extreme elements of the pro-SSM moment have relentlessly pursued their objectives in ugly and sometimes violent ways but I donāt blame them either.
I blame Malcolm Turnbull.
We donāt have postal surveys on immigration levels. We donāt have postal surveys on the Budget, what taxes are in or out or what services should be funded or cut. We donāt have postal surveys on energy policy, on data retention or on foreign policy. In fact we havenāt had postal surveys at all and the only reason we are having one now is because the Prime Minister was unable to navigate his way through dissent within his own party.
When the Coalitionās plebiscite was rejected by the Senate twice, it would have meant the Coalition had no credible or workable policy on same sex marriage going into the next election without stirring up a party room revolt and the prospect of an enduring schism in creating one. That is the only reason we are having a voluntary postal survey.
This harmful, ugly exercise is only designed to keep the Coalition from tearing itself apart and bugger the consequences for anybody else.
Win, lose or draw, the postal survey has lifted the lid on prejudice in this country and torn away at social cohesion in ways that may never be repaired. It has and will continue to alienate people, especially young, vulnerable Australians.
That is all on you, Malcolm.
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They have a different system for over seas Aussies
We registered, received 16 digit code in the mail and then I logged onto website and lodged my secure vote.
Not sure why that could be the procedure for all? No risk of ālostā votes .
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Do you not remember the census?
Need to do this here too. Freedom from religion should come before freedom of religion.
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Itās not compulsory here anyway.
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Next step is to completely remove it. Or just include it in the āAncient Mythologiesā course.
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I think itās opt-in now, which is an advance on opt-out.
The Hun has come out in favour of SSM and the Saturday Paper has referred to the economic boost from marriage celebrations when SSM was legalised.
My oldest goes to a government school and itās opt in.
We did not take up the option.
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Or it could be taught as a legitimate belief system that attempts to give context to a lot of the philosophical and existential questions with which we are faced.
So could Dungeons & Dragons.
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No probs with love thy neighbour irrespective of gender and do unto others as you would have rhem do unto you.
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If thatās your go.
So could all the other mythologies, pastafarianism, Satanism, and the belief that you can read the future by looking at peopleās a$s cracks. Better to just leave that nonsense for wacky adult āspecial intetestā groups.
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Fair enough.
I make fun of things I donāt know much about sometimes.
But until youāve ever seen your whole life mapped out in the crack of someoneās ā ā ā ā youāll never really know true enlightenment.
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Iām an expert in ā ā ā crack fortune telling. Itās nothing to be made fun of. It holds all of the answers to the deepest philosophical and existential questions science will never come close to answering. Its teachings donāt belong in schools though. And neither do the false teachings of other religious nonsense.
The other day, a teacher at my childās school, tried to tell the kids this ridiculous story about a super invisible magic man who made everything in the universe with just a few spells. When you let religion into schools, these are the kinds of horrors that inevitably result.
You donāt buy into religion. Thatās absolutely fine. A whole lot of people are right there with you. But there have also been plenty of people - and some considered pretty clever - who have found something in it, and something quite significant.
We all worship something. For some it will be kids, partner, career and for some itās a magic man. You can rightly criticise what people may do with that thing but it doesnāt mean those things themselves donāt have value and something meaningful to add to peopleās lives.
It should definitely not be compulsory. But to just decide it has no place in our learning completely ignores the contribution it has already made to our society.
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Then we really should be teaching Islam and Ancient Greek mythology in our schools too, wouldnāt you say?
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