Australian anti-gay-marriage video offers only tired lies

Australia is embarking on a plebiscite (a government poll to gauge public opinion) to determine whether the legislature will take up the issue of legalizing same-sex marriage. Naturally, activists on both sides are out in force, flooding the airwaves with ads pushing people to vote one way or the other … and, also naturally, the bigots can only offer dishonest bunk. Like this video:

The 30-second ad features three mothers and attempts to link the issue of whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry to anti-bullying programs such as Safe Schools, which teach acceptance of sexual diversity.

“School told my son he can wear a dress next year if he felt like it,” says one mother.

Another says: “When same-sex marriage passes as law overseas this type of program become [sic] widespread and compulsory.”

Another complains that “kids in year seven are being asked to role play being in a same-sex relationship”.

“In countries with gay marriage, parents have lost their rights to choose,” the titles of the ad read. “We have a choice, you can say no.”

Leaving aside the implications that allowing same-sex couples to marry will somehow translate to boys wearing dresses to school (the horror!) and kids doing gay roleplays (wut), here’s what I don’t understand: Why do bigots keep working under the assumption that no-one has Internet? Do they think that Australians have no way of knowing what happens around the world, particularly in counties that have legalized gay marriage? That those nations are doing just fine, free of the histrionic consequences prophesied by anti-gay “family” and “traditional values” groups?

Better yet, haven’t they noticed that in each of those countries, their own bigots tried the same stunts, with the same asinine rhetoric, and failed? Even the United States, which has most vocal religious-conservative contingent of any Western country, eventually made marriage equality the law of the land.

We live in a time where fear-mongering about gays perving on kids and sneaking Big Homo propaganda into schools is no longer an effective argument. We know this because it routinely backfires against the rusty bigots who use it. It’s anyone’s guess why they haven’t learned their lesson and switched tactics … though one explanation is that they have no other tactics, since their entire belief is grounded in bigotry and ignorance. And that’s just not in anymore.

Liars for Jesus: No matter the country, they’re always around.

(via Friendly Atheist)