Australian Marriage Equality has responded to the advertisements from The Coalition for Marriage with their own take on how changing the marriage laws will affect young Australians.
Dr Kerryn Phelps is featured in the response advertisement saying the opponents of marriage equality are trying to mislead the public.
“Over the coming weeks we’ll be hearing a lot about whether our family and friends who are gay and lesbian can get married. ” Dr Phelps says in the clip.
“Sadly some are trying to mislead us, like this ad does by saying their will be a negative impact, including on young people.” Dr Phelps says referring to the claims from mothers who argue that gender recognition education in schools is related to the marriage debate.
“The only young people affected by marriage equality are young gay people, who for the first time will have the same dignity as everyone else in our country – and they deserve that.”
Equality Campaign Executive Director Tiernan Brady said it’s important to understand that this national conversation is about real people and that negative material can inflict real damage.
“The next few weeks must be a campaign of respectful conversations, not angry debates, because this is about real people’s lives and their dignity.
“Lesbian and gay people are our family members, friends, neighbours and workmates and we would ask all who take part in our national conversation to remember that,” Brady said.
Following the release of the advertisement from the NO campaign on Monday it was criticised for conflating unrelated issues.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten told Fairfax Media that the advertisments were “offensive and hurtful to LGBTI Australians and their families”.
“This is exactly what was predicted when Malcolm Turnbull decided to waste $122 million on a postal survey. He gave the green light to this rubbish,” Shorten said.
“This is not freedom of speech. This is freedom to hurt. I just want to tell LGBTI families that they are not on their own. Most people know this is total rubbish.”
Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs Zed Seselja rebuked Shorten’s assessment of the advertisements content telling the ABC that Shorten was trying to shut down debate in the wider ramifications of allowing same sex couples to wed.
Seselja said the Opposition leader was attacking mothers and denying them free speech.
“I think it’s pretty ordinary of Bill Shorten to be attacking mothers who are concerned about the teaching of their children and to call that hate speech. I don’t think that’s hate speech.”
Cory Bernardi says same-sex marriage is a Trojan Horse
Cory Bernardi, leader of the Australian Conservatives has defended the Coalition for Marriage’s advertising campaign telling Sky News that the two issues were intrinsically linked.
Describing the anti-bulling program Safe Schools Coalition as a “perversion” Senator Bernardi said it was reasonable for parents to be concerned about both issues.
“It was installed by the Labor government, funded by the Liberal government, the minister, successive ministers said there’s nothing wrong with it, and we had to continually say there is a problem here,” Bernardi said.
“Parents hate this and they know that it is like a rainbow Trojan horse, if I can tell you. Same-sex marriage is a rainbow Trojan horse for getting these things compulsorily in schools.”
Senator Bernardi told host Samantha Maiden that he expected the No vote in the marriage survey to be much higher than the media were predicting.
OIP Staff
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