One Ring to Control Us All

The same sex marriage lobby might have outdone themselves this time when it comes to their bullying of people to support same sex marriage. They have gained the assistance once again from big business who appear to be undeterred from the recent backlash over their letter to the Prime Minister asking him to legislate same sex marriage.

It has just been announced that major corporations such as Airbnb, Qantas, Google, ANZ, Fairfax Media and Foxtel (half owned by News Corp which also owns Sky News) along with the Equality Campaign (a coalition of LGBT groups) are launching the Until We All Belong Campaign. The campaign involves asking Australians and employees of the corporations sponsoring the campaign to wear what is ironically called an Acceptance Ring. The ring which is black coloured has the slogan engraved on it with a gap to symbolize the gap with ‘marriage equality’.

The apparent aim of the campaign is to spark conversations about acceptance, as if we don’t already have enough conversations about the issue of same sex marriage. It doesn’t seem to occur to advocates of the issue that maybe the Australian people are getting quite sick of all the oxygen this issue sucks up in our political discourse. If it’s not this issue, then it is another LGBT issue such as Safe Schools or transgender bathrooms is in the media.

Though the disturbing aspect of this campaign is that the participating corporations are asking their employees to wear the rings. This means it will be easy to identify people who do not support same sex marriage, these people may feel pressured to wear the rings or face bullying in their workplace for their refusal to participate. Qantas and Google say their employees will be under no obligation to wear the rings, but who really believes that?

Events of the recent weeks have showed how same sex marriage advocates have stepped up their bullying of opponents. This includes the harassment of IBM Executive Mark Allaby over his links to Christian organisation the Lachlan Macquarie Institute, this followed the previous year where he was forced to resign from the board of the Australian Christian Lobby when employed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Both corporations have pledged their support for same sex marriage.

Following these incidents both the Australian Christian Lobby and Lachlan Macquarie Institute were granted exemptions from disclosing the members of their boards by Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission for safety reasons. Plus let’s not forget how Coopers Brewery were forced into pledging their support for same sex marriage after they sponsored a Bible Society debate on the issue.

After their letter to the Prime Minister on the issue Immigration Minister Peter Dutton rightly hit out at these companies using shareholders’ money to campaign on social issues and famously told them to ‘stick to their knitting’. They did take a break from their social justice campaigns last week to hold a press conference asking the Senate to pass the proposed company tax cuts.

But this week business has clearly doubled down on their same sex marriage advocacy. In response Eric Abetz is the latest politician to give them a serve echoing what many of us are thinking telling Fairfax Media “I think Australians are getting fed up with some big business CEOs constantly trying to wave their PC credentials rather than getting on and delivering the services consumers expect at a reasonable price’’.

He also pointed how many of these corporations have just announced job losses yet found money to fund this latest virtue signalling campaign “The 5000 staff at Qantas who lost their jobs a few years ago, and the 200 staff who lost their jobs at ANZ last year would be very disappointed to learn those companies couldn’t afford to keep them but have the money for these types of campaigns’’.

Of course the same sex marriage issue could have been resolved if advocates had supported the federal government’s proposed plebiscite. The government has made it clear that after it was blocked by the Senate then there would be no further action on the issue in this term of parliament. Yet since then advocates have continued to bombard the public with advertising campaigns saturating prime time television.

But the acceptance ring campaign is easily the most sinister as if enough people wear them then those that don’t will feel the ring-wraths. It is the one ring designed to control us all and turn people into thought criminals for not having the politically correct opinion. Though we should still have faith in the common-sense of the Australian people not buying into yet another virtue signalling campaign. A reform such as same sex marriage should not be introduced because its advocates were able to bully everyone into submission.

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