A new voice has appeared in Australia’s long running debate about marriage equality.
The new group The Marriage Alliance has launched a big budget media campaign arguing that allowing same sex couples to wed is the “just the tip of the iceberg”.
The advertisement begins with a hand drawing a picture of an iceberg while a voice over says, “It’s time to step back and consider all the issues around same sex marriage. Like how it will affect children or sex education in schools or what rights you could lose.”
Australian Marriage Equality have shared the advertisement on their Facebook page.
On their website the group describe themselves as an alliance bringing together individuals and organisations supporting a common cause; “We exist to voice the opinion of the silent majority of Australians that want to respect the choices of same sex attracted people but do not want to change the current definition of marriage.”
The group is reportedly funded by wealthy businessmen and the groups founding members include former investment banker Jim Dominquez and former Liberal party president Ashley Goldsworthy.
The official spokesperson for the group is Sophie York, who has previously sought pre-selection to represent the Liberal party in both state and federal elections.
In a statement Mrs York said the new group was formed to tackle the powerful gay lobby.
“The powerful gay lobby is entitled in a democracy to state their view, but it is also the right of mainstream Australia to hear opposing arguments and to express their opinion without fear,” Mrs York said.
The groups spokesperson said there needed to be more discussions about the consequences and the rights of future generations, sex education, religious freedoms, morality, business and professional regulations, and legal implications resulting from permitting same-sex marriage.
“Social engineering damages a functioning society. People should be accepted regardless of their sexuality, but attacking the institution of marriage between a man and a woman – which in every culture on earth is naturally designed to create a family unit – at its very heart takes away the rights of a child to have a mum and dad.” Mrs York said.
The sophisticated website also features a countdown marking the time left until politicians return to Canberra for parliament’s next session.
Australian Marriage Equality label the campaign scaremongering
The campaign has been dismissed by marriage equality advocates who have described it as scaremongering.
Australian Marriage Equality deputy director, Ivan Hinton-Teoh, said,
“This kind of desperate, eleventh hour scaremongering has failed to stop the momentum for marriage equality in other countries and it will fail in Australia as well.”
“Most Australians understand the sky won’t fall in when we achieve marriage equality.”
Australian Marriage Forum liken marriage debate to ‘Lord of the Rings’ battle
The launch of the group has been welcomed by the Australian Marriage Forum who previously ran ads featuring crying children.
The AMF advertisements claimed that allowing same sex couples to wed would; “force a child to miss out on a mother or a father.” The advertisements were broadcast on commercial stations but SBS refused to air them during the Mardi Gras broadcast.
Dr David Van Gend, President of the AMF welcomed the group of Facebook describing them as like the “Riders of Rohan appearing over the eastern ridge at dawn.”
The comment is a reference to J.R.R. Tolkein’s ‘Lord of the Rings’, where the Riders arrive just in time to defeat the evil wizard Saruman and his army of orcs.
Advertisement ridiculed
Advocates for marriage equality have quickly used the iconography of the iceberg to argue their perspective.
A pro-marriage equality image of the ‘Same Sex Marriage’ iceberg has quickly spread on social media listing the positive reasons for allowing same sex couples to wed.
The new poster lists ‘allowing children to have married parents’, ‘de-stigmatizing homosexuality’, ‘economic benefits’ and ‘allowing people to have the same fights as everyone else’ and several other reasons.
Australian Marriage Equality launch campaign for counter offensive advertisements
Australian Marriage Equality have announced their plan to air their own television advertisements promoting marriage equality.
The organisation has launched a Go-Fund-Me crowd source campaign to raise the funds required to air the advertisement on commercial television. To date $5,300 of the required $20,000 has been raised.
OIP Staff
