Australian Conservatives leader Senator Cory Bernardi has described the push for same-sex couples to marry as a ‘Trojan Horse’ for a variety of other issues.

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Appearing on Sky News’ The Morning Shift this morning Senator Bernardi said it was reasonable that the debate about marriage equality considered a wide range of issues  including how it would effect what was taught in schools in the future.

Senator Bernardi argued that marriage equality and the controversial Sage Schools Coalition program 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.”

The South Australian Senator said it was clear that the two issues were connected because the same people defended both. Senator Bernardi said there had been an unfair reaction to a video from the Coalition for Marriage where mothers highlighted their concerns.

“I think there’s been a massive pile-on, and the bullying through the media and sections of the lobby that are advocating for marriage to change,” Senator Bernardi said.

“You saw that yesterday. The Coalition for Marriage advertisement was entirely factually correct. Entirely. And what happened? You get the big media pile-on saying how terrible it is. You get Bill Shorten dismissing it, you have Simon Birmingham saying it’s nonsensical, but these are the same people who defended that Safe Schools agenda.”

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