A major issue in debating SSM is the reluctance of much of the media to inform us on the aspects of SSM covered on this website. That reluctance has left a vacuum of knowledge in Australia – and other western countries – which ill equips us to vote intelligently at a plebiscite.

Examples

Our publicly funded ABC is a big offender. However they have a programme called Media Watch, which exposes media bias of all kinds, and they were honest enough (or hypocritical enough!?) to call out bias in others in this comment by Paul Barry:

Are opponents of marriage equality getting an equal run in the media? …We don’t think they are…For example, none of the commercial TV stations covered the launch of the Marriage Alliance campaign. And major one-on-one interviews on radio and TV have also been out of kilter with two key spokespeople for marriage equality, Rodney Croome and Christine Forster, scoring 32 interviews between them in the first twelve days of August and, by our count, two key speakers against – Sophie York and David van Gend – scoring a grand total of only twelve… surely both sides of the debate have an equal right to be heard.” (August 17, 2015 – quoted in Stealing from a Child P221)

SBS – an even bigger offender: had agreed to run an ad opposing SSM during the 2015 Mardi Gras in Sydney. Two other commercial stations showed the ad but SBS pulled it with one day’s notice. It was such a blatant suppression of free speech that even some homosexual activists condemned it. Two months later at a Senate estimates hearing Senator Canavan told SBS CEO Michael Ebeid: “You are a public broadcaster using public money and clearly favour one side of the argument over the other. You are meant to be fair and balanced”. (Stealing from a Child P222)

Fairfax media leans towards the left of politics, and articles in support of natural / traditional marriage are rare or non-existent. The Murdoch press leans further to the right, but nevertheless rarely has the stories or information provided on this website – of children of SSM speaking out, of gays speaking out against SSM, of the studies and statistics, of freedom of religion issues.

One exception is The Australian, which carries some excellent thoughtful and informed articles on the subject.

What can we do? We need to search the internet and specialist books on the subject. (Especially Stealing from a Child by David van Gend). And we need to get on social media to tell the world the truth.