Tanya Plibersek and Mick Gooda on Q&A

As we all know the smug, sneering cowards and bullies of the politically correct Left gravitate towards the ABC's Q&A like blowflies to a sheep's backside. Buzzing with faux indignation, they accumulate there both on the panel and in the audience. Tune in to the show on a Monday evening and you are sure to be treated to some truly world class smuggery.

Take this effort from an audience member:

MARK TOZER: Thank. As a young gay male, I’ve contemplated suicide because I used to believe what I felt was wrong. I just want to know why do we allow people who espouse such openly discriminatory policies, such as Bob Katter's opposition to gay marriage, to hold public office when it sends a message that one person does not deserve the same rights as another and may lead to more young Australians taking their lives?

It may seem unfair to criticize someone who tried to top himself (which is exactly why he included that bit of information, I suspect). But if he's emotionally robust enough to make his point on national television, then he deserves to be called out on it. And what utter nonsense it was.

First, you've gotta wonder who comprises the Orwellian "we" he referred to in his question. It's certainly not a majority of Australians who would wish to see Katter banned from holding political office. I suspect most think the loopy Queenslander is a tool for using such nasty insinuations in his ad. But they'd much rather let him continue to beclown himself and ultimately lose electoral support. It's a process called democracy.

And this idea that Katter's homophobia -- and by implication his ad attacking Campbell Newman -- could lead to people taking their lives is just too silly for words. If a stupid 30 second attack ad can cause you to end your own life, well, you're almost certainly in a psychotic state already and need to be hospitalized, pronto.

Not to be outdone, Mick Gooda took the victim angle and ran with it hard:

But it’s the same - people have got to understand the impact that these comments have on people. You know, this is a human issue and all of a sudden we’re just playing this card, the homophobic card, just to get a few votes and, like Malcolm said, I don't know who is the beneficiary of this except I think - I know who the victims are here and it’s the homosexual community.

So the ad was so powerfully oppressive, it left actual victims in its wake. Oh, the humanity!

And who comprises this "homosexual community" of which he speaks? There's no doubt that gays are not all as offended as he may think. Some don't even believe in gay marriage for starters, and many are glad that the Mad Katter is free to broadcast his self-satire so that they can laugh openly at him.

And speaking of "communities": Gooda is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. The attitude of the "Aboriginal community" to gay marriage, or homosexuality in general, may be something to consider here. Knowing how women and children are treated in traditional communities, it may be that when it comes to the treatment of gays, a teensy weensy bit of the "attitudinal reconstruction" so beloved of Gooda and his ideological ilk might just be in order.

Then Tanya Plibersek chipped in with some sterling sanctimony of her own:

TANYA PLIBERSEK: The second thing I’d say about this ad is it is kind of curious still that Andrew Bolt and even my dear friend Malcolm are focused on what it does to Campbell Newman not what it does to gay men and lesbians watching it.

Well why wouldn't they? The whole political point of the ad is to smear Newman, after all.

And the accusation is not correct, anyway. Bolt himself was mindful of the underlying attitudes to gays and lesbians it revealed:

But I suspect he may now have finally done his dash with the media thanks to his new party’s vile ad, openly and shamelessly appealing to homophobia. 

Plibersek continues: 

I think there's a few things that you always see in commercials or commercial TV to show that someone’s guilty of something. You know, they do the slow motion, they bring in the dun, dun, dun music and they pixelate.

Ah, yes, the dun, dun, dun  music. Reminds me of how the ABC introduces climate change sceptics on shows like Four Corners.

They’ve pixelated a picture of two men hugging as though it is a criminal or offensive thing and so I think that that ad is the subconscious message, even the quite overt message is that there’s something very wrong with same-sex relationships.

Again, she's not quite right here. While the pixelation was almost certainly used to imply something revolting about the relationship between the two men this appears to be a secondary aim. The main reason was clearly to obscure the fake breasts and womb that one bloke was wearing.

Later in the show, Plibersek sneekily implied that another panelist was racist when he talked about Australian history going back only 200 years:

TANYA PLIBERSEK: Look, no particular flood event, no particular year's weather proves climate change. You’ve got to look over the long term but what we see over the long term is that the globe is warming and that extreme weather events are becoming more common. I also wanted to say that we’ve been here a lot longer than 200 years and we might want to talk about that later.

Lefties just looove taking offense on behalf of a group they don't represent in response to bigotry that isn't actually expressed, don't they? They'll play the racism card every chance they get.

Interestingly, this same nasty, dishonest tactic was employed by "Count" Paul Grabowsky on the exact same show the week before.

I'll bet that's where she was reminded of it. I can see her gimlet eyes lighting up as she gave herself a mental memo: "Oh yes, that's a good one! Remember to use that if you get the chance!"

These people are grotesque. They're not just cowards and bullies; they are so bereft of ideas they even plagiarize each other's smears.