If you’re wondering what the no campaign is going to look like should the plebiscite on same-sex marriage go ahead, you could do worse than cop a squiz at Bill Leak’s latest cartoon on the issue.

Leak, controversial cartoonist and leading auteur in the field of Drawing Chinese People With Big Droopy Moustaches and Conical Hats, has done it again - “it” meaning “painstakingly marshalled lines and colours into the rough shape of an argument”.

“We are merely trying to have a civil conversation about a sensitive subject and are being silenced by the rabid and censorious opposition,” the argument from the Leak camp goes. “To that end, here is a drawing of you as a Nazi.”

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Bill Leak explained (@BLeakEksplayned) The Gay Agenda(™) has become Stasi-esque, supported by jackbooted thugs pic.twitter.com/ZhFOjfsBLN

There’s an obvious point to be made here. Figuratively drawing anyone as a Nazi – outside of an actual Nazi, I suppose – is such a bad faith argument that it’s become a sort of shorthand for internet idiocy. However, literally drawing a group of people that the Nazis targeted for execution as Nazis goes beyond vacuous argument and into the realm of something at the very least reprehensible and at the worst, sinister.



It’s one thing for this dross to be published in a dying newspaper, to be disseminated, gratis, at airport lounges the nation over. It’s quite another if it becomes part of a federally funded, multimillion dollar campaign.

And yet, should the plebiscite go ahead, there are two aspects of Leak’s cartoon that we’re going to see played out on a national stage through the no campaign.

The first is a reversal of the historical roles of oppressed and oppressor. “What if”, we will be asked in a stage whisper, “the people calling us bigots were the REAL bigots all along?” What a twist. Australian conservatives have a long, rich history of playing the victim from positions of immense power. They decry the shadowy cabal of cultural Marxists who are hell-bent on ensuring that brave patriots can no longer speak their minds, pursue the tough questions or do their classic “chinky-chonk eyes” routine at Christmas lunch without fear of reprobation.

In the minds of these silenced victims with weekly columns in national newspapers and regular appearances on television and radio, it’s easy to see that this kind of censoriousness is merely a hop, skip and a goosestep to full-blown Nazism.

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This false equivalence is as intellectually bankrupt as it is insulting. There is, it should be obvious, a huge difference between calling someone a homophobe and calling someone a Nazi. Between saying someone’s views are oppressive and saying a push to legalise same-sex marriage will lead to a push to legalise sex with dogs. Between linking the no campaign to mental health issues in the LGBTI community and linking homosexuality to paedophilia.

The second tactic is simple thuggish goading behind a veneer of civility. The Australian has editorialised repeatedly about the need for a civil and respectful debate on this issue, summarily dismissing concerns from advocates of marriage equality that the debate could turn vicious and have a serious impact on the mental health of young people.

In fact on Thursday, the paper had this to say in an editorial: “The Australian has faith in the overwhelming majority of people from all sides of the debate to conduct themselves sensibly.”

This was written, it really cannot be emphasised enough, 24 hours after the same paper published this cartoon:

Bill Leak explained (@BLeakEksplayned) The Gay Agenda(™) has become Stasi-esque, supported by jackbooted thugs pic.twitter.com/ZhFOjfsBLN

The editorial goes on: “It is worth pointing out [intimidation or abuse] has come from the pro-reform side where activists suggest their opponents are the ones likely to spew hatred.”

And so the obvious question here is this: how would Bill Leak and the Australian like the targets of this cartoon to react? Or to put it another way: how does a group of people, having been called Nazis by a paper demanding debate be civil and respectful, react in a way that meets their – the paper calling their opponents Nazis – exacting standards of respectability and civility?

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It’s difficult to see how anyone could, but it hardly matters: the goal here isn’t furthering the debate; instead, it’s the kind of base and pathetic Trumpian abuse that sees “pissing off Twitter” as a high-water mark of achievement. (Not for nothing, but for a paper that constantly derides the “everyone gets a trophy” culture of the current generation, they could certainly set their sights higher than making a permanently cross group of people cross.)

If you want to see what a respectful debate on marriage equality in this country is going to look like, look to the paper that is demanding and promising civility.

Ask yourself to what extent the actions of the Australian tallies with their high-minded talk of respectful debate.

Because if the nation’s broadsheet can’t go a day without debasing itself with arguments like Leak’s – if even it, knowing precisely what is at stake, can’t help but turn marriage equality into a squalid staging ground for the ongoing culture wars – imagine what the likes of Lyle Shelton and the Australian Christian Lobby are going to do.