ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

“THEY’RE NOT GOING TO be tongue-kissing and jerking each other off beside the fencing supplies down at my local CRT, so why should I have a say in their lives?”

That’s the opinion of one West Wyalong farmer – and he’s not alone.

Thousands of surveyed primary producers are in favour of same-sex marriage plebiscite because it will in no shape or form impact on their lives.

Michael Striker has spent nearly all of his 68 years running a few thousand sheep, a hundred or so steers and a couple good paddocks of oats between Lake Cargelligo and West Wyalong.

While he doesn’t exactly feel comfortable with the idea of having QUILTBAG (Queer/Questioning, Undecided, Intersex, Lesbian, Trans (Transgender/Transsexual), Bisexual, Asexual, Gay) people in his community, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t support gay marriage.

“Look, I don’t have shirt-lifters and gender-benders coming out here and telling me how to cut up a sheep or windrow a paddock. By the same token, you won’t see me in a Darlinghurst park telling them how to wash a poodle or enjoy the theatre,”

“If they get the plebiscite up and running, gay marriage will shit it in. People against it are either nosey parkers or a full-time cunt.”

“Can these morons in Canberra find something else to talk about?” he says.

“I’ve just had eighteen gas wells forced onto my property and I’ve got a much better chance of getting diabetes than the NBN”

Striker is a part of a growing movement made up of farmers from all over the country who plan to travel to Sydney later this month to take part in protests for marriage equality.

The Farmers For Boy-Kissers Alliance was founded over a decade ago to deny the Greens and Labor Party political ownership over the issue of same-sex marriage, saying that while they form the backbone of the Liberal Party, they also believe in marriage equality.

“I just wish they’d hurry up and legalise gay marriage so we can hear what else that vaseline-jar-head Shorten has to talk about,” said Striker.

“I mean, fuck it. Resettle all those poor boat people in town here, they’d probably be more comfortable thumping in star pickets than Jeremy Buckingham was when he came out for a limp handshake and a photograph.”