Former shadow parliamentary secretary to Tony Abbott, Senator Cory Bernardi, made a big mistake.
His mistake wasn’t linking bestiality to the gay marriage debate:
The next step ... is having three people that love each other be able to enter into a permanent union endorsed by society, or four people. There are even some creepy people out there, who say that it's OK to have consensual sexual relations between humans and animals. Will that be a future step?
In the future, will we say, `These two creatures love each other and maybe they should be able to be joined in a union?’
His mistake was a lack of discipline. He knew his political enemies within the progressive wing of the Liberal Party would pounce as soon as he said something for them to latch onto. Bernardi gave them the ammo and they fired it back at him and hit their mark.
Politics is a very fluid game. Multiple moves are constantly being played out. There is no doubt that the Christopher Pyne faction saw their opportunity, along with the pro progressive Turnbull factions and they went after Bernardi hard.
Just look how quickly Mr. Turnbull came out and slammed his Liberal colleague.
Mr Turnbull today declared his colleague's remarks the “worst sort of slippery slope argument”
“It's hysterical, it's alarmist, it's offensive and it does not represent the mainstream view of Australian people, let alone the Liberal Party,” the former opposition leader said
Mr Turnbull’s pressure wasn’t being applied to Senator Bernardi, the pressure was being applied to Tony Abbott to act against his fellow conservative stalwart. It was calculated strike by the Turnbull pro-gay marriage progressives.
The best way to weaken a leader is to take out his lieutenants and Bernardi was one of Abbott’s loyal and feared lieutenants (Why do you think Tony Abbott dumped Steve Ciobo when he replaced Malcolm Turnbull – same reason – take out your opponents trusted lieutenants).
Abbott got himself snookered and as sure as night turns to day, Abbott’s CoS told him to sacrifice Bernardi - and that played straight into the progressives elements of the Liberal Party.
But some small fortune did present itself, as Abbott was able to replace Senator Bernardi with new Senator Arthur Sinodinos.
Now I don’t know much about Senator Sinodinos other than he was once John Howard’s CoS. I read his columns published in the Australian and he seems quite sensible to me and doesn’t appear anywhere near progressive as some of his other Liberal Party colleagues. So maybe no harm no foul for Tony Abbott. But in this age of speaking frankly and speaking freely, I believe Senator Bernardi shouldn’t have been forced to resign. It especially makes the Liberals pitch for “free speech” a bit hypocritical.
Incidentally, the sexual relations between humans and animals aren’t new. It’s certainly shocking stuff and the Australian main stream media have reported numerous cases. Two such reports come to mind here and here.
I’ll conclude by suggesting you read the following article published in the UK's Telegraph by Dr Tim Stanley on OCT11 titled, “The dark side of sexual freedom: American 'zoophiles' take on the language of equality.” Read it all and you’ll understand where Senator Bernardi is coming from and maybe you might cut him some slack for what he said.
Andy is on holidays in a country that will probably never ever introduce a Carbon Dioxide Tax. He returns in early October 2012.
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