By LYLE SHELTON, Family First National Director and NSW Legislative Council Candidate
About 18 months ago, I gave an hour-long interview to a documentary team engaged by Channel 9.
It was for a series titled "Events that Changed Australia" and the episode for which I was filmed, "The Fight for Marriage Equality", finally aired on Wednesday night.
It chronicled the political campaign waged by LGBTIQA+ political activists to change the definition of marriage in law so that same-sex couples could marry.
I was the only voice from the side which fought to protect the definition of marriage. Sadly, it was a predictably one-side presentation.
Broadcaster David Astle talked up violence around the 2017 marriage plebiscite saying "the fighting was ferocious" without giving any credible examples.
The only images of fighting and violence Channel 9 could find was of people draped in rainbow flags and yet they sought to portray it as two-sided.
My recounting to Channel 9 of activists violently jumping on stage with me and other speakers at our rally in Melbourne in 2017 ended up on the cutting room floor.
Of course, the fire-bombing of the ACL office in 2016 was ignored, a rare act of pre-Bondi domestic terrorism perpetrated by a same-sex marriage activist and covered up by the Australian Federal Police.
The Yes Campaign's Sally Rugg got generous coverage including her almost tearful recounting of our "hurtful" arguments to preserve marriage.
There was a grab of me warning that same-sex marriage would lead to schools teaching radical LGBTQA+ ideology – something that has been turbo-charged even in childcare centres since 2017 and is now every normal parent's worst nightmare.
A grab from an SBS interview where I said same-sex marriage would lead to children being denied the love of their mother or father was played.
Rugg, lip quivering, said our arguments that children would be hurt were "homophobic, deeply wrong and deeply traumatising".
Seriously? What is "homophobic" or traumatising about pointing out that a child has the right to the love of his or her mother?
Same-sex marriage denies that right, not because of tragedy or desertion, but to suit the lifestyle desires of adults. The ethics of this needs serious debate, not cancel culture.
If that was the most hurtful and "homophobic" thing from our side that the Yes campaign could come up with in an hour of one-way television traffic going their way, surely it's time to drop the demonisation of those of us who still believe marriage is between one man and one woman.
It's time the cancel cry "homophobe" was dropped in favour of dialogue.
I will never stop fighting for marriage to be restored to its true definition.
No serious person denies the dignity and humanity of same-sex attracted people and our campaign to preserve marriage in 2017 never did that, despite constant assertions in the documentary to the contrary.
While ever activists seek to induct children into gender fluid ideology and sexualise them through queer culture events such as drag queen story time, I won't stop fighting.
While ever same-sex marriage activists demand the right to unethical and exploitative artificial reproductive processes so they can acquire children who are not their own, I will fight.
Even former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson weighed into the surrogacy debate this week on his Substack.
Surrogacy policy in this nation is being driven by the same people who drove the same-sex marriage campaign. Providing a way for two men to acquire babies is the unfished business of "marriage equality".
The fight to restore the true definition of marriage in law could be a long one. We lost something precious in 2017.
But we owe it to the rights of children - and to end the insanity about gender - to put the definition of marriage back together again.
That's a discussion you won't hear on Channel 9.
