Hey, when was the last time you witnessed an ideology be thoroughly savaged on live television?
If you can’t recall, you might want to stock up on the Australian Christian Lobby’s Lyle Shelton getting shellacked on tonight’s passionately-debated episode of Q&A.
On a panel with Liberal MP Bruce Billson, former House Speaker Anna Burke, head of Roy Morgan Research Michele Levine and former AMA president Kerryn Phelps, Shelton was rebuked, time and again, for his views on… well, everything vaguely not straight, really.
Straight off the bat: the Safe Schools program, and how sinister the whole anti-bullying campaign really is.
“What we do know is LGBTI students are much more likely to suffer from bullying, from physical and verbal abuse, they are much more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression, and they are much more likely to suicide.Do we want our schools to be safe places?”
A lot of parents will be concerned about Safe Schools, says @LyleShelton. @drkerrynphelps disagrees #QandA https://t.co/dgxcXHmadU
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) February 29, 2016
“I think you can address bullying without then going to contested gender ideology,” Shelton continued, before an audience member – who claims to have helped compile the Safe Schools material, posed a question:
“If Christian kids were six times more likely to kill themselves than their non-Christian peers, would you not want a resource in schools that reversed that trend? That stopped that from happening?”
.@LyleShelton criticises the inclusion of content specifically referring to Transgender issues and bullying #QandA https://t.co/fSnHSypca4
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) February 29, 2016
From there, a discussion on the “unnatural” nature of same-sex families and how that supposedly ties in with same-sex marriage, which was immediately called out by Phelps, herself a mother and partner in a same-sex relationship.
“You know I’m sitting right here, don’t you? You know that what you’re saying is complete nonsense?”
Redefining marriage is undermining biology, says @LyleShelton. @drkerrynphelps calls it nonsense #QandA https://t.co/YsZGARjrim
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) February 29, 2016
Maybe his words won’t do too much in the short-term (apart from causing some full-blooded facepalming), but the political actions they could inspire? Well, that’s another story.
Source: ABC / Twitter.
Photo: Twitter.
