Same Sex Marriage Debacle.

[Rorschach]

As usual the dishonest deluded immature Progressive Left are at it again....

The ‘ugly’ same-sex clash that wasn’t
The Australian
12:00AM September 9, 2017
Mark Schliebs
Brisbane

It had all the drama that could lead morning news bulletins, with same-sex marriage advocates claiming to be injured and traumatised by Australian Christian Lobby No campaigners who they accused of driving into them as they protested outside a Brisbane church.

As news of the ugly clash on Thursday night spread, sparking a call for calm and respectful debate from Malcolm Turnbull, police, witnesses and attendees began to air their bewilderment at the protesters’ version of events.

Queensland police said they monitored the protest — organised by the National Union of Students and partly led by Socialist Alternative members — and there was no record of any cars hurtling towards protesters, nor any other assault or injury.

One witness had seen a driver blocked by protesters from getting into a carpark, but police helped make a path through the crowd. Footage showed the same. The planned meeting, cancelled at the last minute to avoid a confrontation with protesters, wasn’t even supposed to be about same-sex marriage. Instead, the event was scheduled to hear a talk from the Australian Christian Lobby’s Wendy Francis about the Safe Schools program.

Yet for much of yesterday, the protest and allegations were across the media and fed fears that the marriage debate was turning violent. It began after one of the protesters, former Socialist Alternative spokesman Jessica Payne, claimed on national television that she had been injured “because people drove their cars nearly at full speed into the Yes campaigners here”.

“It was extremely scary, extremely irresponsible, and police tried to help the people in the cars get through the crowd of protesters,” she told the Nine Network.

The Prime Minister responded with the call for calm from the ­opposing campaigns. “I encourage all Australians to engage in this debate, as we do in all debates, respectfully,” Mr Turnbull said in Samoa. “You cannot expect your side of the argument to be respected unless you respect the other side of the argument and the ­people who put it.”

Ms Francis’s talk was cancelled on Thursday afternoon because of concerns about protests, organiser Stuart Beavis from Catholic group Knights of the Southern Cross said yesterday. Mr Beavis was parked in the church grounds to turn away people who had planned to come to the talk but were unaware it was cancelled.

“It certainly wasn’t a rally for the No campaign; it was purely a talk to give people information about what the Safe Schools program was about,” he said.

“But they decided to register protests against the Australian Christian Lobby. They didn’t ­really care what the talk was about.”

Footage from the protest, outside St Michael’s Church in the Brisbane suburb of Ashgrove, shows a car blocked from entering a driveway by about 20 protesters, before police officers move one of them to the back of the crowd.

“We monitored it, but nothing really came out of it,” a police spokesman said.

A Queensland Ambulance spokeswoman said the service received triple-0 calls from the protest for an “alleged assault” of a woman but she declined treatment or transport.

Mr Beavis said he was disappointed the event was cancelled.

“It’s very disappointing that we have to cave into this sort of unruly mob,” he said.

The ACL-backed Coalition for Marriage slammed the protesters yesterday. “This is another example of the appalling lengths LGBTIQ activists will go to shut down free speech,” said spokesman David van Gend.

“They blocked access to the hall in question, preventing access for those seeking to attend the meeting. They then chose to make some very serious allegations, dismissed as false by Queensland Police, as a way of excusing their bullying tactics.”

Two NUS organisers of the protest did not respond to requests for comment. They created a page for the event on Facebook — for which just 56 people RSVPed — describing the protest as being against “the arch-bigots, the Australian Christian Lobby (who) are determined to spread hate in the wake of the plebe-shite on basic civil rights.”