I don’t often read Miranda Devine. Mostly because I don’t like the feeling of my veins pulsating in my temples, doing their very best to escape through my skin.

But when I do, I remember the kind of pleasure and pain she brings me. The immense pain, obviously, stems from nearly everything she writes. But the pleasure comes from both having an easy outlet from which to vent my anger, and the immense satisfaction I feel from knowing that her grasp on society is slowly, but very surely, slipping from her fingers.

Last week, Devine wrote that Alan Joyce, the gay CEO of Qantas, was turning support for marriage equality into a militant force. In the wake of the Telstra backflip on marriage equality support, and then its backflip on its backflip, Devine seemed to argue that those ‘progressives’ who supported equal rights for human beings were unfairly pressuring people into their totalitarian regime of love and equality and rainbow unicorns.

While Devine may or may not have complained about rainbow unicorns (placid creatures though I’m sure they are, Devine surely has a problem with their rainbow ways), her point essentially remains that life, as she knows it, has to change to make room for people she doesn’t like.

Usually, I like to think of Miranda Devine as one elaborate satire. And whether she is or not, increasingly her columns have become just that. I may live in a bubble (one full of progressives and love and rainbow unicorns), but more and more I just can’t see that her views adequately represent any form of majoritarian thought in this country.

Sure, there are definitely some people who have hurt feelings when it comes to the idea of letting gays marry, but they are becoming a smaller and smaller minority by the day. Malcolm Turnbull has emphatically expressed his desire to vote ‘yes’ in the almost inevitable plebiscite, and the popular vote stands at anywhere between 60-80 per cent, depending on who, or where, you ask. The people Devine ordains herself to represent are increasingly becoming less and less real, and more and more like the unicorns she surely hates: mythical creatures that don’t actually walk among us.

This column is probably sounding increasingly like the equality totalitarian regime Devine so vehemently opposes, but at this point, I really don’t care. In 2011, Devine told us the London riots were a direct result of Penny Wong having children (well, they were the direct result of fatherless families, and therefore lesbians, and therefore Penny Wong, AKA The Only Lesbian Miranda Devine Knows). This kind of complete and utterly bigoted hatred is, quite frankly, completely infuriating, and also laughable.

Devine may claim that people calling her a bigot are part of this totalitarian regime, and frankly, I probably am. But I’m also part of the 60-80 per cent of the Australian population who make up this movement. Another name I like to give this regime is ‘the majority’.

The thing that scares people like Miranda Devine – people who, for so long, have been a part of a totalitarian regime that demonises any form of difference – is that progressive thought seeks to undermine their very lifestyle. In a pyramid, only a few people can be at the top. Equality means that pyramid has to broaden, or else some people will topple off.

When marriage equality passes, I’ll join the line of people happily waiting to topple Devine from her high horse. Perhaps we can give her a unicorn instead.

[Image © 2014 Zakeena. Licensed under CC-BY.]

This Week:

On Thursday April 28 – Saturday April 30, The Axis Of Awesome have their show at Giant Dwarf. This will be a great chance to see the band after Jordan Raskopoulos’ public transition earlier this year. I hear she’s an amazing frontwoman.

Then on Friday April 29, the shittest band in Newtown, Scabz, are releasing their debut single, ‘Beach Song’, at Waywards, just in time for winter. Good timing. Makes sense though, for a shit band.

On Saturday April 30, BandintexassupportRichie Ramone at Newtown Social Club. I heard they replaced their singer with Axl Rose, because Kelly just wasn’t cutting it. So don’t miss Axl’s debut as a lesbian frontwoman.

Then on Sunday May 1, a second instalment of Queer Provocations will be held at The Red Rattler, to specifically discuss climate change. There’ll be a fundraising party in the evening with DJ Gemma and Noelene Nabulivou (DIVA Fiji).

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