I’m tired at the end of a long day, and as I sit down to read my daily emails and look for what the other side is saying, I come across Lyle Shelton’s latest blog on the ACL website.

It’s titled “SSM Leaders’ Failure To Condemn Violence Endangers Everyone’s Safety”

That should be enough to ward you off the rest of the blog, however, I need to call bullshit on this.  Turn away now…

OK, you’re still here, here goes:

Australians got a glimpse this week of what the ACL team has been living with for years.

Since some whacker wrote in the bible that I was worthy of death because I’m gay people like me have endured discrimination and vilification on a daily basis, and some of us continue to be the victims of hate crimes.  Up until quite recently GLBTIQ people have been incarcerated and some hanged for simply being gay.  So pardon me while I laugh at the claim of his religious sect being a little persecuted for a few years.  This pitching of the ACL and therefore Australian Christians as victims just doesn’t ring true for me.

They also got a glimpse of what will happen to their freedom of speech and freedom of association should marriage ever be redefined in law.

There is nothing to indicate that freedom of speech or freedom of association is at risk and this is nothing more than a standard scare tactic designed to make Lyle and his team seem like the real victims.

It simply will not be possible to publicly hold a dissenting view without facing demonisation at best and legal action at worst.

You do hold a dissenting view and you will continue to hold it after we have marriage equality.  What you won’t be able to do is to use your dissenting view to break the law.  You can’t do that now, I know this because I haven’t been stoned in a legal way.

The viscous intimidation of staff at the Sydney Airport Mercure Hotel brought to light one of the long-standing and key tactics of same-sex marriage advocates for shutting down debate.

He may have meant vicious, I’m not sure.

There has been no indication about the nature of the calls, and those expressing their disgust about the hotel allowing this meeting to be held on their premises is a legitimate way to protest.  I’m certain that there were plenty of calls, and some of them over the top.  The debate is not being shutdown, we get to voice our disgust, the same as you do Lyle when you go after organisations that display ads you don’t approve of or TV shows that you find reprehensible.  I’m pretty sure your side has its ratbags too.  You can’t have it both ways.  I’d also suggest that as we don’t know the names of the activists you alleged made the calls we have no way of verifying your information.  It’s also a stretch to imply that all activists are somehow connected.  We’re a diverse group and there’s no way for you or me to control the rage and anger for some.

The Mercure Hotel said that their staff were “rattled” by the phone calls and abuse they copped when activists started targeting them for hosting a pro-marriage event.

I’m sure that hotel staff often get rattled by nasty customers.  However, this seems to mostly be hearsay, mostly Lyle and his right-wing media buddies beating it up.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, the advocacy group Marriage Alliance and ACL had booked a meeting room to hold a campaign briefing for more than 100 coalition partner groups.

The meeting was scheduled for tonight and is going ahead at a different location.

Sadly, we have to meet in secret.

The world is a big place and yet you let everyone know that you and your mates will be meeting in a Sydney hotel, you’re surprised when that attracts attention and will result in the action that you’ve seen?  Why didn’t you hold it in secret in the first place?  Are you setting this up?

I don’t think this is the sort of Australia most people want created by the push to redefine marriage in law.

These tactics are not something new, it is the way the people protest to companies when they do something they don’t like.  Try and be a chicken farmer at the end of animal activists or a company providing pregnancy termination at the end of christian activists.

Australians feel uncomfortable with the situation where fellow Australians, who hold to the Millennia-old idea that marriage is between a man and a woman and that children, wherever possible, deserve their mum and dad, are having to meet in secret because of safety concerns.

Seriously, did you just make that appeal to mass approval without evidence?  Since when did you get to decide what Australians feel?  Aren’t those who oppose you also your fellow Australian?  The current version of marriage is not millennia-old.  The scurrilous claim that children ‘deserve’ something is emotive and a dirty play on words,  you don’t have to meet in secret, you could simply not advertise.  There is nothing to indicate that your safety was at risk.

ACL has, of course, faced this may times before but we have never lost a venue.

Until now.

People have often protested your venues, you know it and it was only a matter of time before one of your venues cancelled on you. This isn’t new or unusual.

The threats of violence have escalated and we were forced to leave the Mercure out of concern for the safety of staff and guests.

They are the innocent bystanders in this debate – simply doing their job in helping a client hold a meeting. Australia is now no longer safe, even for non-combatants.

Yep, threats of violence are not nice.  What were those threats and where are the records of them?  At times regretfully hotels make decisions based on credible threats.   This is probably more about the reputation of the hotel and less about you.

What the Mercure staff faced last week is what ACL’s staff face on a regular basis.

Our receptionist regularly fields threatening calls and has even had death threats and threats of physical violence.

We report these to the police.

I have no doubt that you do get those phone calls, you seem to think that you’re the only ones.  I recently was told that gay people should be rounded up and shot.

We also reported to the police instances of our female staff being emailed homosexual pornography.

One image contained what looked like a minor. The police have not been able to action this.

I was sent some pretty disturbing photos during the week.  I found the delete button.  Of course, you should report anything you find threatening, that’s common sense.  It doesn’t matter how hard any of us try, there will always be someone who doesn’t know how to behave.  Adding this to the ‘debate’ is a straw-man addition.

Last week a same-sex marriage activist, who is on a speaking tour for a same sex marriage organisation, entered our Canberra office and bizarrely made a mess in the women’s toilet.

The activist was peering through our downstairs windows.

With the memory of Senator Cory Bernardi’s Adelaide Office trashing fresh in our memories, our team was unnerved.

Why is this even in here?  It sounds like to me that you’re making an unsubstantiated accusation and equating that to all ‘same-sex marriage activist’ which is simply untrue and quite frankly pretty low.

Yesterday, when leaders of the same-sex marriage movement were asked by the media to condemn the activists who targeted the Mercure, they declined to do so.

In fact, they implied that groups like ACL had it coming.

When leaders fail to condemn this sort of activity, it only further emboldens the extremists in their movement.

*Yawn* You really are making this a bigger issue than it really is, and you know it.

Rodney Croome is quoted in the Australian:

Veteran marriage equality ­advocate Rodney Croome indicated his sympathy for the Christian groups was limited. “Threats, discrimination and refusal of service are painful, demeaning and completely unacceptable, as most LGBTI people know all too well, so I hope having had this experience the ACL will now reconsider its demand to roll back anti-­discrimination and anti-hate laws,” he said.

“The two sides of the marriage equality debate should be talking to each other to find common ground, but instead we face a divisive and unnecessary plebiscite that will only escalate these kinds of tensions and hostilities.”

So, his sympathy is limited, but not absent, he said that it was completely unacceptable and says that we’ve been putting up with it for years.  Also, this is The Australian, right-wing and one-sided.  Not sure why we have to take it at anything other than face value.

This has made me very worried for the safety of ACL office staff who bear the brunt of vitriol on a regular basis.

If people from our side were ringing the offices of Australian Marriage Equality or trying to shut down their events with threats of violence, I would be the first to condemn this.

Uhuh.  Aren’t you just the shining light of reasonableness!

Yet politicians like Labor’s Stephen Jones smear us by saying both sides are guilty of bad behaviour.

You are.

But he and others who lump us all in together provide no evidence.

It’s a bit rich that you would lump all ‘activists’ in the same bucket.  Has Rodney Croome ever called your office and been offensive?  No, I didn’t think so.  Has a christian who supports the ACL ever called a gay person and told them that they are scum and burn in hell forever?  Yes.

ACL is used to the double standards.

Of course you are.  You think somehow you are above this behaviour, but you have a history of abuse towards GLBTI people.

The rest of the nation is now beginning to wake up to this.

What exactly is it?  That people have double standards?  I’m pretty sure we’re used to that already.  Look at the mess we’re in now.  Malcolm Turnbull wants marriage equality but is taking us through this horrible process.   You’re also the picture of double standards, you bear false witness.  The reason you don’t want marriage equality has naught to do with children and everything to do with your belief that your version of god has said that marriage is between opposite sex couples and that sex should only happen inside marriage.  Why do you hide what you’re really after?  A world where women remain silent and simply provide babies inside marriage only.  Don’t you lecture us on double standards.

We will continue to speak about the consequences of taking gender out of marriage which lead to “Safe Schools”, where our children are taught their gender is fluid.

This has nothing to do with marriage equality.

We will continue to speak about the rights of children, wherever possible, to be loved and nurtured by their own mother and father – something same-sex marriage makes impossible.

This is simply naive and emotive.  Next you’ll be showing us pictures of Bambi.

We will continue to speak about the loss of freedom that same-sex marriage law creates.

There is no loss of freedom.

The same-sex marriage debate is a proxy for a radical re-ordering of our society’s understanding of gender and freedom of speech.

It’s not a proxy for anything.  It’s really very easy, I want to get married to the person I love, just like you.  Not that I want to marry you, well, I don’t.

I mentioned legal action earlier.

Hobart Archbishop Julian Porteous recently spent six months tied up in legal action before the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Tribunal simply for distributing Christian teaching on marriage.

This is serious folks.

Context?  You make it sound too simple, which it isn’t.

It is naïve to think it will get better once the law is changed and State-based Anti-Discrimination Law stands ready to condemn as hateful bigots any of us who publicly seek to teach our view of  marriage.

It will get better.  We function as a society a whole lot better when everyone is treated with respect and dignity.  This is lacking at present.  You won’t be prosecuted for being a bigot, in fact I’m confident that this won’t change your bigotry.  What you won’t be able to do is break the law.

We must not let intimidatory tactics stop us from participating in the debate.

Yes.  You’re not being intimidated really are you? You’re still out there participating in the debate.  You’re so big and brave.

Make no mistake, tonight’s meeting is going ahead. But I look forward to the day when we don’t have to meet in secret.

You don’t have to do it in secret.  It’s not like the Catholic Church hasn’t got space to host 100 people and not receive a single call of protest.  Stop going to businesses and thinking that we won’t complain.  I like to spend my money with supportive organisations and I will call and complain if they do something that I don’t like.  Then I’ll go somewhere else.   You need to do a proper risk assesment before picking a public venue to hold your secret society meetings.

To achieve this, we must persuade our fellow Australians to preserve marriage at the plebiscite or face continued persecution.

It is as simple as that.

You’ve made a convoluted argument where you’ve attempted to scare people into thinking that something really terrible is happening, overlooking that you regularly appear in the media and have political supporters who can and do speak openly and freely.  You will always be able to do that.

As someone said to me this week, if we are not allowed to have the debate we should not be making the change.

You are having the debate.  You and the ACL are leading the charge, as someone said to me this week, get over it.