Real cause is the freedom to bully

MANY journalists and activists are too quick to believe that Astro Labe — a drunk and violent hypocrite — is an honest man.

See, they know their gay-marriage cause was hurt when this Hobart DJ, wearing a rainbow sticker of the Yes campaign, headbutted former prime minister Tony Abbott.

That Yes campaign is already synonymous with bullying. It’s been tainted by everything from death threats and violent pickets to a children’s entertainment company sacking a teenager for writing “It’s OK to say no” on her Facebook page.

Somehow the “love is love” campaign has become a licence to hate, and Labe’s headbutting of Abbott seemed the most confronting example yet. Here was a thug who admitted he’d headbutted a politician in the face after pretending to offer his hand in friendship. Journalists of the Left despaired. This was “counter-productive”, grieved ABC commentator Paul Bongiorno.

“Some crazed zealot wearing a Yes badge has handed the No case yet another distraction,” complained Sydney Morning Herald writer Mark Kenny.

So the relief was huge when Labe said he regretted hurting the gaymarriage campaign he supported, and claimed that his attack on Abbott had been “nothing really remotely to do with it”.

“It’s just about Tony Abbott, the f---ing worm that he is,” Labe said.

“I’d had half a skinful and just wanted to nut the c---.”

Really? So what was Labe referring to when he shouted at Abbott: “You f---ing deserve it for what you’ve said”?

What has Abbott said lately, on anything other than same-sex marriage, that Labe thought had earned him a headbutt to the face?

Was it his comments on a clean energy target?

On nuclear submarines?

But all right. Let’s play the media’s game.

Let’s assume Labe — who’d stopped Abbott by claiming to just want to shake his hand — was this time telling the truth.

Does that really mean his attack had absolutely no relationship to the gay-marriage campaign? Unfortunately, no.

Go on Twitter and Facebook and see how many gay-marriage supporters cheered Labe’s attack.

They included — until the post was pulled — the Australian Union of Students (LGBTI), which posted a mock survey form asking “Should Tony Abbott be headbutted?” with the Yes box ticked.

It even urged that “those attempting to headbutt Tony Abbott please ensure you do so correctly”.

Channel 9’s report on its Friday news bulletin picked this vitriolic mood, giving Labe a soft interview and irresponsibly claiming “some are calling him a hero”.

To be fair, Australian Marriage Equality has condemned the attack on Abbott and insisted it had nothing to do with their campaign. Formally, that is true. Yet it’s also true that their crusade has been joined by many people less interested in gay marriage than in the excuse it gives them to push people around and call them names.

This gay-marriage cause is brilliant for bullies. They can do bad things yet be praised as good, since the media has said the people they’re bullying are evil — bigots, homophobes, creeps and “a---holes” who drive gay children to suicide.

But for them, the real cause seems to be the freedom to bully, not the freedom of gays to marry.

Isn’t the easiest way to feel superior just to drag someone down? And isn’t dragging them down fun?

That explains something that puzzles even some

Yes campaigners I respect: why all this bullying, when it just discredits their cause?

Why are so many

Yes supporters exactly the haters they claim to hate?

Take Labe. He told journalists he was a pacifist, yet headbutted Abbott.

Or take the Sydney University Yes campaigners, who a fortnight ago kicked, pushed and pelted Christian students with food, dye and glitter in the name of “tolerance”.

Last week,

Melbourne man

Bobby Lupo filmed a classic example of this bizarre inversion.

He was standing by a road with a “You can say no” sign when a woman holding a cigarette got right in his face, swearing at him for opposing gay marriage.

Most bizarrely, she called him a “faggot”, demanded to know where he was from, told him to get a job, and added: “If I could knock you out and get away with it, I would.”

Was this bully truly interested in same-sex marriage and tolerance?

Hmm, so maybe Labe was right, after all, albeit not in the way journalists say.

Maybe he did hit Abbott just because “I wanted to nut the c---” and same-sex marriage was nothing more than the excuse that’s made him the haters’ hero.