Cultural Youthanasia

It isn’t difficult for Malcolm Turnbull to bat away suggestions that he is betraying his position on gay marriage by supporting a plebiscite. After all, as he says, what could be more democratic than a plebiscite? What indeed?

The implicit proposition is that if 50% of voters-plus-one support gay marriage, Amen! Game, set and match. But, in this case, should a simple bare majority be sufficient to upend a longstanding institutional arrangement; and, separately, a majority of whom?

The outward show of democracy is government by majority will. Fifty per cent of votes plus one holds sway. For the most part, decisions are not directly made by the voting population but by their elected representatives. The 50%-plus-one still prevails, one level up as it were, from the underlying popular will. For deciding most issues, it is hard to think of a better system. But, for deciding some issues of far-reaching consequence, like, say, in passing, the portentous mass immigration of people…