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Last week the AFL endorsed marriage fakery and elicited the praise of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who hailed the move as social progress. Clearly, though, it is not enough progress, as the absence of equality for many other disparate and dis-similar things has yet to be rectified. Therefore, with this weekend’s AFL Grand Final in mind, let me make this urgent plea for “equality” as defined in contemporary and fashionable parlance:
Before Saturday’s contest between the Tigers and Crows,
- abolish all boundaries, as they embody the arbitrary limitations that constrained the imagination of the game’s inventor, Tom Wills. A product of his times, Wills’ view of what is permissible and what is not reflected his Victorian era, not our enlightened age.
- More important, rugby teams must be invited to play in the AFL Grand Final. Rugger buggers love a game involving a football of roughly the same shape and all love is equal, is it not?
These changes could be implemented at a moment’s notice were the AFL’s poobahs to emulate the solons who decide what belongs in the Macquarie Dictionary. When Julia Gillard branded Tony Abbott a misogynist while defending a man who likened ladies’ genitalia to marine bivalves, the Macquarie folks immediately amended their definition to match that of the then-PM.
If the AFL quivers at the thought of implementing such policies – policies bound to inflame adverse opinion amongst many in the grandstands – it could draw courage from the Australian Medical Association, which has the right attitude in regard to members and the value of their opinions.
The AMA’s leaders didn’t bother to canvas members’ views before issuing its gay-marriage edict, nor should the AFL. Here the NRL provides the cues. At its Grand Final, the pre-game entertainment will be provided by US rapper Macklemore who will singing (after a fashion) the praises of same-sex unions. Perhaps, as the NRL is into expanding supporters’ horizons by fiat, Mr Macklemore might also don a false nose and treat the crowd to his antisemitic Thrift Shop number.
Of course, NRL fans might just decide to boo Mr Macklemore’s performance, drown him out with their howling derision. That would send a message to the competition’s administrators, who would need to turn up the public address system to 11 to mask the dissent and disgust of those who object to a sporting code re-painting its escutcheon in the rainbow colours of social activism.
The little people don’t think it is the business of sporting bodies to be concerning themselves with anything but sport, but what do they know! They are not members of the elite, just the bums on seats whose expenditures on tickets and memberships keep the whole thing going.
On the field, the AFL and NRL big games will have their winners and losers.
In those codes’ corporate suites the elites cannot afford to lose, not if they are to continue dictating standards of behaviour in areas well beyond the limits of their linament-scented purview.
Meanwhile, back at the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (half of whom would be gay) they’ve decided to steer clear of the issue altogether. I notice that old queen of Sydney Leo Schofield has been putting hands on hips and huffing and puffing. Why not; it’s what they do so well!!
Everything about the AFL is on the downward slide. The game itself is an unintelligible mess, the umpiring standards are woeful, the rules now require mind reading, the televising is an abomination of mediocrity, the disciplinary tribunal is a populist joke, the infiltration into club footy is killing its character, the progressive politics are alienating the core, the cult of personality is juvenile, and the rapacious gambling industry now owns it. Then there’s sports ‘commentator’ Patrick Smith, who is without question one of the strangest and most illogical people ever to scribble for a newspaper.
The professional game and its sycophants are a running sore on this great national sport, which is played in its true essence by teams of kids and teenagers. For however long the AFL Commissars still allow that to happen at least.
Apart from that they are in good shape. I agree with you pgang. The world had gone mad with corporations and sporting organisations backing one side of divisive political debates. Many people are going to vote with their feet and their wallets.
….send in the clowns.
And in America identity politics has being emptying seats in NFL matches as multimillionaire players ‘take to the knee’ rather than stand for the National Anthem. For them the fake news about white cops killing of innocent black pedestrians becomes an article of faith, and facts about the predominance of black on black violence and homicide is ignored altogether. But horror upon horror the American President responds to a different narrative and calls out those players dancing to the BLM prerecords. A far bigger issue is at stake here, when Americans begin to question what it is they actually stand for, and begin to question who they actually are. For the ‘Deplorables’ they’ve already had a taste of an ‘America First’ and are prepared to take a stand against institutionalised bullshit.
Back home, here in Australia, corporate Australia finds it ‘cool’ to kowtow to identity politics, my fear being that the Australian public are too complacent to understand what is happening to their sporting codes. Our sense of identity is perhaps even more clouded than it is over there. . Here we could care less whether anyone stands or sits for the National Anthem. Here we don’t pledge allegiance to the Australian Constitution at the start of a teaching day. The first line of our more recent National Anthem even reflects Bill Shorten’s Cultural Marxist slogan of ‘fairness’, whenever we sing ‘Advance Australia fair’. Forgive me should I feel a sense of despair.