Family First, closely followed by Evil...

If you are voting in the Australian election this August, you may be aware of the Family First Party, their current representative in the Senate, Steven Fielding. You remember him, he's the guy that opposed paid parental leave because, and I quote, "Drug addicts and welfare cheats can go out there and get themselves pregnant and then after 20 weeks have an abortion and still pocket the Government's cash".

Umm, Senator, were you perhaps asleep during the bit where they explained that you are eligible for this paid leave only after birth? A stillborn birth may still eligible, but a late-term miscarriage, let alone a termination, would not be eligible. No? Maybe you were busy texting your mate Wendy Francis. Which is quite an acheivement actually, given that you both seem to live in the 1950's.

You may not be aware of the current Queensland candidate for the Senate, Wendy Francis. Nor was I. Until a story on News.com.au and also Mamamia ran yesterday. Seems Wendy decided to share her view on same-sex couples having children via Twitter:

Picture from the Mamamia story

When the majority of Australians (including the "mainstream Australians" who Wendy claims she is representing) reacted with (appropriate) outrage, Wendy took the time-honoured, classy tactic of ... blaming someone else. Yes, apparently "someone in her office used her Twitter account to share her views on same-sex parenting". The tweets have now also been deleted.

And when David Barrow, the Family First candidate from La trobe, Victoria, posted the following comment on the Mamamia website stating:

"My understanding of what a couple means, and my personal interpretation of Family First policy on this or what it ought to be, is that a family couple is a committed co-dependent relationship between two adults in its widest sense.

At Family First, we say that a family couple is a committed relationship between a man and a woman: Adam and Eve.

And it is also Adam and Steve — gay and lesbian couples — and Eve with Eve (even Eve with Eve if you will). So when it comes to families, Family First is a “broad church” (in the modern secular sense of that term): heterosexual, gay and lesbian couples, as well as bi, trans, and intersex.”

Within hours he had been disendorsed by the Family First party.

Wendy also appeared on breakfast television last Monday, in a debate on Sunrise (I missed this because I would rather open a vein than watch Mel and Kochy chortle away, lost in their own self-congratulatory orgy). The debate was against Fiona Patten, of the Australian Sex Party, a stupidly named party apparently with it's beginnings in the adult sex industry that came about in order to fight proposed internet censorship laws, which, of course, Family First is all for. During this debate (clip below), Wendy further elaborated on her stance, and demonstated at the end her ability to neatly give a non-answer to a direct question:

If you don't want to throw something by now at her constant interuption whenever Fiona speaks, you're doing way better than me, consiering that vapid twit Mel was doing about as much moderating as a ball of wool does between two cats.

Meanwhile, I think I like Fiona Patten. If she ran as an independent and lost the Sex Party thing, she'd be a real contender.

So when it comes to filing in the Senate voting form, yes, the big fuck-off complicated white one, please be aware that if you "vote above the line", you may unwittingly be giving the Family First party more preferences than you would like. If you have no idea what "voting above the line" means, check out Julie Cowdroy's awesome cheat sheet on the Mamamia website here. I learned more in the 5 minutes it took to read this than I ever did in Social Studies at high school. There are also a whole bunch of excellent cheat sheets on hot button issues and other political topics there too.

Never has there been a better reason for separation between Church and state.

Seems like Stephen, Wendy, and their homophobic and just plain hate-filled party only care about putting familes first if you fit their bigoted, far-right conservative Christian, extremely narrow definition of a "family".