I was in two minds about addressing Bob Katter’s pompous, unbridled idiocy on The Circle yesterday (watch from 6:30 onwards) as he is quite clearly batshit, though I do believe he raises some interesting points. Bob claims that the issue of homosexuals in Australia is ‘utter irrelevancy’ and goes on to do some very clever mathematical equations, deducing that ‘in a year I would meet seventy to one hundred thousand people…guess how many people…one person – one person! – in thirty-nine years has raised that issue with me.’
We can obviously assume from this statement that Bob is unable to read:
But that is neither here nor there.
To paraphrase some singing nuns, How does one solve a problem like Bob Katter? How do you make him see there is a world outside his electorate and, like it or not, he must at least acknowledge its existence?
I don’t think there’s much point marching up and down his electoral office shouting queer slogans as he’ll just pull his enormous hat over his ears or start cunningly pretending to read his own book right in a protester’s face, a device previously employed in a time of panic.
I believe the answer is simple, gentle, and to the point.
You be the second.
If you see Bob out and about (apparently yesterday he was enjoying a coffee in South Yarra, delish!) simply approach him, politely raise the issue of gay marriage, and be on your way. Don’t shout at him, don’t point your finger in his face. Just add yourself to that ‘one person’ apparently brave enough to suggest to Bob Katter there are real live gays in Australia. Bob prides himself on being a man of the people and has proven by now that he loves numbers.
Seventy thousand people in thirty-nine years.
One person has raised the issue.
You be the second. And the third. And the fourth.
Your move.