Our ABC myth makers

I hate to say it, but the recently established ABC FactCheck unit is anything but. It would be much more accurate to call it the MythMaker unit. Or MythPerpetuator unit. Or just plain BaloneyManufacturing unit.

Take the recent "fact check" that had to do with Tony Abbott's claim that marriage has always been about one man and one woman. That happens to be quite true. Have there been some rare exceptions along the way? Sure, but exceptions do not make the rule.

No culture ever promoted and recognised homosexual marriage until the Netherlands became the first nation on earth to do so in 2001. Up until then, no nation officially and publically recognised homosexual marriages. Yet you would never realise this if you just went by this questionable ABC "fact checker".

All that it does here is push the homosexual agenda and pretend it has offered us some scholarly fact checking. If they were honest and called themselves the ABC Propaganda unit that might be one thing. But claiming to be fact checkers as they peddle social activist agendas is especially appalling.

The "experts" which they relied on were all homosexuals themselves or very partial to the homosexual agenda. One professor given a dream run by the ABC, Stephanie Coontz, of course has been a long standing historical revisionist here when it comes to family matters. She has long tried to argue that family and marriage come in all shapes and sizes, and they cannot be pinned down in any way.

Consider also John Boswell: we are simply told he was a Yale professor. The ABC nicely declined to inform us that he was also a homosexual who died of AIDS at age 47. His work – claiming, among other things, that homosexual marriages were performed in Christian churches – has been roundly debunked by experts.

And consider as well William Eskridge, a leading proponent of homosexual marriage. Are we informed of that in this article? Nope, he is just passed off as another prof from Yale University. Hey, guess what – you can lie just as much by what you do not say as what you do say.

And was one marriage and family expert who would have fully concurred with Tony Abbott allowed a look in here? Absolutely not. There are plenty of these experts and scholars, yet the ABC resolutely refused to dig up even one. Of course to do so would have undermined and discredited their little exercise in propaganda.

Indeed, are they even aware of such experts as David Popenoe, Bryce Christensen, Allan Carlson, Christopher Lasch,

Philip Abbott, William Bennett, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Brigitte and Peter Berger, Maggie Gallagher, James Q. Wilson, Douglas Farrow, Dana Mack, Connie Marshner, Mary Eberstadt and a host of other scholars and marriage and family experts? I doubt it.

Just imagine if I set up my own FactChecker unit. Let's say I did a fact check on whether tobacco is harmful to the user. What if I offered up a list of experts who all said that tobacco use is just fine, and causes no harm? What if I said Professor Jo Blow from such and such university, and smoking expert from another uni, etc., all agreed here?

Oh, and what if I failed to inform my readers that every single one of my "experts" were in fact in the pay of Big Tobacco? Would that not skew my presentation just a bit and render it a bit useless? Indeed, would that not be a clear case of professional misconduct on my part, by deliberately concealing valuable information about my expert witnesses?

I would be forced to take my article down immediately and offer a public apology for deliberately misleading the public. I would be told I can no longer engage in such shoddy journalism, and I never again would be seen as in any way being a credible commentator on such matters.

Yet "our" ABC does this on a regular basis, and with impunity, and with our tax dollars as well! If there ever was a case to stop the public funding of the ABC immediately, this would be it. Indeed, will the lefty Media Watch show – also another ABC show – be covering this issue? Will they be exposing the ABC here? Why do I rather doubt that, big time?

And even more incredibly idiotic was the attempt by the ABC to make its case by appealing to Nero of all people! Just how far in scraping the bottom of the barrel did they have to go to try to get some "proof" here? But there was a good rebuttal to this nonsense by Andrew Bolt, so let me offer his helpful response:

The extra grant Labor gave the ABC this year for a "Fact Check" unit was a complete waste of money. It's gone to yet another Leftist cell largely devoted to exposing conservative motes while overlooking Leftist beams. Worse, it seems to have trashed the facts to push propaganda. This week, the unit tries to dispute this statement from Prime Minister Tony Abbott: From time immemorial, in every culture that's been known, marriage or that kind of solemnised relationship has been between a man and a woman. Aha! The ABC fact checkers pounce. False, they cry:

Roman Emperor Nero was married to not one man, but two. His nuptials were recorded and discussed at the time between subjects - friendly and hostile.What a fraudulent gotcha. This is not fact-checking but fooling and faking. What Nero did was actually culturally transgressive. His "marriage" no more reflected Roman mores than did his purported incest with his mother. Tacitus, a boy during Nero's reign, recorded such "marriages" as "unnatural" and a "degradation":

Nero was already corrupted by every lust, natural and unnatural. But he now refuted any surmises that no further degradation was possible for him. For a few days later he went through a formal wedding ceremony- with one of the perverted gang called Pythagoras. The emperor, in the presence of witnesses, put on the bridal veil. Dowry, marriage bed, wedding torches, all were there. Indeed everything was public which even in a natural union is veiled by night....

But step back. What a strange argument the ABC fact-checkers are so deceitfully presenting. Gay marriage is sanctioned by history because Nero did it? This is fiddling while the argument burns. The ABC fact-check unit is out of control.

And of course Nero is also infamous for murdering his own wife, his own mother, and many others near and dear, as well as being amused by using Christians as human candles. But given the perpetual anti-Christian bias of the ABC, they would probably appeal favourably to Nero here as well.

It really is utterly atrocious that the ABC is allowed to get away with this bogus reporting and sham coverage – especially when they claim to be checking facts. Even worse yet, I am forced to pay for these unrepentant myth makers with my tax dollars. It clearly is time to privatise the ABC. And that is a fact which needs no checking.