I’ve never been too keen on the Victorian Racial and Religious Tolerance Act. As far as I’m concerned, anything that gets in the way of free speech should be treated with the gravest suspicion but there are some blurry lines when it comes to vilification.

Despite these qualms, I had to laugh about this one. For the last few weeks, Peter and Jenny Stokes and their Salt Shakers group have been pushing supporters to attend a rally against this Act. The great day arrived on 8 August, when Christians and other opponents of the law were supposed to converge in their thousands on the steps of Victoria’s Parliament House. They’d swarm in from the suburbs and be bussed in from country centres and Spring Street would be swamped by a Christian multitude. Dumbfounded by this awesome display, the politicians would quickly go to water and repeal the Act.

Now, Salt Shakers continually slaps at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and Melbourne Midsumma crowd estimates. Peter Stokes is convinced that while ‘a lot of people’ watch the Mardi Gras parade, it’s never more than 60,000 or so, while Midsumma draws about 10,000 tops. (His head-counting technique seems to assume a static audience, but we’ll look at this another time.)

‘About 2000′ people attended the Salt Shakers/Coalition for Free Speech rally, according to Stokes’ own estimate. And many of these were non-Christians. And others who attended assure me that the actual figure was rather less.

See you at Mardi Gras, Peter. Don’t get lost in the crowd.

Filed in: Christian Right