A Look Back In Anger is our weekly glance back at what had us outraged exactly 12 months ago. Which stories are still with us a year on, and which ones vanished without a trace? Who forgave and forgot, and who maintained the rage?
Come with us back to the long, long ago time of September 17-23, 2012...
Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi stole the headlines with a rant that couldn't have generated more controversy if he'd stuck out his tongue and grinded himself up against Robin Thicke. Speaking in Parliament about a marriage equality bill sponsored by four Labor senators, Bernardi said the push was an attack on "our enduring institutions", presumably referring to our time-honoured right to discriminate against minorities.
"It is another chip in the fabric of our social mores," Bernardi continued. "The time has come to ask, when will it end? If we are prepared to redefine marriage... what is the next step? The next step... is having three people that love each other should be able to enter into a permanent union endorsed by society, or four people. There are even some creepy people out there, who say that it's OK to have consensual sexual relations betwen humans and animals. Will that be a future step?"
Bernardi was forced to resign as Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's personal parliamentary secretary, but remains a Liberal Senator. (In June, he claimed his extreme views had been "proved correct", so he hasn't exactly softened.) Actually, it's kind of surprising that he wasn't named the Minister for Equality this week.
After Bernardi launched his live grenade into the marriage equality debate, you might assume that the bill itself passed with ease. After all, when its most vocal opponent was a little too socially conservative for Tony Abbott's tastes, who could possibly have stood beside him? The vast majority (98 members) of the Australian Federal Parliament's lower house, as it turns out, who might as well have walked into the chamber wearing 'Bernardi Was Right' t-shirts.
The bill's defeat was a clear setback to the equality movement, but the arrest of a theatre producer for staging a play about a gay businessman in Uganda that same week was a reminder that things could always be worse. Then again, when you resort to saying things like, 'Hey, at least we don't live in Uganda', you might be setting the bar a little too low.
Meanwhile, the Syrian military bombed a gas station in northern Syria, killing at least 50 people and wounding dozens more. At which point Ugandans said to themselves, 'Hey, at least we don't live in Syria'.
In other news, Lindsay Lohan was arrested for allegedly clipping a man with her car outside New York City's Dream Hotel and leaving the scene. (The Manhattan DA's office opted not to bring charges, citing insufficient evidence.) It's entirely possible she's done more illegal stuff since then, but we've had a shiny new Amanda Bynes to play with, so I'm not really sure.
Back on the home front, the AFL announced plans to screen No To Homophobia adverts in stadiums before two crucial Finals clashes, leading some to hail it as the most socially progressive sports league in the world. Which, yeah, sounds about right.
The Victorian arm of the Roman Catholic Church confirmed that more than 600 children had been sexually abused by its priests since the 1930s. Child abuse campaigners argued that the true number of victims was closer to 10,000, meaning the Church's grasp on numeracy hasn't necessarily improved since that whole 'created the world in six days' incident.
Finally, the government of Pakistan condemned a cabinet minister who put out a $100,000 bounty on the star of last week's column, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. Nakoula, the US-based producer behind the anti-Islam video that sent the world crazy for a week or so, was also the subject of a $105,000 bounty offered by a Pakistani cleric, and a rumoured $1.27 million prize offered by a Karachi businessman.
Nakoula is still alive, so if you want to switch off Grand Theft Auto V and make some real money...
