Meanwhile, down at Human Species Control, there was a sudden red alert. Lights began to flash, sirens to blare, as from all parts of The Octagon there was a mad scramble to the central War Room. All fell back, however, as the Old Man glided in and instantly sised up the scene ...

An enormous map of the world on one vast wall showed the outline of Australia, in the bottom right hand corner, throbbing red.
"Cap'n Sir," said the OM's No.2, with quavering voice. "We're picking up a serious problem Down Under, something that could threaten the survival of humans on this planet. I am sorry to tell you this, Sir, but ... they've mooted the possibility of gay marriages being legally recognised ..."

In an instant the colour had drained from the Old Man's face. So, it had come. Civilisation was now on the brink, and he knew there was just one last chance to save it ...

"Johnson," he said. "Get a beam onto whoever Australia's Prime Minister is, and see if you can pick him up."

 

Johnson furiously punched co-ordinates into the system, and suddenly the map of the world was replaced by the vision of ... John Howard. The whole room instinctively leaned forward, as they tried to pick up his words, and decipher his accent.

"Traditional marriage is one of the bedrock institutions of our society," he was saying, "and I don't want anything to occur that further weakens it. Marriage, as we understand it in our society, is about children, having children, raising them, providing for the survival of the species. And I think if the same status is given in our society to gay unions as are given to traditional marriage we will weaken that bedrock institution."

Around the War Room, a massive cheer went up! The world was saved.
True, "survival of the species" wasn't a term which had been used a lot lately - at least not since the planet's population had passed 6 billion last century - but these people were no fools. They'd never gone in for this talk from the trendy lefty pinkoes that the greatest threat to the human race's survival was global warming, failure to ratify the Kyoto Treaty, the AIDS crisis and the US starting World War III through over-capitalised hubris.

For each of them knew that the real threat to the planet was gay people being accorded even the most basic of human and legal rights. They understood that if society as a whole was obliged to recognise that the gays loved each other too, then the bonds between men and women, their very desire to procreate, would inevitably dissipate. The horror, oh, the horror.

Fortunately it wasn't just John Howard saying this. As a matter of fact, the Pope himself recognised all that just last week when he authorised the Vatican to release a paper where it specifically stated that the whole concept of gay marriages was "evil". The paper was further emphatic that "there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law".

See? True, some did find it a little strange that a man who had never had sex and who was presiding over an institution which has been haemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars in legal suits because of wayward priests sexually abusing minors - to the point where Time magazine had a recent cover article saying "Can the Catholic Church Survive?" - should be so doggone dogmatic on a subject you'd think he would be running a million miles from, but there you go. Those who said the Vatican should be concentrating on cleaning up its massive mess - borne of its ancient dogma - instead of calling committed gay people "evil", just didn't get it.

As the Old Man always said: "What the world needs now is not just love, sweet love, but the right kind of love..."
pfitzsimons@smh.com.au