A wise general does not fight a battle, if he can avoid it, except under conditions of his own choosing. And so with Abbott.

By Gary Scarrabelotti

One of the major issues at stake in Australia’s federal election campaign is “same-sex marriage”.

In fact, from the perspectives of moral philosophy and culture, “same-sex marriage” is the most important issue at play.

I’ve put the expression same-sex marriage in raised inverted commas because, as I’ve argued before, there is no such thing as same-sex marriage: it is an impossibility; it is something that does not exist and that cannot be brought into being, the labor of legislatures notwithstanding.

Yet, there are many people of diverse political persuasions – voters, candidates for election, and sworn political opponents — who argue that “same-sex marriage” should exist and can be made a reality by legislative fiat.

100 days

To top it off, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, committed the Australian Labor Party, during the August 11 leaders’ debate at the National Press Club, to introduce into the federal parliament, within 100 days of re-election, a bill to extend the state of marriage to same-sex couples.

Notwithstanding Labor’s formal commitment to a conscience vote on this matter, Rudd has made the “same-sex marriage” project an official item of policy for Labor-in-government. He will be held responsible, accordingly, for the political destruction of endangered MPs representing strongly pro-family electorates in the strategic west of Sydney.  And yet Rudd’s politically risky “Here I stand” posture on “same-sex marriage” looked, momentarily, like courage and leadership beside Abbott’s decision to tack away on the issue.

When David Speers of Sky News put him to the question on “same-sex marriage”, Abbott declined to engage. It was an important issue, he said, but not the most important; that the priority for a Coalition government would be the cost of living and job security; that, in any case, there had been a vote in the national parliament not a year ago [September 19, 2012] which was “fairly decisive against same-sex marriage” and, finally, that “if this issue were to come up again in the future, it would be a matter for a future party room to determine.”

A few days later, however, on August 14, during an interview with John Laws, Abbott made a firmer statement and a principled one:

“I have always been completely consistent on this. I support the traditional definition of marriage as between a man and a woman and that’s where I will be.”

Kutusov strategy

Abbott has not earned a lot of hero points for the way he has handled “same-sex marriage” since January this year when former prime minister Julia Gillard announced an election for, then, September 14.

From what I can gather from the accumulated contents of my In Box since that time, there may be a lot of died-in-the-wool conservatives who have grown discontented with Abbott. They had hoped, perhaps, for a crusading kind of leadership on the marriage question, but what they have seen and heard has been discomforting.  To their way of thinking, Abbott has been ducking and weaving too much as if he were preparing to dump his former commitments on the marriage question. But I don’t believe that he will.  Moreover, I think that his handling of the issue has been strategically sound.

A wise general does not fight a battle, if he can avoid it, except under conditions of his own choosing. So he manoeuvers to provide himself with time and space in which to identify the most propitious moment and the most advantageous geography.  In fact, by declining, where possible, to engage the enemy on terms set by others – whether friend or foe – he hopes that a decisive, and potentially disastrous, battle can be avoided and that his opponents might be weakened fatally by a campaign of strategic indecision. Kutusov’s 1812 defence of Russia against Napoleon comes to mind.

Rudd has made the political error of being policy brave on marriage.

Abbott knows he is in too weak a position, right now, to tackle head on the same-sex marriage campaigners.

To begin, the influence of intellectual fashion, as he identified it in that same John Laws interview, is very great upon any political party, his own included, and particularly now on “same-sex marriage”: so much so, in fact, that any further attempts to bind his party to his own principles could fracture it mid-campaign. Hence Abbott’s emphasis in recent months on taking the matter to the party room should the necessity arise.

Though Abbott has proved a remarkably successful Leader of the Opposition, he has had to exercise a tight discipline over his party and, despite almost four years of campaigning, has yet to deliver it victory.  So, paradoxically, his position becomes more fragile, even as party unity tightens, upon the closer approach of election day. At a time when he knows that not all “his soldiers” are willing to fight for traditional marriage, it might be too much, at this time, to make it part of the “mission objective”.

Secondly, Abbott knows that he has a personal vulnerability and one that “same-sex marriage” campaigners are eager to exploit.  Abbott is a devoted extended-family man; and yet his own are divided on the issue. Abbott would want to deal in family with such disagreements without their being exploited by external political forces to wedge him.

Manœuvre room

Finally, Abbott would hope that after a big election victory he will be in a stronger position to focus the mind of his government and the Coalition parties on what matters most to most voters: that is, on running the country rather than on making cultural revolutions.  There will be new members of parliament — the Class of 2013 — who will owe Abbott a duty of loyalty for his having made their political careers. Also, among these new members, he will hope to find some reinforcements for the defence of traditional marriage.

If things pan out this way, Abbott will likely seek to suck the air out of the “same-sex marriage” debate by discouraging his own side from indulgently supplying it oxygen – and, should he fail in that, his aim will be to vote down any new bill that its advocates might bring into Parliament.

Already Abbott’s strategy has been bearing fruit. It is Rudd who has made the political error of being policy brave on marriage.  It is Rudd who on Q&A this week launched an full-frontal attack on the Bible and the traditional Christian view of marriage and sexuality.  It is Rudd who has been making the unforced political errors.

True enough, Australians might well be ready to accept so-called “marriage equality”.  But Abbott understands that, for the most part, the voters are not burning for a re-definition of marriage. Other things exercise their minds more pressingly.  So instead of making a big noise about the virtues of traditional marriage, Abbott has been setting down, layer by layer and in muted tones, an alternative approach to the debate de jour.

Here’s an idea: if Abbott’s conservative critics want to defend marriage, what they could do is to join the Liberal and National parties and fortify the pro-marriage camp in each and to up the pressure on advocates of “marriage equality” within the Coalition.  That would give Abbott increased confidence and greater freedom to pursue the strategy he has already set out.

The perennial temptation of the conservative mind, however, is an aesthetic one: to distance itself from the tawdry-seeming world of compromise that political action in a democracy necessarily involves. For my part, I feel it sharply.

Not all citizens are called to the same levels of active participation in the political parties.  If, however, too many conservatives hold themselves aloof now from entering the political field, they will have none to blame but themselves if the defence of marriage ultimately should fail.