For the third morning in a row, sewage about Christine Rankin's marriage is splashed across the media. In some ways, she made this an issue herself, having highlighted her marriages in her initial interviews on the day of her appointment (yet another example of Rankin thinking its All About Her). But despite that, it's still wrong, for two reasons.
The first is simply liberal respect for privacy. Who Rankin screws, when, how, and whether its behind anyone else's back, is simply none of my damn business. I don't want to think about what goes on in her bedroom, and I certainly don't want her thinking about what goes on in mine.
The second is that it is utterly irrelevant. Contrary to the beliefs of Christian Conservatives, it is not the role of the Families Commission to be a "moral exemplar". Instead, their function is to be "an advocate for the interests of families generally" (and that means all sorts of families, not just straight married breeders). In addition, they have subsidiary functions of encouraging debate, promoting awareness, making recommendations, and conducting research into issues affecting families. It has very hard to see how the private lives of the Commissioners - who primarily have an oversight role - are in any way relevant to this.
There is more than enough in Rankin's background to justify opposing her appointment without having to get into Wishart-style panty-sniffing. By taking the bait, all the media have done is added another layer to her towering persecution complex - and shown once again that they prefer scandal and trivia over substance.
