November 23, 2015 6:40am
THE Footy Show star and controversy magnet Sam Newman has lashed out at what he says is a growing culture of political correctness “gone mad”.
Newman, 69, said a “critique industry” exists where groups leap on supposedly controversial views in order to push their own agendas.
As a result, he told the Herald Sun, fewer people were willing to say what they thought — including politicians or public figures who “bend and submit to lobbyists”.
“The politically correct nature of our society has gone mad, for no reason,” he said.
In an opinion piece for the Herald Sun, Newman acknowledges his aim to be “facetiously obnoxious” on TheFooty Show.
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He says this often leads to accusations he is sexist, racist, or “anything else that ends in ‘ist’”.
“If I said my religious beliefs did not allow me to accept gay marriage as a legal institution, I would be called a homophobe,” he writes.
Newman cites examples in the United States, including when presidential candidate Ben Carson was branded racist for saying he didn’t think a Muslim could be president because of America’s history and culture.
Fellow presidential candidate Marco Rubio, he says, was branded an anti-Semite for visiting the home of a collector who owned a document signed by Hitler.
“What chance have we of engaging in meaningful dialogue with stupidity like that?” he writes.
In comments likely to rile some people he is criticising, Newman revisits Billy Brownless’s gaffe at a footy function, when he called a mother and daughter “strippers”.
“I find it astonishing, when one stands back and looks at the context and circumstances, that this was manufactured into the furore it became,” Newman writes.
“That by no means ignores the offence, or the subsequent apology from Brownless, but the incident was whipped-up by self-appointed PC zealots who urged action: the removal of Brownless, and me, from The Footy Show and a suggestion that a female producer be appointed.
“To use the new communication, LOL!
“By the way, I am all for a female producer, if she’s the best man for the job.”
Newman also hits out at the change in approach to language used to describe gender.
“We are all destined to be pigeonholed by the bleaters, those who tell us that ‘mother’ and ‘father’ are taboo but ‘parents’ are acceptable,” Newman writes.
