Well, that was quick: less than 24 hours after laying out its plan to return the bill for a plebiscite on marriage equality to the Senate, the government was defeated in its effort to get the bill back into that chamber.

So, next stop, a postal plebiscite to be conducted, in order to avoid legal challenge, by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The government got short shrift in the Senate this morning. It tried to sneak the bill back onto the notice paper rather than reintroduce it — sort of like pretending that the bill wasn’t actually defeated last year. But the Senate wouldn’t even cop that, so after some fairly limited debate, including a ripsnorter of speech by Penny Wong, the vote was tied, meaning defeat.

The agency responsible for the 2016 census debacle, the agency where heads, Malcolm Turnbull once promised, “would roll” after the colossal stuff-up of August last year (none ever did), the agency that has been under fire for continuing problems with the quality of its employment data, will now be responsible for conducting a giant opinion poll using the postal system because the Liberal party room has too many homophobes and too many opponents of Malcolm Turnbull to live up to its name.

It would be hilarious, with a kind of comic touch of genius added by involving the Australian Bureau of Statistics, except, as Penny Wong pointed out, there’s nothing but misery ahead for same-sex couples and especially same-sex parents. This plebiscite isn’t just a waste of time and money; it will hurt people.

The lie — a lie repeatedly, consistently, regularly debunked — that will be central to the campaign for a “no” vote will be that same-sex marriage equals child abuse, that same-sex parents (like Wong) harm their children, that their kids are a “stolen generation”, to use the disgusting language of the head of the Australian Christian Lobby, Lyle Shelton. This smear will be peddled by Shelton and his ilk, and their parliamentary fellow travellers like Eric Abetz and Tony Abbott, in the face of all evidence, evidence just a google away for anyone with an open mind.

Yesterday the Prime Minister rejected such concerns and declared that the whole affair would involve “respectful discussion”. For middle-aged heterosexual people, maybe it will be respectful. It will be anything but for the people whose basic rights we’re being asked to approve.