Tips and rumours

From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Apocryphal baker found! We’ve found an actual anti-marriage equality baker — in the only part of Australia that matters. It’s not just an example trotted out by the likes of Lyle Shelton. Cakespiration by Esther is a western Sydney-based baking business that specialises in birthday, wedding and other celebratory cakes. Esther also posted a No campaign sticker to her business Instagram account two weeks ago, but did not respond to a questions from Ms Tips by deadline.

Such a baker has so far been pure conjecture in the marriage equality debate, but a homophobic baker is going to the Supreme Court in the US. But as Michael Bradley points out in today’s Crikey: it doesn’t really matter what Esther believes, because the law would insist that as it is a business, not a religious organisation, a bakery must provide a cake to any wedding party who can pay for it.

Respectful debate. We’ve asked Crikey tipsters to send us any advertising material they receive during the postal survey on marriage equality, and one of you has provided us with this from a group calling itself “Freedom to say ‘no’ coalition”. The pamphlet doesn’t feature an authorisation message, or any way to contact the group responsible — which we can’t find online. The pamphlet makes a number of unsubstantiated claims about people losing their jobs in countries with marriage equality and claims about same-sex couples and adoption. Our tipster says it came in the mail to his home in Greensborough in Melbourne’s outer suburbs, and there are a number of strict churches in the area.

Lost in the post. Haven’t got your postal survey yet? They are being sent out in batches, so there is no need to panic just yet, but we hear from a tipster odd typesetting on the front of the envelope could cause some to go astray:

“Bit of a problem with the typesetting for addresses for postal vote. We live at number 8 but also received all the ballots for number 18 in our street due to an unusually large gap between the 1 and 8, which obviously confused the postie. – I wonder how widespread this typesetting problem is and how many ballots are going to the wrong place.”

Fill in the blanks. A new advertisement for Bolt’s Sky News program in the Herald Sun on Thursday has us wondering what La Bolta is doing with his hand here. Proving he is married? Holding a Golden Gaytime that has been photoshopped out of the picture? Preparing for some air karaoke? We welcome your suggestions.