Why is George Soros being dragged into the same-sex marriage debate?

Those who invoke Soros as a shadowy manipulator should know this is an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Various groups opposing same-sex marriage have been reduced to importing rightwing conspiracy theories to explain why public opinion does not seem to be trending in their direction. And they have been using some ideas with antisemitic overtones in order to whip up confusion and fear – the only things they really have on their side.

The Australian Conservatives are just the latest group to invoke the figure of George Soros as the shadowy string-puller behind the fight for marriage equality.

Sifting through the lurid Islamophobic and homophobic images on the group’s car crash of a Facebook page, you can find a meme urging the group’s supporters to “Stop the Globalist Agenda: Vote No”.

Alexander Reid-Ross, Portland State University lecturer and author of the study of fascism, Against the Fascist Creep, says that the meme “is definitely antisemitic”. And it is of a piece with a long trend on the racist and radical right to scapegoat Soros, just as other rich Jews were in the past.

Read the opinion piece by Jason Wilson in The Guardian.