The people have spoken, and now Folau should listen

Technical foul! Low blow from Folau!

Oh how the ravenous crowd roars. After an enormous protest howl from across Australia, the #GoFundMe mob that had collected nigh on $700,000 to fund the Folau legal appeal looked again at its own terms and conditions and decided on Monday morning not only to close down the Folau appeal, but also to refund all moneys to donors.

"We have concluded that this campaign violates our terms of service," GoFundMe Australia regional manager Nicola Britton told the Sydney Morning Herald.

"As a company, we are absolutely committed to the fight for equality for LGBTIQ+ people and fostering an environment of inclusivity. While we welcome GoFundMes engaging in diverse civil debate, we do not tolerate the promotion of discrimination or exclusion."

You get the drift. The implications are enormous.

Firstly, it may mean that Folau might have to - hold the presses - dip into his own pockets to fund his legal appeal, instead of building it on $5 and $10 donations from a lot of well-meaning people who actually seem to think this is about religious freedom in Australia, as if that was ever under threat.

It might even mean that the likes of Alan Jones who has been indicating for weeks that he will back Folau financially himself in any such legal appeal will have to follow through.

What it mostly means though is that, whatever the law will ultimately say on the Folau case, the Australian mob stands firmly against both the whole absurdity of the "gays are going to burn in hell" thing, and the very idea of using a crowd like GoFundMe to make it legally safe to shove that view in the face of your employers, even when you have firmly promised not to.

For while GoFundMe has clearly had a busy weekend comparing the contours of the Folau appeal with its own charter, before determining it lay outside that charter, that determination was only reached after being overwhelmed by a tide of tweets, Facebook posts and emails from outraged people.

Two months ago, Rugby Australia not only quickly concluded that Folau's posts were damaging to the rugby ethos as a whole, but also against its commercial interests as an enormous mass of people demanded it take action. To my eyes it looks like GoFundMe has come to exactly the same conclusion. In 2019, you better stand for diversity, or you will lose the support of enormously diverse and newly empowered swaths of the Australian population.

So, where to for the ninth round?

More blows will be thrown, some of them low, from newly enraged sides of the fight. As a matter of fact, I received one such blow within minutes of the bell ringing for the end of the eighth round.

"Two issues for all the Folau attackers, [like you,]" a reader wrote to me. "People don't like to be told how to donate their hard earned $$$ and Christians are sick of hearing Rugby's hypocritical calls of the 'all inclusive game' all inclusive? Just not to those following their faith of over 2000 years."

That's fine, mate. Those people who have their money refunded will no doubt be able to send it direct to the account I am sure Folau will have set up by the end of the day. But as for Australian rugby hating people of faith? You might like telling that to the dozens upon dozens of Wallabies who have been seriously religious over the years, led by its two favourite sons, the last two Wallaby World Cup winning captains, Nick Farr-Jones and John Eales.

Did Australian rugby care they were religious? Not one bit. It was never an issue one way or another. But if either had started spouting homophobic gibberish while with the Wallabies, it would have been a very big issue indeed, and the fact that that gibberish was religiously based would not have excused it .

See yers at the end of the 15th round.

I need a rest, and will be in my trailer.