Community shocked over Gillard’s decision to give ACL speech
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has shocked large sections of the LGBTI community after agreeing to deliver the keynote speech at the Australian Christian Lobby’s (ACL) national conference in Canberra later this year.
The conference to take place at Canberra’s Hyatt Hotel over October 5 and 6 has been marketed as: “Building a Nation of Character – Religious Freedom in a Secular Democracy”.
Gillard will be joined for the event by the likes of ACL managing director Jim Wallace, Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor Professor Greg Craven, Moores Legal charity lawyer Elizabeth Turnour and Compass Australia’s Paul Henderson.
Gillard’s decision to give a major speech to the fringe organisation has many within the LGBTI community as well as some Labor members concerned, with the ACL on numerous occasions in recent years linking gay people to paedophiles and Nazis, while also blaming same-sex couples for another potential Stolen Generation.
Only last year, Wallace drew the ire of many, including war veterans and the RSL, when he tweeted on Anzac Day that gay people and Muslims were not important to Australia’s past or future.
“Just hope that as we remember Servicemen and women today we remember the Australia they fought for – wasn’t gay marriage and Islamic!” he tweeted.
Melbourne-based gay rights activist Michael Barnett told SX while it was understandable for politicians to engage with their constituency he had serious concerns about Gillard’s reasons for accepting the ACL’s invite.
“As an Australian citizen in a same-sex relationship I don’t feel proud of my nationality when my country’s leader trades human rights and equality for job security,” Barnett said.
“With the news that Prime Minister Julia Gillard is keynote speaker at the 2012 National Conference of the Australian Christian Lobby group, it sends a strong message that she is keen to buy a very narrow and fundamentalist Christian vote.”
Australian Marriage Equality national convener, Alex Greenwich, said the ACL was an extremist, anti-gay group.
"Between January and June this year the ACL made over 120 statements condemning equality for gay Australians and said virtually nothing about poverty or homelessness, with some of its statements linking gay equality with the stolen generation, Nazis and paedophiles,” he said.
"The ACL is an unrepresentative, anti-gay group which it is completely inappropriate for the leader of our nation to endorse in this way."
The Greens meanwhile have alleged Gillard is slowly transforming into a version of former Prime Minister John Howard, who in 2004 amended the Marriage Act so as to preclude same-sex couples from marrying.
“The Prime Minister seems to be morphing into John Howard, not just sending refugees to Nauru but now cosying up with the Australian Christian Lobby,” Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.
“We have a Prime Minister who is refusing to stand by her own party policy, and rather than showing leadership on the issue is standing at the wrong side of history.
“We want to see the Prime Minister embrace marriage equality like her ALP states Premiers, move forward and back her federal members to deliver these inevitable marriage reforms that are supported by 62 per cent of Australians regardless of their faith.”
Mental health experts and Christian leaders have as well shared their dismay.
Baptist Minister, Rev Carolyn Francis, said it had to be questioned whether the ACL actually represented the majority of Christians in Australia.
“The ACL's predominate focus on issues relating to sexuality is disproportionate with the priorities of scripture and Christianity,” she said.
“Many Australian Christians are concerned about the ACL's statements because they contradict the central Christian message of love and compassion.”
Clinical psychologist, Dr Robert Battisti, said statements by the ACL concerning how marriage equality would lead to paedophilia and polygamy contributed to poorer mental health outcomes among same-sex attracted Australians.
“We know from local and international research that when same-sex attracted people are stigmatised and denied equality they have higher levels of anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation,” Battisti said.
“A lot of the fears around same-sex marriage are unrealistic and will not actually come to pass. What is realistic is actual improvements in mental health outcomes for many Australians as a result of marriage equality.”
Gillard’s decision to appear at the ACL’s national conference stands in stark contrast of never having spoken in an official capacity at a gay and lesbian community event, or even at the Rainbow Labor caucus within the Labor Party itself.
"Gay and lesbian Australians and our families want a Prime Minister who shows us equal respect and does not legitimise hate, and at the moment Julia Gillard is not that Prime Minister,” Greenwich said.
Barnett told SX the Prime Minister, a committed atheist who continues to publicly oppose marriage equality, was now even more so obliged to connect with the LGBTI community should she want to be seen to be a fair and impartial leader.
“Anything short of her offering equal time to our community, one that is oppressed by the likes of the ACL, shows that she is all too easily bought and to me that says she is not worthy of her status as Prime Minister of Australia.”
The decision to attend the ACL national conference comes only weeks after media reports suggested former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had divulged details to same-sex marriage advocates about Gillard doing a deal with religious groups and right-wing unions to oppose marriage equality in return for their support.
- Tags: Alex Greenwich, Australian Christian Lobby, Blaze, Canberra, Carolyn Francis, Gay Rights, Greens, Jim Wallace, Julia Gillard, Labor Party, LGBTI Community, Marriage Equality, MCV, Michael Barnett, Politics, Queensland Pride, Robert Battisti, Same-Sex Marriage, Sarah Hanson-Young, Speech, SX
Comments (16)
C'mon Serkan Ozturk - you have written far more well researched pieces than this. I mean, to have Michael Barnett, a man I actually like, spout that "he had serious concerns about Gillard’s reasons for accepting the ACL’s invite" yet not even research and discuss what these reasons might be, diminishes the piece. And then we get the standard Greens rhetoric rolled out as informative comment. Please.
Lets see what the prime minister says when she enters the lions den. This feminist atheist has always supported the GLBTi community - remember back when no-one wanted anything to do with marriage and we had no rights in our defacto relationships?
Not all that long ago, Julia Gillard was part of the push that drove equality for defacto relationships, including our relationships, into Australian law. Today we have already won the many rights that LGBT people in the USA look at in wonderment. Rights which we already have without having the naming rights to "marriage" yet ones which US LGBT citizens cannot have until they have marriage. Funny: this distinction is never discussed by the Greens, or Michael Barnett (or by the partisan Alex Greenwhich and AME while he leads them, though that discussion is for a different time and place).
So lets see what the prime minister says and not judge her pre-emptively just because a few voices in our community, coupled with the partisan view that the Greens lobby-cum-political-party wants us to believe without any analysis.
And Serkan, please broaden your research and provide more and varied voices!
Oh what ALP bullshit. Gillard even voted to discriminate in private super for couples not married. We not even included in the Federal Equal Opportunity Act. You cannot change the fact Gillard is supporting a hate group no better then if she goes to a Klu Klux Klan rally.
We invite the Prime Minister Julia Gillard to jog through Musgrave Park Brisbane on pension day.
"Prime Minister Julia Gillard has shocked large sections of the LGBTI community"
She has? Any actually surveyed the LGBTI to see how many are "shocked" by this?
Here we go again! A 'one-off' person claiming to be a christian says that ACL do not represent the christian community. Well I have some news for the Baptist lady....WRONG! The ACL is supported by the vast majority of churches in this nation. Plucking out the odd person who makes bold statements does not make those statements true. You may not like the ACL but this slippery trick to push in the media that ACL represent only a minority is dishonest and sneaky. The activists journalism is so full of untruths that the rest of us cannot believe much of what is printed anymore....especially on here!
The ACL cult only has 57 facebook friends. Even the Victorian Council of churches asked for them not to speak on their behalf. They are an extremist cult built on a hate for humanity, nothing more and nothing less. They are anti-marriage, and are trying to destroy it. The majority of Christians in poll after poll do not follow the views of the cult and support marriage equality. So take your hate and your lies and swallow lemons.
Majority54, you are kidding right? The ACL platform has been clearly stated in their media releases and their responses to the senate inquiries into marriage equity, it is not just based on the ranting of the very senior people in ACL who have stated abhorrent things. the 120 number is from their press releases - a great summary of their obsession with fighting the gays is done on this blogg http://flourishandbloggs.com/2012/06/05/the-acls-bizarre-obsession-with-gay-people/
Majority54, if there really is this "vast majority", why are you only 54?
Why is anyone surprised by this news. She is such a hypocrite. For an atheist to follow the ACL is beneath contempt.
Julia Gillard has no integrity at all. She will do anything to stay in power, even sucking up to the ACL.
Make sure at the next election, much with our feet and get rid of her. Once and for all.
Like the church Julia Gillard is such a dissappointment in so many ways. Battle it out Australia - don't be pushed around by either!
The Prime Minister's doomed if she follows the path of the straight and narrow!
Wow, the 'community' sure shocks easily! (And quickly!)
It's not the first time the Prime Minister has spoke to this group.
What a douche
Gillard has put such a terrible darkness over Labor that no light can escape. Progressive politics is not lending support to those that incite hate and violence like the cult the Australian Christian Lobby, it is not about no religious freedom either. It is about removing discrimination, so all are treated equally and with respect. Poor Penny Wong, Gillard is supporting a cult who said the greatest threat to civilization was her then unborn baby.
Gillard has proven she has no moral compass, and our death is the price she will happily pay for her stay at the Lodge. Our community has lost many to suicides and gay bashings, and Labor will have many more killed, in their ugly quest to promote the hate cult, the Australian Christian Lobby, that the majority of Christians as the polls show, do not follow.
Is Julia Gillard perhaps an atheist of the Southern Baptist variety?