Gay rights groups urge Bill Shorten to declare LGBTI support at ACL conference

Gay rights groups urge Bill Shorten to declare LGBTI support at ACL conference

FEDERAL Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is being urged by gay rights groups to re-affirm the Labor Party’s support for same-sex marriage at an Australian Christian Lobby conference.

The ACL confirmed yesterday that Shorten would deliver the keynote speech at the ACL 2014 National Conference in October.

Australian Marriage Equality national director Rodney Croome wants the ALP leader to use this opportunity to explain to the ACL why both he and his party support marriage equality.

“Bill Shorten should remind the ACL conference that, like the majority of Australians, including Australian Christians, he supports marriage equality, and explain why the reform matters,” Croome said in a media release.

“As someone who has voted to give equal recognition and protection to same-sex parents and their children, I’d also like to see him explain that love and not gender makes a family.”

Human Rights Law Centre advocacy director and Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby co-convenor Anna Brown shared Croome’s views.

“This is an opportunity for Mr Shorten to promote the benefits of diversity and equality,” she said.

“We would expect Mr Shorten to prosecute the ALP’s position on marriage equality as robustly as Kevin Rudd did prior to the federal election.”

Although critical of the ACL, Brown highlighted its previous support in removing past barriers to equality for same-sex couples.

However, she urged Liberal MPs to distance themselves from the World Congress of Families (WCF), which has a far more extreme anti-gay stance.

Last week, news emerged that Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark and Federal Minister for Social Services would address the WCF conference next month. The WCF is a controversial “pro-family” group from the US that actively campaigns against the decriminalisation of homosexuality and abortion laws.

“The presence of multiple Liberal MPs, including two senior ministers, at the World Congress of Families, without clearly distancing the Government from the WCF’s more extreme anti-gay, anti-abortion agenda, is a much more concerning proposition,” Brown said.

“While the ACL actively campaigns against certain gay rights, they have also supported reforms that removed discrimination against same-sex couples in Medicare, inheritances, superannuation and social security.”

The ACL has been a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage and LGBTI rights in general, and the group is urging its followers to make submissions to a Senate inquiry into the Greens’ proposal for foreign same-sex marriages to be recognised by Australian law.

ACL Managing Director, Lyle Shelton, released a statement last week that dismissed recent polls that showed an overwhelming majority of Australians now support marriage equality.

“The debate Australia has been having about changing the definition of marriage has been very shallow,” Shelton said.

“We need to be careful that we don’t get caught up in a popular culture wave that leaves our nation, and most importantly children, with unintended consequences.”

The poll by Crosby/Textor found that 72 per cent support legislation for same-sex marriages, and that 72 per cent want Coalition MPs to have a conscience vote on the issue.

Newspoll reinforced these findings with its own poll, which showed 68 per cent of Australians in favour of marriage equality.

In 2012, Prime Minister Julia Gillard was forced to cancel her appointment as keynote speaker at the ACL 2012 National Conference following uproar from the LGBTI community over comments made by then-leader Jim Wallace comparing the homosexual “lifestyle” to the hazardous effects of smoking.

 

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5 responses to “Gay rights groups urge Bill Shorten to declare LGBTI support at ACL conference”

  1. Labor siding with the ACL – you have to be kidding me right?!

    If I was a politician I would introduce a private members bill to declare the ACL as a hate group that has to pay tax – just like a corporation or company!

    ACL have way too much influence and power on Government marriage policy regardless of whether it is Labor, Liberal or the Greens – they are all the same!

    This is one of the reasons why all Labor, Liberal, Greens have all lost my vote!

    Vote 1 Australian Sex Party (ASP)!

  2. Can not believe Bill Shorten is going to address these Homophobic misfits. The ACL so called Director refuses to accept polls overwhelmingly supporting gay marriage so why would they be remotely interested in what the ALP thinks or supports?
    The ACL’s total silence regarding the Royal Commission on Sexual Abuse speaks volumes about their caring Christian attitude !

  3. I lived homophobia, had someone try to kill me, in the name of Jesus, of course. I have lived enough to see the pain of others die, from suicide, some from hate crimes. I have seen some of us just self destruct. Life can be real tough. Those who hate us, who continue to cause pain and misery, do not need the financial and personal support from Labor leader Bill Shorten. More of us have died then all the Australians in the Afghanistan war. Where is our memorial? I had thought Labor had moved on from a deeply ugly past. No more of us need to die, but sadly I believe more will while Labor supports those who seek to make our birth a punishment.

  4. Labor has always been a party that bigots call family. Labor is a roadside dirty toilet when you are in a hurry with those crazy waves of stomach pain, only you find no toilet paper and shit all over. They supported the White Australia Policy for years. No binding vote on equality, just a bit of dog whistling to GLBTI Australians on marriage. I mean it is 2014, and the Labor leadership is on all fours grovelling to the Christian Lobby for a mini bus of votes. This is pathetic and viscous leadership, from a man who has policies to treat GLBTI people second class citizens. I mean come on, using your public office to promote hate against GLBTI Australians is evil, what other conclusion could we make from turning up as the speaker for a group who gets all throffy about two men kissing. At this rate, the Klu Klux Klan will call upon Bill. It is not just the marriage vote, where no binding vote exist, the big smell is also coming from the billions given to religious business to run government services, giving them a right to use tax payers money to hate, to sack people, or not employ them at all. No job security for thousands of good Australians from Bill Shorten because Labor is a dirty toilet, at least that is what he is promoting as leader- Labor is troll material.

    I like some of the Labor Party team, but a fish stinks from its head first. Bill Shorten is a bit of shocker. This is the same Catholic commando who supports the Catholic SDA Union, and the senator Joe Bullock, who demolished his fellow senator on the basis of sexuality in WA. The party dumped her to number two on the senate ticket, and Joe got it, but Pratt did not. The SDA Union are an important part of his factional power. Labor cannot deliver equality, not now, not ever. It is broken with Unions choosing the leader, not rank and file members. A big FU to democracy in the Labor party. The ordinary members who love Australia, chose Albo when given a chance. But a big FU to them eh? Even Malcolm Turnbull, Clem Newton-Brown, and other Liberals, make Bill look like a side-kick of Tony Abbott.

    I know, it is a choice of shit your pants or vote Labor, but just up the road, a few more minutes away, is a Greens toilet, clean, free and it does not do the damage to the community Labor does with their shitty mess everywhere. The Liberal toilet is great, but charges tolls, and vending machine for tissues is broken.

  5. iTS POLITICS. Labor was in power for 7 underwhelming years. It squandered a generous mandate from the Australian ppl. We now have federal anti discrimination laws thanks to labor that legally protect and exempt the major discriminators from tax payer funded social services public outreach schools hospitals and shelters which at the same time have been known child abusers with daily grueling accounts of what these religious organizations did over the years with Royal commission and continue to do now while taking taxpayer money and being allowed to legally discriminate…thanks to labor. Labor with the greens had the numbers to pass a very simple piece of legislation. I wouldnt hold my breath with tricky bill shorten and the ACL……the fact that he is key note speaker to these ppl, tells you everything…..