Not enough gay couples for marriage equality: Mark Latham

Not enough gay couples for marriage equality: Mark Latham
Image: Mark Latham. Image: file photo.

MARK Latham has claimed there is no need for marriage equality in Australia because we don’t have enough gay couples.

Drawing on the results of the 2016 census, the former Labor party leader made the comments in a new video on conservative media site Rebel Media, Out in Perth has reported.

“The numbers don’t lie,” Latham said.

“The truth is in Australia we’ve got just 47,000 same-sex couples, so why the big national debate? The big national obsession in the political system with same-sex marriage?”

Lathan said important political issues are sidelined because of the “dominance of the same-sex lobby”.

He also called Safe Schools a “Marxist gender theory program”, and claimed it is unnecessary because only 1,300 gender diverse people exist in Australia.

The figure of 1,300 refers to the number of people who entered a gender other than male or female on last year’s census.

Latham singled out trans people as the focus of the Safe Schools and Respectful Relationships programs, though both are aimed at all students.

“We have got to get rid of Safe Schools in all Australians schools, in all Australian states, in recognition that it’s such a small issue, with such as small part of the population,” he said.

Latham last week tweeted that all gay people work for the media, later claiming that they are “consistently pushing a militant gay left line out of step with mainstream public opinion”.

Earlier this year he made headlines after calling a schoolboy gay on television.

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10 responses to “Not enough gay couples for marriage equality: Mark Latham”

  1. Thats not what he said. Why manipulate it what he said – Mark Latham said for anyone that wants to listen is that there is only 47,000 same sex couples in Australia yet same sex marriage is taking all the narrative there is other important issues that need to be discussed as well

  2. Why does anyone, including those neo-fascist conservative rags and web sites, which almost no-one, other than homophobes like Mark Latham, Tony Abbott, Cory Bernardi and other trash, ever bother to read or view, persist in giving oxygen to this failed ALP Leader?
    The Census is just a snapshot of Australia, though the ABS would like us all to be totally honest, many of us simply do not trust the process as today, thanks to homophobic bastards like Fred Nile, Tony Abbott, Bernardi and this twit Latham, many a fearful that their private information will be stolen, hacked and leaked to our employers and we will ,lose our jobs.
    How about that other homophobe, former cricketer, Bill Lawry and his comments about Australian International Cricketers who went to Prince Alfred College in Adelaide being a bunch of “Crocheting, knitting, poofters”? Many, incidentally, became far better cricketers than Lawry ever was.
    Well, Billy old boy, there are a few old adages – many as old as yourself, which could/should be applied to you!
    “It Takes one to know one”, “The Pot calling the Kettle black”
    How do you know that about PAC students, Bill.? Were you one of them?
    The Human Rights Commission should charge him with inciting Hate.

  3. I have to give Latham this: his argument is a first. Not enough gay couples to marry? The problem is, even if there were only one gay couple who wanted equal rights, it would be enough. Also, he says numbers don’t like, and according to the census he says only 47,000 gay couple reside in Australia. Well, how much is enough? 47,000 couples would be denied equality under his argument.

  4. He was always a whacko – but over recent times I thought he had started to grow up- how wrong I was… What Mr Latham doesn’t realise, is that the census gave us only a minuscule sampling overall because many of us for our own reasons did not identify as being “gay couples.”

  5. An opinion on what members of same-sex couples want, why who better to ask than Mark ‘schoolboys are gay’ Latham.

    It’s a pity his husband’s opinions are not also quoted. Oh that’s right Mark is ‘discreet’.

  6. Latham makes me sick. His argument is bullshit. He’s perfectly happy for tens of thousands of Australians to be denied equal civil rights because…. he can’t say. Latham of course backed in Howard’s amendments to the Marriage Act in 2004. Why? If there are too few gay folks to worry about, why did he support that vote? There were less gay couples then than now, surely that was just a storm in a teacup by Latham logic? Ah, because that was about gay-bashing, Latham loves anything involving bashing.

    Latham is so hateful that he’s incapable of any logical consistency. If you apply entirely different logic to why it’s okay to deny people rights than why people should have their rights advanced, you’re a bigot.

    Also, what the hell is a Marxist gender theory? Marx wrote many books, articles and letters about economics and politics and I’m yet to find any reference in his writings to non-binary gender identification.