ACL head claims pedophiles mostly gay

ACL head claims pedophiles mostly gay

By Andrew Potts

The Australian Christian Lobby’s Jim Wallace has claimed that gay men are overwhelmingly to blame for child abuse in churches and schools.
Wallace made the claims, which were caught on film, inside NSW Parliament during a forum on internet censorship in September, hosted by the Fellowship of the Round Table.
The Fellowship holds events in Parliament’s Jubilee Room three times a year and Wallace had attended to debate the issue with speakers from the NSW Greens and the Australian Sex Party.
When an audience member compared the lack of pedophilia in the Australian adult film industry to hundreds of cases involving clergy, Wallace shot back, “Some of you won’t like this but this is fact, OK.”
“The churches who have been the victims of this have had a policy where they do not accept homosexuals as part of their clergy.
“Yet in Australia over 70 percent of the offences have been committed by homosexual clergy …. the church would have not admitted [these people] into positions of authority had they known about their sexual preference.”
The ACL head claimed this figure was as high as 90 percent in American churches and that gay men were the majority of offenders elsewhere in the community.
“The sort of figures that we’re talking about here are also replicated in schools, in all sorts of places which are not churches.”
Wallace’s comments upset several in the audience, including a woman who asked if Wallace was able to cite studies supporting his claim.
“I can, actually. I don’t have them here with me now but yes there are. Many, many,” Wallace said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will address the Australian Christian Lobby’s national convention next month.
According to the ABS Personal Safety Survey 2005, girls are nearly three times more likely to be sexually abused in Australia than boys.
According to Living Well, an online resource for male victims of sexual abuse, supported by the Queensland Government, around 20 percent of male victims are molested by women.
Research has consistently shown that few men who molest boys identify as homosexual or gay.
Wallace was contacted for comment but did not reply before going to print.

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18 responses to “ACL head claims pedophiles mostly gay”

  1. Jim Wallace and the Australian Christian Lobby run Kevin Rudd like a robot.

    A vote for Labor is a vote of an increase in suicide amongst our community.

    Vote Green and put Labor last on the ballot card. They are the only party that does not offer hate groups a platform. Jim Wallace and Kevin Rudd are both Monsters.

  2. One thing that all sex offenders have in common is that they are deeply religious.
    In Australia this means predominantly christian, but doesn’t exclude other faiths.
    What is it about religion that causes sexual deviant behaviour?

  3. And men who assault male children are not gay, they are paedophiles. Paedophilia does not necessarily have to do with gender, or even with sex. It is about power, as is all non-consensual sex.

  4. “its idiots like this that need to move with time”. Um, no- Jim Wallace actually has almost full control over Kevin Rudd on many issues, including equal civil marriage, through to overturning ceremonies in the A.C.T.- just check out his website http://www.acl.org.au & go to press releases, to check out how his high pressure press releases coincide with Rudd doing his bidding days later on many watershed issues that involve the gay community (possibly his biggest obsession, and certainly one that has given his ACL group relevance & political traction to grow to the size it has now).

  5. One generalisation is unfortunately true. The majority of child molesters are men and in numbers out of proportion to the percentage of men in the population (I think men are just under 50 percent in Australia).

    Wallace chose not to make that generalisation because it would question assumptions about male sexuality. Child molesters assume they have the absolute right to have sex with whomever they choose. But they can’t find a willing partner so they go for a powerless, unwilling partner (and they convince themselves their underage quarry gave consent). This strokes their egos but doesn’t undo the damage.

    Wallace and his ilk will always sidestep issues around sexual privilege and avoid asking why so many men are paedophiles. Like all religious fanatics, the ACL will make unsubstantiated allegations about gays because that is much more comfortable than the cold, hard facts.

  6. Why hasn’t this made the main stream media? Also,I wonder what Mr Rudd’s opinion would be if was questioned on Wallace’s accusations, after all, Krudd will be their guest speaker.

  7. Anybody who wants to watch the full forum can watch it here:

    http://vimeo.com/6812474

    Video courtesy of cw.

    If you are looking for the part where he said this statement it is towards the end during the questions. May take a while to load but is quite a good debate for anyone interested.

  8. ““I can, actually. I don’t have them here with me now but yes there are. Many, many,” Wallace said.”

    You can’t make a statement in a debate, claim to have supporting material, but then not be able to present it. All the debate floor then becomes is a forum for hate mongering. This idiot should be refused permission to attend any more debates until he actually gets his act together. He either presents the material or proper source refernces, not just claims that he has them, anybody can claim anything that way. of course most of us are not that unethical, strange how he is supposed to represent the good side (well in his opinion anyway).

  9. Straight dude here but man Jimbo’s an idiot. Almost too stupid for words.
    The sooner the ACL and their ilk are committed to Mental Health Facilities the better off we’ll all be.

  10. No Jim, *priests* are overwhelmingly to blame for child abuse in churches and schools. The blind eye turned by the rest of the clergy are overwhelmingly to blame for child abuse in churches and schools. Don’t try to obfuscate that by blaming a massive demographic.

  11. Don’t know why Wallace sounds so confident about the churches anti-homosexual policy. It clearly hasn’t been working. Maybe if they had an anti-pedophilia policy there might be an improvement. Thinking one equates with the other is contributing to the problem. Also blaming gay men doesn’t let the churches off the hook There are many instances where senior church figures knew abuse happening but they did nothing (or very little) to stop it or help the victims. Remember when former Archbishop, Peter Hollingworth, had to resign as Governor-General?
    http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/25/1053801270646.html

  12. Crazy, girls are far more likely to suffer abuse as children. A study from the 1950’s claimed that on the North Coast of NSW up to 1 in 3 girls had suffered sexual abuse; but because this is within families, close relatives or friends, it is hushed up. I would not imagine much has changed in isolated communities. This is not to defend those that abuse any child, there is no excuse, sexual preference has nothing to do with pedophilia.

  13. I was the person who asked Wallace the question. As the public officer of the Australian Sex Party I have to say he looked like a man who had rehearsed his answer quite a bit and had thought of a way to deflect religious dogma from the paedophile priest issue. This statement from Wallace marks a serious departure in the way the church deals with the issue and the logical conclusion from this is that they will increasingly attack the gay lobby for child sexual abuse. The fact that Rudd is prepared to address their AGM later this year is also and also indication of where his interpretations of clergy abuse lie.

  14. This is not news but research indicates that members of the Australian Christian(?!) Lobby are mostly arseholes and sleazebags. But that’s not my main concern. My major gripe is that the Prime Minister addresses ACL functions. He’s done so on a number of occasions.

    I’d like to know how many times Kevin Rudd has attended conferences of the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby and the Australian Coalition for Equality. And if Rudd hasn’t been invited, then it’s high time gay organisations started putting him on the spot and asking why he won’t meet with them to discuss our concerns.

  15. this guy has just made my blood boil.how dare he say, that we, as gay men are pedaphiles. just because i fall in love with men not females, that does not make me a bad person. its idiots like this that need to move with time, we will rise, and overcome homophobes and falsely informed jerks like this. let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

  16. Deluded arch-conservative religionist regurgitates false contemptuous drivel. How unusual.

    For declaring his wrong opinion a fact and taking a clumsy rain check when challenged to stump up proof, the belated Fallacious Abrahamic Twit of the Week Award (FATWA) for September goes to Jim Wallace.

    Whereas the October FATWA goes to that other notorious anti-homosexual Danny Nalliah ( http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26197992-421,00.html ) for his hysterical claims of a “black mass altar” at Mount Ainslie in Canberra and “dark forces wanting to cast spells on Australia and federal Parliament”, among other things.

    Send a signal to these silly billies that their irrelevant lies will no longer be quietly tolerated. Demand that their compulsory religious prayer be removed from the Aussie Parliament (per http://www.gopetition.com.au/online/30819.html & http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49611362120 ).