Labor targeting gay voters with Grindr ads

The Labor Party will tonight launch an advertising campaign on gay hookup app Grindr that highlights the Liberal Party’s problems with homophobia.

The campaign will reportedly focus on Liberal candidates Gurpal Singh, who recently apologised for past comments linking homosexuality to paedophilia, and Gladys Liu, who has spoken out against Safe Schools and claimed the Chinese community doesn’t accept gender diversity, according to the Herald Sun.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has in recent weeks publicly defended both candidates in spite of their past anti-LGBTI comments.

Singh commented in a 2017 interview ahead of the marriage equality plebiscite that same-sex marriage was “an issue of paedophilia”, adding that there would be “very serious” consequences for children of same-sex parents.

“When they grow up, how they will reconcile to the situation is beyond comprehension,” he said.

Liu has campaigned against the anti-bullying Safe Schools program, claiming it is “teaching our children homosexual ideas and practice” and calling for a stop to “stealing our children from our own culture and values”.

In a 2016 interview she claimed that parents in the Chinese community were opposed to trans acceptance and inclusivity, which she said would “destroy” a generation.

“A lot of Chinese parents they just do not agree with letting boys go into a girls’ toilet. They strongly oppose the Safe Schools program,” Liu said.

“Not only toilets, it’s also the crossdressing, the introduction of transgender—this is something they found difficult to accept, especially to primary aged children.

“The second thing is same sex marriage, now that is kind of connected to the first one, that is their belief that same-sex marriage is against normal practice.

“The Chinese people come to Australia because they want good education for their children, good environment, they want good things for their next generation, not to be destroyed—they use the word destroyed—by these sort of concepts of same-sex, transgender, intergender, crossgender and all this rubbish.”

Labor’s Grindr ads will be visible to users in Singh and Liu’s Melbourne electorate areas.