Candidate labelled ‘pro-sodomite’ for gay marriage support

A senate candidate for Queensland has been attacked by a church group for supporting gay marriage.

Independent candidate for Queensland Peter Pyke said he received an email from the Granite Belt Baptist Church in Stanthorpe on August 12, calling him a “pro-sodomite” for his stance.

“Your party looked half decent until I saw that you are pro-sodomite,” an email allegedly from Granite Belt Baptist Church said.

Pyke told Southern Star Observer he was surprised by the response.

“This is 2010, really it’s time Australia came out of the dark ages.

“This is an issue of equality and the right of people to marry is one of them.”

Pyke said he believed most Australians were tolerant and ready to “take the step towards [gay] marriage.”

“It’s only the homophobes and bigots who are  in religion who are holding Australia back,” he said.

“I’m worried that these [views] may be masking more deep-seated homophobia.”

Known as an anti-corruption campaigner, Pyke is founder of a new centrist party, the Republican Democrats, and a former police sergeant in Queensland Police.

Pyke said it wasn’t until the early ’80s after having a lesbian police partner his own views on gay and lesbian people changed.

An online party biography of Pyke states as a police officer in the ’70s and ’80s he didn’t tolerate “the then-widespread bashing by Queensland police of gay men and Aboriginal Australians”.