Category: LGBTIQ+
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies responds to Loree Rudd’s “Gay Gestapo” comment
July 15, 2011
“NSW Jewish Board of Deputies Chief Executive Officer Vic Alhadeff has condemned the use of Nazi analogy to condemn the gay-marriage lobby by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd’s sister, Loree Rudd, who has slammed them as the “global gay Gestapo”.“Drawing a comparison between advocates of gay marriage and the Gestapo is insensitive and counterproductive,” Alhadeff said. “The thoughtless use of Nazi and Holocaust analogies in intelligent and informed discourse is completely inappropriate and unjustified.”Vic AlhadeffChief Executive Officer
ACL backs gay Nazi claim | Star Online
Jewish Gays denounce Loree Rudd’s Nazi inferences | J-Wire
MEDIA RELEASE: Loree Rudd must apologise for ‘Gay Gestapo’ comment / Gay Holocaust victims outraged and horrified
AUSTRALIAN MARRIAGE EQUALITY
Media ReleaseThursday July 14th 2011LOREE RUDD MUST APOLOGISE FOR ‘GAY GESTAPO’ COMMENTGAY HOLOCAUST VICTIMS OUTRAGED AND HORRIFIEDAustralia’s marriage equality advocates have asked for an apology from Loree Rudd, sister for former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, following her statement that marriage equality is being pushed by “a global gay gestapo”.Australian Marriage Equality National Convener, Alex Greenwich, said Ms Rudd’s statement has no place in mature public debate and will incite hatred against supporters of equality.“We call on those who oppose equality to condemn Ms Rudd’s outburst, and for Ms Rudd herself to withdraw her comments and apologise for them”, Mr Greenwich said.“Ms Rudd has set back her cause by comparing supporters of civil rights to an organisation that was responsible for mass murder, including the mass murder of homosexuals.”Loree Rudd’s comments were also criticised by gay Australians affected by the Holocaust.Holocaust survivor, Mr Frederick Weisinger, who lives in Sydney and who wrote a moving submission supporting marriage equality to a 2009 Senate inquiry into the issue said:“I spent three years in a concentration camp as a child, and I am horrified by this comparison between the Gestapo and ordinary citizens like me who just want to be treated equally.”“Before she makes such offensive comments, Ms Rudd should read about the horrors perpetrated by the Gestapo, particularly how it hounded, persecuted and killed homosexuals in large numbers.”Marriage equality advocate, Jackie Striker-Phelps, who is the wife of former AMA President, Kerryn Striker-Phelps, was also outraged.“During the Second World War, members of my family had their human rights taken away and were murdered at the hands of the Gestapo”, she said“To compare the work of today’s human right’s advocates to the atrocities of those monsters is a shocking indictment on anyone making these claims.”“I call them (marriage equality advocates) the global gay Gestapo: it is the lobbying movement that is brainwashing people, particularly the young in the community that this (homosexuality) is an optional extra in life,” she saidMr Greenwich added, “there is nothing ‘optional’ about being gay, it is who we are”.For more information contact Alex Greenwich on 0421 316 335.Frederick Weisinger or Jackie Stricker-Phelps can be contacted through Alex Greenwich.
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Support for gays, Hamas at NY’s LGBT Center sparks fury | JPost
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Time to stop the in-fighting | AJN Letters
8 Jul 2011
The Australian Jewish News Melbourne editionTime to stop the in-fighting
JUDAISM on gay marriage – yes or no – can wait; I’m fascinated with Peter Cohen’s implicit support for all things natural – “Could God be behind such a cruel joke?” ( AJN 24/06).
Science also points to genes that naturally predispose humans to anger or violence. If proven, the implications are many. Yet, since when does humankind decide right and wrong based on what the penguin fraternity are up to? Are we merely animals or something more?
As for his swipe at Orthodoxy, and praise for Progressives – let’s for a moment drop the term thrust upon traditional Jews by Reform 250 years ago to make everyone else look irredeemably anachronistic. Judaism was inherently progressive, inclusive, innovative and societally savvy. Just that we’ve seen less and less of this Judaism for oh – about 300 years (except, curiously, in the Sephardi world). What Judaism has neglected to explain is that Jewish laws are like formulae: the inputs to variables change with the times; only the formulae are rigid.
As Judaism gradually stops Woody Allening over slippery slopes and competing movements, we will again occupy ourselves as to how to keep members of the community “in”, rather than “bad” people “out” – and words like Orthodox and Progressive can all safely go the way of the dodo.
MICHAEL SASSOON
Bondi, NSW