News articles

AUSTRALIAN MARRIAGE EQUALITY

Media Release

Thursday July 14th 2011

 

LOREE RUDD MUST APOLOGISE FOR ‘GAY GESTAPO’ COMMENT

GAY HOLOCAUST VICTIMS OUTRAGED AND HORRIFIED

 

Australia’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.” 

 

In today’s edition of The Australian, Loree Rudd is quoted as saying:

 

“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 said

 

Mr 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.