Christine Forster reveals insight into life as Tony Abbott’s lesbian sister
Image: Christine Forster (left) is a Liberal councillor for City of Sydney and the lesbian sister of Prime Minister Tony Abbott (right), who opposes marriage equality.
CITY of Sydney councillor and self-confessed “regular lesbian about town” Christine Forster has opened up about her personal life and relationship with her brother Prime Minister Tony Abbott in an interview with SBS 2’s The Feed.
Forster, who met her partner Virginia Edwards in 2003 where they both had sons attending the same school, said publicly coming out was a big decision.
“We were both married, and that meant we had to make very difficult decisions about our husbands and what that meant for our children,” she told SBS journalist and Mardi Gras TV co-host Patrick Abboud.
Forster said that when she came out, out of all her immediate family members, Abbott was the most supportive.
“People raise their eyebrows when I tell them this but it’s the honest truth,” she said.
“When I told him what was going on his response was ‘whatever you think you have to do I will support you’.”
Despite this, Abbott continues to oppose legislating marriage equality in Australia despite his lesbian sister.
Forster defended her brother’s views, saying Abbott does see her relationship with Edwards as valid. It just didn’t come under his umbrella of the institution of marriage.
“He sees… the legal definition of marriage as it was historically, he sees it that it has to be between a man and women,” Forster said.
“I think he’s wrong, but he’s entitled to his view.”
Forster, mother to four children, said that she came out later in her life due to an inability to come out when she was younger.
“I grew up in an environment where there was never any opportunity for me to pursue a same-sex relationship, it wasn’t something that was ever even considered remotely,” she recalled.
Virginia Edwards, Forster’s partner, said she felt proud that she and Christine could be a voice for the gay community.
“Families come in all shapes and sizes and they’re aren’t any conventions and nor should there be,” she said.
Watch the The Feed’s story:
who is this non person and why am i expected to care what she has to say ? oh, she has a homophobic , soon to be ex-prime minister as a brother…
he sure likes to parade his female parts every time he gets in a pickle,doesn’t he ?
Christine, tell Tony that you wish to marry your partner. Will he support you then by allowing a conscience vote in his party for gay marriage? I bet he won’t. There’s nothing liberal about the Liberal party. Totally false advertising. Should be renamed the Conservative party.
Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party will always be the “50 shades of bigotry”!
Please in the NSW Election Vote 1 Sex Party!
How come Julia Gillard didn’t get all this vitriol when she failed to lead her party and vote for marriage equality? Not making excuses for Abbott but questioning the reactions of people.
Julia Gillard is against gay marriage because she’s probably a closeted lesbian. Look at all the news about ministers, priests and others who are outspoken against gays. They have been exposed to be secretly having gay liaisons or molesting young boys. They think they can throw everyone off the scent by not being supportive. Others, like Tony Abbott have been brainwashed by their religion.
If only her brother could have stuck to his core values as prime minister instead of being a shady puppet. Thanks for being the lesbian sister to a footnote, you won’t be remembered, except in jest sadly.
I feel for Christine if her brother was her biggest supporter. It says more about the rest of her family than her brother IMHO
Marriage equality is Labor policy. We will not have it while the Liberal Party is in power. Much as I disagree with their policy, I can’t blame Chris for defending her brother much as I dislike him and his government.
Chris obviously does support marriage equality and that is what this story is about.
He may have been supportive of her behind closed doors, but publicly he has not shown any kind of support of gays in the community. I’m not going to forget the fact that he wants to take rights away from us just because he told his sister he supported her when she came out.
Shows he believes in family. No surprise. He’s religious. God told him to be supportive. He’s still an idiotic, imbecilic, lying twat in my opinion.
An Abbott by any other name is still an Abbott. Christine Forster has no ethics and no conscience. the bullshit that is the destruction of the One Vote One Value principle for Sydney Council residents says it all. She is not our friend and neither is her party.
This is just to make him looking good Christine. He must be so desperate to have to go public about his support for your coming out. However your bro is a looser.
poor, poor christine, my heart goes out to you…perhaps you could counsel Tony to get out NOW!
Thats because girls need the support of big strong men…puke
This is cheap publicity for Tony Abbott’s bad popularity…Liberal would do better to change now….even his Abbottism aren’t funny….this is cheap cheap cheap.
CPPL
In one breath the man is saying I have nothing against gays and in the next breath he is saying I don’t believe that you should be treated equally. The hypocrisy is breath taking. Tony is trying to use his own sister for political points and I can’t believe she is to stupid to see it.
Everyehere I travel around the world , people are surprised that our country hasn’t passed Marriage Equality laws.
Furthermore when I show him our p.m , they all think he’s an extremist including the right wing and conservative citizens
I would have liked to have seen some background on her father and mother that created an environment where these conservative views were instilled in the family
That would have been much more insightful