Australian Christian Lobby, LGB Alliance, One Nation Listed As Hate & Extremist Groups: Report
Image: Australian Neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell (left) and One Nation's Pauline Hanson.
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, anti-trans groups LGB Alliance and Binary Australia and the anti-LGBTQI Australian Christian Lobby are among the 20-odd organisations identified as ‘far-right and extremist groups’ by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE).
GPHAE is a US-based anti-violence global think-tank that was founded by veterans of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a prominent civil rights organisation in America. This is the group’s first such report that profiles far-right groups in Australia, and second in a series of country reports, after a similar report on Ireland was released in August 2022.
According to the GPAHE, a majority of the groups listed in its Australia report are “white nationalist, anti-immigrant, or anti-Muslim, but anti-LGBTQ+, anti-transgender, antisemitic, anti-women, and groups pushing conspiracy theories also made the list.”
US Bigotry Exported To Other Countries
The report terms the ACL, “Australia’s most well-known anti-LGBTQ+ group”, with stated positions against same-sex marriages, gay adoptions, Safe Schools, LGBTQI reforms and recently trans rights.
The anti-marriage equality group Marriage Alliance, the report said, was in 2018 rebranded as Binary Australia, “in preparation for its fight against rights and equality for transgender, gender diverse, and intersex Australians.”
According to GPAHE, the UK-based anti-trans group LGB Alliance’s Australia chapter has supported Jessica Hoyle’s case seeking exemption under Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination laws to hold some singe-sex events that would ban trans women.
GPAHE co-founder Heidi Beirich said in a statement that “the racism and bigotry that Trump unleashed in the US has influenced and emboldened that same sentiment as far away as Australia.”
Among the white supremacy groups listed in the report are Thomas Sewell’s neo-Nazi National Socialist Network, which recently targeted a drag performer at a youth festival in Melbourne.
‘Anti-LGBTQI Organisations Have Escaped Being Listed As Extremist Groups In Australia’
Tasmanian LGBTQI activist and Just-Equal founder Rodney Croome said that anti-LGBTQI groups in Australia have not faced the same consequences as other hate groups.
“There has been a reluctance in Australia to label anti-LGBTIQA+ and anti-trans groups like the Australian Christian Lobby, Binary and the LGB Alliance as hate or extremist groups despite that label being applied to racist and white supremacists groups,” Croome told Star Observer.
“This is because anti-LGBTIQA+ views are still seen as more acceptable than racism. That’s why it’s pleasing the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) identifying those groups for what they really are,” said Croome. “I hope this will encourage Australians to treat all hate and extremism the same regardless of who that hate and extremism is aimed at.”
Co-Convenor of the Victorian Pride Lobby, Nevena Spirovska said that hate speech and conduct have an impact on the community and listing these groups as hate groups “takes an important step towards calling out their transphobia and recognising them as dangerous”.
“Here in Victoria we know these kinds of views directly impact the mental health of trans and gender diverse people. We see it in the disproportionate rates of self-harm and suicide among these communities,” said Spirovska.
“Trans and gender diverse people should be able to live their lives free from discrimination. Yet anti-trans groups like LGB Alliance and the Australian Christian Lobby actively prevent this from happening by spouting harmful views,” added Spirovska.
Pauline Hansen and the other far right ideologies, aren’t they dying out?
It is a great article. However, when will the SSO start explaining to LGBTIQ+ people WHAT they can do about it if they care. Because I know that so many people DON’T know what to do to combat this. Since AIDS came along, we have lost so many of our allies and so much of our own people’s knowledge of what to do, and how, and how often etc.