Tony Abbott to give speech to “anti-LGBTI hate group”
Image: Tony Abbott. Image: Tony Abbott / Facebook.
Vocal “No” campaigner and former Prime Minister Tony Abbott will give a lecture to an American organisation that has supported the re-criminalisation of homosexuality.
The Christian group, known as the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), has scheduled Abbott to speak to the group about his opposition to marriage equality, the Australian Financial Review has reported.
Established in 1994, the ADF has suggested that homosexuality and paedophilia are “instrinsically linked”, has advocated for the validity of conversion therapy, and routinely tries to roll back abortion rights.
The ADF has also defended state-sanctioned sterilisation of trans people abroad and applauded India’s 2013 ruling re-criminalising gay sex with an up to 10 year prison term.
The Southern Poverty Law Centre, American civil rights advocacy group, has designated the ADF an “anti-LGBTI hate group”.
A spokesperson for Abbott said, “Mr Abbott is honoured to have been invited by the ADF to reiterate his well-known position that advocates for same sex marriage must demonstrate how – in their brave new world – freedom of speech, freedom of religion and parental choice will be protected.”
The trip is reportedly being paid for with private funding and will be declared “in the usual way”.
According to its website, the ADF believes “legal system, which was built on a moral and Christian foundation, had been steadily moving against religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family,” mirroring the rhetoric used by Abbott to advocate for a No vote.
The ADF is currently defending a Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding in 2012.
Abbott also addressed the anti-LGBTI hate group last year, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull saying he “respects” Abbott’s right to speak to the group.
Former South Australian Greens Senator Robert Simms condemned the speech last year, saying “Legitimising hate speech that ruins people’s lives.”
“By sharing the rostrum with these bigots and homophobes, Mr Abbott is legitimising their hateful agenda.”
Yeah, there is this dude named Tony Abbott who is behaving in an un Australian manor. While he was born outside Australia and most would consider his conduct grounds for deportation back to britain for his unAustralian conduct, myself initially a firm believer he should be kicked from the back of a hercules aircraft over london without a parachute, I realize that the only way forward is to recognize everyone in the world as an Australian and expect them to do better.
Seriously. What could Margie, his daughters, and Christine see in this man that’s excusable?
Just an eccentric husband/father/brother?
The downward spiral of this pathetic man just continues. He is irrelevant and bitter and toxic. I just feel for his family. They clearly are the only ones that could love him. Seeing him now, I just shudder to think what he will be like in 10 years time – bitterness will blunt his views even further and what a tired and lonely old man he is going to be. In my lifetime I have not known a political figure to loathed and hated as this man. Irrelevant.
As it is now accepted that a plebiscite is a legal way of commenting on others lives and changing the law.
We now need to have a plebiscite about making religious organisations pay tax.
This multi billion dollar industry wants to control secular life without contributing to society’s costs. They rape children’s minds and bodies, steal money from the gullible to fund an extravagant lifestyle, live in palaces, swan around dispensing moral justice, etc.
They even get our tax money to pay for the indoctrination of children at their schools.
They have no moral, spiritual or social authority.
Extraordinary, one can only hope that in addressing the ADF they decide to keep him there. Should be invaluable to them as he displays a lot of hate. It’s more than likely he wont have a seat to return too in Australia.