This politician thinks same-sex marriage will lead to people marrying bridges

An Australian senator has claimed same-sex marriage will lead to people marrying inanimate objects.

The comments come from Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz, who has long opposed LGBT rights.

The conservative politician’s history of homophobic comments were exposed on live television earlier this week, prompting outrage from many.

Now the anti-gay rights activist has told BuzzFeed News that equal rights for gay couples will lead to men marrying bridges.

Quizzed about his claims that inanimate objects could be entered into weddings, a journalist asked the senator if it would lead to people marrying the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

“Look, I would like to think that that is taking the argument to the limit, but the issue is if we are judging this solely on a person’s view of what love is to them, and people [ask] me, ‘how can you judge somebody else’s love?’, then I think you’ve got to accept that love is love and that’s the slogan,” he said.

Senator Abetz is a senior right-winger, having served as Leader of Malcolm Turnbull’s Government in the Senate.

The senior politician later added: “And indeed, that was the, I think very cogent argument of the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, chief justice Roberts, in his dissenting judgement where he pointed out that once you remove that vital element of it being a man/woman thing, and you just say love is love etc, then basically you open the floodgates to anything.”

He previously claimed that marriage equality should remain illegal because people who aren’t straight can become straight.

He told Sky News: “The reality is, and evidence has been given to the Senate Committees, where people who have been in gay relationships have then gone into heterosexual relationships and I believe that can happen, courtesy of the evidence.

Asked by the stunned host if gay people should ‘try’ to be straight, he said: “Look, it is up to the individual as to what they want to be and how they want to express themselves. That is up to them in a free society.”

He insisted: “I think we all know people that have been in a straight relationship that have gone into a gay relationship, and people doing the opposite.

“The fact that both occur within our society is established fact and why we can’t report on the two-way traffic is something that has bemused me somewhat and I think it’s indicative of certain bias in the media that they only want one side of the equation spoken about.”

Mr Abetz also lashed out at business leaders for pressing the government to make progress on equal marriage.

His brother Peter Abetz, also a politician, has compared same-sex parenting to stealing children from Aborigines.

• Nov 29 2023

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