Australian MP claims homosexuals stole the world ‘gay’ and now they’re coming for ‘marriage’
An Australian MP has accused homosexuals of ‘taking’ the word gay from straight people.
Australian MP Bob Katter, an opponent of same-sex marriage, made the claim in an interview with Sky News.
Ahead of a public vote on whether gay people should have the right to marry, Mr Kutter claimed that gay people were trying to ‘take’ the word ‘marriage’.
He said: “My position has always been very clear on this but I have a clearer picture what is going on here. Homosexual groupings in Australia, they took the word ‘gay’.
“It has a particular meaning to me because I got 84% in English, in matriculation, which was a very, very high mark indeed. I did a very good paper on [Alexander] Pope’s poem The Rape of the Lock, which says, ‘then Belinda smiled and all the world was gay’.
“It conjured up a beautiful image. It was the most beautiful word in the English, and they said, ‘oh good we’ll take that word and we’ll have it as ours!’
“‘Oh, they’ve got this thing called marriage, the other mob, we’ll take that too!’
Bob Katter (Photo by Stefan Postles/Getty Images)
“What else are they going to take? Are they going to take our freedom to say we don’t approve of what you’re doing?
“A lot of people don’t approve of what I’m doing, I love my guns and there’s an awful lot of people who disagree with that. You’ve got your right to disagree with me, and I’ve got my right to disagree with you over this particular issue. And I intend to.”
The MP continued: “I don’t want to go into the reasons why you want to discourage people going down this pathway, but they are very sad reasons.
“Some people may be born that way, but I don’t want them abrogating to themselves the right to take the most beautiful word in the English language and say oh now that’s mine! And then one of the most beautiful institutions in human history, they take that and say that’s mine.
“You want to have an arrangement of your own? Have an arrangement of your own. Call it what you like and pass laws and bless it for you, but don’t take it off us.
“That is what is happening here. They are taking it away from us, the same way they took away the most beautiful word in the English language from all of us, and they took it for themselves.”
Related: What the hell is going on with same-sex marriage in Australia?
Rather than challenge the homophobic remarks or the outright mistruths – despite Katter’s claims he also opposed civil unions for gay couples – Sky host Andrew Bolt thanked Mr Katter for his comments.
He said: “Bob, I can’t say that I agree that it’s sad to be gay, but I do agree with you certainly that there are issues of freedom of speech and thought and religion at stake here. Thank you so much for raising those.”
Mr Katter is a long-time opponent of LGBT rights.
He has come under fire for homophobia previously from his own half-brother, Carl Katter.
Carl Katter, also a politician, publicly came out as gay in 2011 in response to his half-brother’s homophobic comments at a Christian anti-gay rally.
He later laid into his half-brother over an anti-gay marriage TV attack ad.
