Australian anti-LGBT Liberal Gurpal Singh will soon appear on Grindr
The Labor Party’s Grindr advert featuring Gurpal Singh. (ABC/Getty)
The Australian Labor Party is to run adverts against anti-LGBT+ Liberal candidate Gurpal Singh on the gay dating app Grindr ahead of a federal election on May 18.
A screenshot of the advertisement published by ABC shows a photo of Singh above the headline “Liberal candidate linked same-sex marriage to paedophilia.”
Singh, a lawyer who is running for the safe Labor seat of Scullin, Melbourne, made the comments in 2017 while campaigning against the introduction of marriage equality.
“Here we are doing something that is against nature,” he told SBS Radio in October 2017.
“Here we are doing something that is against nature.”
—Gurpal Singh, Liberal Party candidate
“Marriage is a legalisation of a sexual relationship between two persons which is male and female predominantly for the reason of progeny and there is no progeny in a gay or lesbian relationship.”
Gurpal Singh links gay marriage to paedophilia
Singh argued that “children of same sex couples are unfortunate who do not receive love from both parents, mother and father.”
“How do you perceive that situation and what is the overall impact?” he asked.
“I think there is also an issue of paedophilia. In these situations the occurrence can be high.”
The Labor Party will target users in LGBT-friendly areas with this advert. (ABC)
The advertisement will reportedly target Grindr users in parts of Melbourne that strongly backed same-sex marriage, which was introduced in November 2017 after a postal survey.
62 percent of Australians voted in favour of marriage equality. Macnamara, Higgins and Kooyong—the divisions set to see the adverts—voted 82 percent, 78 percent and 74 percent respectively.
Liberal Party won’t drop Gurpal Singh
The Liberal Party has been under pressure to dump Singh ahead of the election.
However party leader and incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed on Wednesday (May 8) that his candidacy will continue, SBS reported, after Singh apologised “unreservedly.”
“My words were wrong and I am sorry,” Singh told The Age on April 26.
“My words were wrong and I am sorry.”
—Gurpal Singh, Liberal Party candidate
Anna Brown, chief executive of Equality Australia, told The Age she is concerned a Liberal win could roll back LGBT+ rights.
“Given that the Prime Minister himself proposed hostile amendments to the marriage equality bill, abstained from the vote after inflicting a national plebiscite on the LGBTIQ community and has used social media to attack the needs of trans people, we are concerned that a future Morrison government will see equality wound back for LGBTIQ people in the name of religious freedom,” she said.
On May 1 Peter Killin—another Liberal candidate—stepped down from his candidacy after calling for the “purging” of “that notorious homosexual Tim Wilson,” an MP from his own party.
