Laughing at the homophobic rants of sad nut Philip Pocock was good fun.
With Pocock’s extended views vilifying women and the sexual activities of the vast majority of the population it was easy for everyone to stand together and feel better about ourselves at his expense.
But Andrew Barr’s decided now’s the time to drive the wedge in and wants to know what the difference between Pocock’s views and the Liberals’ Vicki Dunne on homosexuality:
Mr Seselja said of Mr Pocock: ‘‘I utterly reject his views … It’s like the Taliban, getting into people’s personal lives, trying to regulate everyone’s life and what they do at home.’’
But will Mr Seselja now condemn and distance himself from his own would-be Attorney-General for offensive and misguided comments about homosexuality and gay and lesbian parents?
In 2004, during a Legislative Assembly debate about adoption, Mrs Dunne accused same-sex couples of wanting a “fashion accessory”.
She said: “This has nothing to do with having children as trophies, but it is, sadly, a comment on the gay lifestyle. We see lots at the moment on TV about how good the gay lifestyle is, but this is not Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and another fashion accessory – these are the lives of children that we are talking about.”
She also quoted a book that said of 10 randomly selected gay men in San Francisco: “Four of the 10 are currently in relationships, but only one is faithful to his partner, and he will not be within a year … One is a sadomasochist and one prefers boys to men … Three of the men are currently alcoholics; five have a history of alcohol abuse and four have a history of drug abuse.’’ Despite quoting this offensive and misleading generalisation at length, Mrs Dunne then said: “These are not nice things and are very difficult to say. But this is not the sort of environment that an objective psychologist or social worker assessing someone for their suitability to adopt children would willingly accept as being suitable for adopting parents to live in – and this is what we have to do here.’’
The full speech is available at: http://www.hansard.act.gov.au/hansard/2004/week01/101.htm . Since 2004 Mrs Dunne has made similarly misguided comments about homosexuality in the Legislative Assembly, most recently as last month.
It is very easy for Mr Seselja and the Canberra Liberals – who have a history of running dummy independent candidates as fronts for the Liberal party – to distance themselves from Mr Pocock and his views – but is not so easy for Mr Seselja to deny the views and stance of his choice for Attorney-General.