Friday January 22nd 2021
COURT HONOUR "REWARDS PREJUDICE”
FEARS IT WILL BE CURTAIN-RAISER FOR RETURN OF RELIGIOUS BIAS BILL
LGBTI equality advocates have labelled Margaret Court's second order of Australia as a "reward for prejudice" and fear the award heralds a return to the grinding "religious freedom" debate.
Spokesperson for LGBTI lobby group Just-Equal, Brian Greig, said,
"Margaret Court has already received an Order of Australia for her contribution to tennis, so this second award rewards her only other major contribution to national life: opposing LGBTI equality and stirring up prejudice against us.
"This reward for prejudice will only encourage further prejudice, discrimination and division."
"We also fear the award will be a curtain-raiser for the likely return in 2021 of Scott Morrison’s Religious Discrimination Bill, which allows discrimination and hate speech in the name of religion and for which Margaret Court has been a poster girl."
"They key issue here is that Mrs Court's opposition to LGBTI equality and inclusion has caused deep harm and that harm should not be honoured."
Mr Greig said the Religious Discrimination Bill will roll-back existing discrimination and hate speech protections in the name of ‘religious freedom’.
“The kind of anti-LGBTI discrimination Margaret Court has engaged in for more than 25 years is not different to racism and should be treated with the same disdain”, he said.
Mr Greig said Mrs Court’s homophobic comments and campaigns include, but are not limited to:
- 2001, campaigned against the decriminalisation of homosexuality.
- 2001, Opposed anti-discrimination laws for LGBTI people in employment, housing and the provision of goods and services
- 2001, Opposed same-sex couples being recognised as de-factos under WA law.
- Opposed IVF and adoption for same-sex couples.
- 2004, Mrs Court said “Children raised by same-sex couples suffer from shame and guilt.”
- Mrs Court has disparaged tennis as “full of lesbians”, and publicly criticised lesbian player Casey Dellacqua.
- Mrs Court mocked Casey Dellacqua’s relationship and scolded her for “raising a child without a father.”
- 2018: Mrs Court described transgender children as ‘influenced by the devil’.
- 2017: Mrs Court described advocates for the LGBTI communities as ‘behaving just like the like Nazis’
- 2018 – Mrs Court set up a consulate in her Victory Life Church for African regime (Burundi), known for persecuting gays, torture, sexual violence and executions.
- Mrs Court is an advocate and practitioner of ‘gay conversation therapy’ – a practice that has been condemned by the Australian Medical Association as both ‘harmful and dangerous.’
For a copy of this statement on the web, click
hereContact: Brian Greig (M) 040 777 6961
(WA time)
