So there has been a recent flurry of discussion about Queensland Family First Senate candidate Wendy Francis after a now-deleted comment on twitter that “legitimising gay marriage is like legalising child abuse”. After initial defending of it from her, a Family First spokesman then tried to claim it was ‘someone else’ posting to her account. This seems to have been turned on its head given she did a Sunrise interview this morning where she both admitted to and defended her comments, claiming that she meant “emotional abuse” (playing into the idea that abuse has to be physical to be ‘proper’), and comparing gay marriage’s impact on children as akin to the Stolen Generation.

In things that I wish surprised me, some of the discussion has brought Victorian One Nation State President John Groves out of the woodwork, and a look at his twitter timeline not only comes up with gems like calling Julia Gillard a “redheaded itch”, but he seems to actively support “poofter bashing”.

After being told by this charming gentleman that he was a “phoofter”, Nick of Nicholosophy thought he should confirm that this Twitter account is actually run by Mr. Groves and isn’t a fake account. So, Nick checked the contact details via the ONP website and called Mr. Groves, who, it seems, had no problem making it obvious that he does support physical abuse of homosexual persons.

Nick has further details of his conversation with Mr. Groves here:

Not only is it abhorrent that you would want to bash someone on the basis of their sexuality, it is also illegal. For a state president of a political party to promote the bashing of any section of society shows a political party that is out of touch with what I expect, and what I suspect most Australians expect of a political party.

Props to Nick for making the call.

Edit: More on this from SBS: The specific tweets have been deleted, aside from the one which seems to reference Nick’s phone call. Also, Victorian Secretary Pat Loy has disavowed Groves’ comments, whilst everyone else in the Party seems to be playing it hush hush.

Edit The Second: Via Liam and @ndy, some further charmers from Mr. Groves. It seems he has a particular hatred for the Jewish community as well; including a notation that Hitler’s mistake was that he didn’t “finish the job”.

And while I remember, tigtog has quite appropriately reminded us that such things are a good incentive to vote below the line in the Senate on the 21st. belowtheline.org.au is a good resource that allows you to view current preference arrangements and set your own, then do a printout for Election Day.

Categories: culture wars, Politics, violence

Tags: GLBQ