Christians, high school students picket Australian Christian Lobby conference

BY CHRISTOPHER HARRIS

“The reason that I wore such an incendiary outfit today …is that they started it,” said Simon Hunt to a crowd on a rainy Sydney street last Saturday, wearing a striped concentration camp costume with a pink triangle.

Mr Hunt was one of the many speakers who spokes to protestors who braved the rain outside of the Australian Christian Lobby’s annual conference on Pitt Street.

About 150 Protestors stood on the pavement listening to speakers, some of whom included members of the Uniting Church from a block down the road, as well as school children from high schools across Sydney.

They crowd reserved booing and “shame” for speakers Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison, as well as  Eric Metaxis, who compared the gay rights movement with the rise of the Nazi party, contending that they had stifled free speech.

Mr Hunt, who is better known as Pauline Pantsdown, whose pop songs parodied Pauline Hanson in the late 90s, said that he thought comparing the LGBTQI movement to the rise of the Nazi party was disrespectful, “at the very least”.

“They are equating the LGBTQ rights movement to the rise of the Nazis and so my point today that this is disrespectful to say the very least to the tens of thousands of victims of the holocaust and they cannot, and will not, rewrite history in that way,” Mr Hunt said to the crowd.

“In the face of the attacks of these people on the most vulnerable people in our communities, they attack people they perceive as the weakest: they attack children, they attack trans people, and the one thing I have found out through the movement against these people is that trans people and children are the strongest.”

One year twelve student who spoke at the rally said that she had been subject to hate speech at her high school. Another said the public high school she attended on the Northern Beaches was inherently conservative. She said that gay rights at her school was proving elusive because so far it was a struggle to be allowed to wear pants rather than the mandated skirt for girls.

“Our top priority was to get pants for the students. While it’s 2016 here it is 1956 at my school and girls aren’t allowed to wear pants.”

She said with other students they had made their own “Rainbow Alliance” with goals such as adopting the Safe Schools Program at their school.

“If we get into safe schools we’ll be able to push for a more inclusive school and then we’ll be able to get our pants”

She said the alliance had meant that those had come to feel less alone, citing the comments of a transgender student.

Mr Hunt remarked that Christians often targeted children and transgender people.

“They attack people they perceive as the weakest: they attack children, they attack trans people. The one thing I have found out through the movement against these people is that trans people and children are the strongest.”

Speaking to City Hub, event organiser Cat Rose said that arguments about freedom of speech from Christian groups was ironic because “they spend every day of their lives trying to curtail our freedom and our ability to express ourselves and who we are”.

“Some of the people they have got speaking inside,” gesturing to the building behind her, “they’ve got the Alliance Defending Freedom, one of the special guest speakers who they’ve thrown over from the United States, who are known for campaigning around the world to keep gay sex illegal.”

“They can talk about free speech or freedom all they want, it can’t hide the fact there the ones the ones stopping the advance for equal right for LGBTQI people”

She said she was disappointed Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison had spoken at the event.

“It is outrageous he is attending this event, but not too surprising either. The Australian Christian Lobby has had close ties with government for many years now and leaders from both sides of the house have spoken at this conference for many years now, which is an absolute disgrace.”

“How many times have we had to listen to Liberal Party tell us they can’t talk about marriage equality because they’ve got more important things to be talking about. Well Scott Morrison has taken time out from the election campaign, the budget season, to give his time to this conference, they took time out to attack safe schools, to make that a priority in parliament, when it’s about quashing our rights.”