Our New Deputy PM Is Blaming His Homophobic Columns On An AIDS Awareness Campaign
Nah mate.
He once called homosexuality “sordid” and “unnatural” and now the new Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, is blaming his past homophobic views on a high-profile AIDS awareness campaign that aired six whole years before he wrote those words.
McCormack, who was elected leader of the National Party last Monday, told Sky News:
“I think society was different then, we were also under a huge and intense advertising campaign with the Grim Reaper bowling balls; there was a rise in AIDS and the concern around that,” McCormack said.
“Words hurt, words last and I apologise for that, when the same-sex marriage vote came to the parliament in the debate I apologised again, no one asked me to but I did, I thought it was right and proper to do so.”
The Grim Reaper AIDS awareness campaign aired in 1987. McCormack wrote his columns in 1992 and 1993.
This is one of the television ads he’s referring to:
There isn’t anything homophobic about the ad itself: it actually tries to dispel the myth that AIDS was a virus that only affected the LGBTIQ+ community.
“At first only gays and IV drug users were being killed by AIDS. But now we know every one of us could be devastated by it,” the voiceover in the ad says.
They’re generally considered to have been highly successful in raising awareness, but this is probably the first time a politician has attributed homophobic views to the ads.
When McCormack was the editor of a rural newspaper back in the early 90s, he published a series of columns that warned against “sordid homosexuality”.
Here’s an excerpt from one of his columns:
“Dear readers,
A week never goes by anymore that homosexuals and their sordid behaviour don’t become further entrenched in society.
Unfortunately gays are here and, if the disease their unnatural acts helped spread doesn’t wipe out humanity, they’re here to stay.
On Monday hundreds of thousands of homosexuals marched through Washington in a demonstration intended to show their demands for equal rights and an end to discrimination should no longer be ignored or denied.
How can these people call for rights when they’re responsible for the greatest medical dilemma known to man – Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome?”
Michael McCormack became Deputy PM after a Nationals party room ballot earlier in the week, in which he beat renegade parliamentarian George Christensen.
The ballot was called following Barnaby Joyce’s resignation from cabinet, which came after sustained pressure was placed on him over his hypocritical affair with a staffer.