Brody's Notes... Australian Coalition for Equality Tells Australian Politico: "Don't Feel Threatened"

Tony Abbott  Photo By Australia.TO

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Mar 9 | Corey Irlam, spokesperson for Australian Coalition for Equality (ACE) wrote a letter to Tony Abbott, current Leader of the Opposition in the Australian House of Representatives and federal leader of the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia, inviting him to meet with ordinary gays and lesbian people to help overcome his self-confessed sense of “threat” about homosexuality.

In a televised interview on the Sixty Minutes program Sunday, March 7th, on Australia's Nine Network, Abbott said to correspondent Liz Hayes that he felt threatened by homosexuality:

HAYES: Homosexuality? How do you feel about that?
ABBOTT: I’d probably I feel a bit threatened…
HAYES: I’m not asking if it’s a personal choice of yours.
ABBOTT: ..as so many people.
HAYES: When you say ‘threatened’?
ABBOTT: Again, Liz, look, it’s a fact of life and I try to treat people as people and not put them in pigeonholes.

Abbott is viewed as an outspoken socially conservative Catholic, and his views on moral issues tend to polarise female voters as well as often will alienate the LGBT community. His views on other subjects, such as the environment, also tend to inflame other Australian constituencies. At an October 2009 meeting in the Victorian town of Beaufort for example, Abbott told the audience that the concept of climate change was "absolute crap".

In response to Abbott's statements,  Corey Irlam, spokesperson for Australian Coalition for Equality (ACE) said that he would write Abbott, inviting him to meet with ordinary gays and lesbian people to help overcome his self-confessed sense of “threat” about homosexuality. In a written statement Irlam said; 

"We hope Mr Abbott will take up our invitation so he can overcome feeling threatened by homosexuality. Mr Abbott can pick any place he feels safe and we’ll invite ordinary members of the gay and lesbian community to come and talk with him to show him he has nothing to fear from us.”