Brody's Notes... Australian International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia Marred By Violence

SA Police Cruiser
Via WikiMedia

By Desmond Rutherford | Adelaide, South Australia -- In what organisers had termed a peaceful rally to mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia on Saturday calling for equal rights for same-sex marriage, with 150 members of the local Adelaide gay and lesbian community gathering to stage a mass wedding, took a violent turn when members of the Adelaide Street Church showed up disrupting the gathering.

Rally organiser Jason Virgo told reporters after the ensuing melee was quelled by South Australian Police that one LGBT protester, Mel Lecke, was pulled from her wheelchair and thrust onto the pavement. In an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corporation's News, Ms. Lecke said:

"I think it's disgusting, you know we don't go and protest outside churches saying there is no God," she said.

Virgo told The Australian:

"A small number of right-wing Christians came out and started waving their flags and getting in people's faces, yelling quite loudly, some of them got in a bit of a fight," Mr Virgo said. "They had signs saying 'God hates sinners' ... no sign should say 'God hates'.
It's an International Day Against Homophobia and for them to come to us and come to our rally and say things which we find homophobic, it's disrespectful. We would never go to their church and disrupt things the way they did today."

The spokesman for the Adelaide Street Church, Damien Gloury, told the ABC's reporter:

"We're just preaching the Bible, we're quoting the bible and it says that homosexuality is a sin," he told the ABC. "We thought we would go out and not try to disrupt because we do love everybody, it might sound like we're condemning people but we're not we're just preaching the Bible.

We've been mobbed, we've been hit, our banners have been thrown down and these people have been hating our guts just for proclaiming the Christian message in this nation and that's what it's about."

The press officer for the South Australian Police said that after police were called in, several several street preachers were forcibly removed, but no one was arrested.

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