Claims that Senator Eric Abetz is having homosexual affair
Being a gay-marriage advocate I get lots of email – a lot of people have a lot to say about marriage equality. Usually it’s encouraging and welcome.
Today, though I received this:
“This is information I’ve been told by a reliable source working in Parliament House in Canberra, but I haven’t mentioned it to anyone because till now, Abetz had not, to my knowledge, made any homophobic public statements. But given his comments on marriage equality, perhaps it deserves to be better known. Abetz’ marriage recently ended because his wife discovered that he was having a relationship with a male (openly out) senator. Apparently it’s all been very acrimonious and is well known within the Federal Liberal Party. Maybe you have contacts who can confirm this for you. In any event, do what you think best with this.”
Immediately I suspected this to be someone trying to start some mischief and use our website to do it. The claims of a second-hand source and secrecy are the give away.
Then there are facts: since Dr Bob Brown left the parliament, what openly gay senators are there? Sure there is Senator Dean Smith from WA, but he is a good party man and opposes gay marriage.
I called Senator Abetz’s office and a spokesman denies these rumours. He also said:
“This sort of thing does nobody on either side of the debate any good.”
I agree with the senator’s spokesperson – in my opinion this kind of malicious rumour is worse than the hate mail or death-threats I routinely get from our opposition. It’s completely unedifying and unhelpful.
It is absolutely true that Senator Abetz is perhaps one of the loudest voices opposing marriage equality in the Coalition. In May the Senator claimed that gay marriage would lead to legal polygamy. As I recall he even opposed the Rudd Government’s changes to the 85 laws providing “functional equality”. Senator Abetz has also called gay marriage “socially destructive” as recently as today.
If we are going to win the legislative changes we want, we’re not going to do it through innuendo, slander and gossip. We’re going to do it by getting politicians to listen to us. We are not going to do that by calling them names and starting horrible rumours about their personal lives.
And, even if it is true, it simply isn’t ethical to ‘out’ someone.
It’s tacky and unnecessary.
This story has been slightly modified from the original – there was a typographical error that made the first sentence grammatically incorrect and a few links to other stories were omitted in the original. Senator Smith’s name was also misspelled. Update: Senator Abetz’s senior media advisor has sent a thank-you for writing this story, clearly they agree that these kinds of rumours are not ok.
‘We are not to do that by calling them names and starting horrible rumours about their personal lives. And, even if it is true, it simply isn’t ethical to ‘out’ someone.
It’s tacky and unnecessary.” – So why print any of this in the first place?
Hi Craig – it’s simple – so that everyone knows I don’t want to receive this kind of crap in my inbox. The Senator’s media team are rather thankful that someone from our side is calling this kind of stuff crap 🙂
I think it is good that you have chosen to rise above the maliciousness, that would basically end badly and hurt the Equal Love Campaign in general..
BTW.. Keep up the good work and we will get there.
“it simply isn’t ethical to ‘out’ someone”
i call ‘bullshit’
if he was the one vote that stopped full marriage equality and it then materialised that he’s shagging some guy on the side i’d drag him out of that closet so damn fast he wouldn’t know what hit him!
Personally I don’t care what the truth of the situation is. Eric Abetz is a vile individual who makes the lives of many Australians miserable. He deserves everything that comes his way. Him calling marriage equality “socially destructive” in the news today is just outrageous and as far as I am concerned, this story (or non-story) is just brilliant.
I don’t think anybody has the right to drag another person out of the closet. To suggest that you might do so is disgusting and a great slight on any character that you might claim to possess. Just like anybody else in society, a persons sexuality doesn’t matter to anybody but the person you are the partner to.
@ “I don’t think anybody has the right to drag another person out of the closet.”
Wrong. When that person is openly, hostilely, blatantly anti-gay and at the same time is living “la vie gay,” that person absolutely deserves to be dragged out of the closet. It is hypocrisy of the first order to hate Teh Gay™ while reaping the reward of “freedom to be” which was hard-won by the very people against whom this DB is fighting.
I think you’re all to busy shooting each other in the foot to have to worry about what someone else ought to do with the news of whether or not Mr. Abetz is living in the closet. Stop fighting amongst yourselves and get organized! Use each others strengths, don’t fight each other like a bunch of housewives. Proof that this Mr. Abetz is having male relations, get photo’s…..Anyone this negatively opinionated about the gay lifestyle when he (abetz) is supposedly straight reeks to high heaven, and is highly suspect. Truly straight men are more secure than that, they don’t have to have negative opinions on anyone’s sexuality…it’s beyond them. Hire a private detective and have him followed. Get pictures of him in compromising positions, and when you get the proof, shred his reputation to bits. You see, he started this by sharing his negative opinions (about the gay lifestyle) into the political arena, once you do that you are fair game. Get him boys! And get rid of that spineless idiot who wrote that article while you’re at it. You don’t need such a weak marriage advocate.
Your comments are moderated?!? OMG! You’ll never get any real thoughts here while someone is cleaning up what you have just said differently 5 minutes ago. WTF? This is some goofy council on sanitized speach or what?
Hi – yes we moderate. There was a massive problem with spam and reviewing comments from non-registered users (unfortunately) became necessary.
Originally posted 7 weeks ago, the modorator(s) however couldn’t be bothered (at the time)….
This is why, we don’t find much use for “moderators” in the USA, as by the time they get through moderating we’ve already gone into a new election cycle and the topic is no longer jermain. But who am I? Just a lowly guest with very little clout. Who is it you have to sleep with over here to get some help? I’m sure your mom wants to know.
I’m sorry you feel that I haven’t approved your comments quickly enough: they were posted at about 4am in my local time zone.
There’s some of that equal love back at ya. :-p
Thanks for posting my unedited comments. I apologize for being so rude, howevr the process is taking too long. This is supposed to be a creative venue for gays and their feelings on these topics. This was my first time posting here and it seemed to take forever. Thank you for the opportunity to present my thoughts without censoring them.
Sometimes it helps to see things through the eyes of different country, as the growing pains you all are going through at this time we in the states have already experienced. Like a mother to It’s child, it is hard to see you falling and learn that lesson on you own without wanting to step in and have you avoid those pains.
Remember one thing here;
Asking you to give me
equal rights,
implies they are yours to give.
Instead, I must demand
that you stop trying to
deny me the rights
all people deserve.
Sincerely-
I have to sleep sometime 😛