Australia’s Deputy PM issues apology for past homophobic comments

Michael McCormack, the newly appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and leader of the Nationals party, has issued an apology for a series of intensely homophobic remarks he made in the 1990s.

While editor of the Daily Advertiser newspaper he frequently wrote editorials criticising gay men and women. In 1993, he said “a week never goes by anymore that homosexuals and their sordid behaviour don’t become further entrenched in society.”

Referencing the AIDS crisis, he said: “Unfortunately gays are here and, if the disease their unnatural acts helped spread doesn’t wipe out humanity, they’re here to stay.”

As an apology, he has said he would happily host a gay relative’s wedding, and that “I have grown and learned not only to tolerate but to accept all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, or any other trait or feature which makes each of us different and unique… Editorial views expressed more than 25 years ago in no way reflect how my views and community have changed since publication.”

The campaign group Just.Equal have welcomed the apology, but have said he needs to put his money where his mouth is: “He needs to get behind initiatives that will reduce the unacceptably high levels of LGBTI isolation, prejudice and suicide that still exist in some parts of rural Australia.”

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