Federal MP Bob Katter, the man who brought you that infamous bizarre brain-snap about crocodiles, has come out with another howler: the bold claim he didn’t know gay people existed until 1996.
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The Dalby Herald reports the Queensland pollie made that questionable assertion yesterday while stumping for the Katter Australia Party‘s candidate for the seat of Maranoa, Anthony Wallis.
When queried about same-sex marriage, given Maranoa’s status as one of three Queensland electorates to return a No vote on 2017’s same-sex marriage survey, Katter claimed that entire realm of sexuality is “just like a fashion trend”.
Then came the 73-year-old’s claim he was unaware homosexual people even existed for the majority of his life.
“In my whole life up to 50, I had never seen or heard of a homosexual person,” Katter said.
It’s definitely not the first time Katter has expressed weird, homophobic misgivings about even acknowledging the existence of gay Australians.
That 2017 crocodile incident, of course, came immediately after he was questioned about the survey. Earlier, he used televised interviews to claim “we should not encourage that sort of behaviour“, and even claimed in 2011 that he would “walk backwards from Bourke“ if there was evidence of a homosexual community in his electorate.
It’s worth mentioning at this point that same-sex intercourse for men was only decriminalised in the state in 1991, and the conservative leadership of Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen enforced heavy societal stigmas on homosexuality during his 19-year-long tenure.
There’s every likelihood Katter met a great deal of gay people in his earlier years – but they may not have been free to express their sexuality because of, you know, the whole criminal aspect of it.
In short, it’s just another half-cooked assertion from a guy who once thought it was a good idea to add Fraser bloody Anning to his party’s ranks.
