If you were unlucky enough to tune into ABC‘s 7:30 report last night, you would have seen an ageing dinosaur explain why he’s voting ‘no’ to same-sex marriage with all the grace of bewildered hippo.
Roger Corbett, the former chief executive of Woolworths, had the gall to tell host Leigh Sales that voting ‘no’ was “not discriminatory”, and then tried to justify his argument with some casual racism.
“It’s a statement that [marriage] is between men and women. A man and a man and a woman and a woman can have a similar relationship, but it’s different.
“A black man and a white man are equal, but they’re clearly different. A black man will never be a white man and vice versa.”
“A man and a man and a woman and a woman can have a similar relationship, but it’s different,” he continued. “So to me, and I think to a lot of the community, marriage and the family unit between a man and woman, remains paramount.’’
Woolies is now in damage control, after pretty much every sane human watching the show called him out for being a total cretin.
Not only has Roger Corbett managed to insult every homosexual person, he also just insulted every person of colour. #abc730 #auspol
— Sandra K Eckersley (@SandraEckersley) September 18, 2017
I’m offended every time I hear a child needs a mother & a father when my dad was violent #abc730
— Hel-o (@Helodare) September 18, 2017
https://twitter.com/JamesScullin/status/909716172286738432
Nice that Roger Corbett’s *Christian Values* didn’t baulk at running the largest collection of grog shops & pokies in Australia. #abc730
— Tim Lyons (@Picketer) September 18, 2017
What the fuk was that? ‘Gay people trying to get married like Christian men and women are like black men trying to become white men’ #ABC730
— ED Day – After The Pandemic (@Pandemic_Times) September 18, 2017
https://twitter.com/IKKsays/status/909722243206332416
Corbett might no longer be associated with Woolies (he served as CEO from 1999 to 2006), but several people called for a boycott regardless.
In response, Woolies released a statement assuring the public that it fully supports marriage equality, adding in a follow up tweet that Corbett “is a former employee and his views do not represent Woolworths.”
— Woolworths (@woolworths) September 19, 2017
It didn’t explicitly refer to Corbett by name, but the message was clear: take your outdated-ass views back to last century where they belong.
