Photo: Mark Bowling
WILSON is a 19-year-old homosexual university student opposed to same-sex marriage.
In the heat of a national postal survey debate on whether to allow same-sex marriage, he stood in front of a hostile and divided crowd at the University of Queensland and explained why he would be voting No.
“I am a gay conservative who wants to see marriage the way it is,” he said as the main speaker at a lunchtime rally last Monday in favour of traditional marriage and the “You can say No” campaign.
As he spoke, members of a large crowd jeered and shouted abuse.
“Coward, shut him down,” one onlooker shouted.
“They want to drown me out because I am gay and I am standing up against them,” Wilson said.
“There are thousands of gay people in this country who are against same-sex marriage who see the effects that it will have on the family, on politics and churches.
“These people really hate us,” he said as members of the crowd confronted peaceful “No” supporters by shouting abuse.
“They call us Nazis, bigots, homophobes – where is the real hatred here? Where is the real hatred here in this debate?” Wilson said.
“We should be able to have a respectable debate in this country on all issues.
“The real hatred I experience in this country and we as conservatives are experiencing… is from people who want to destroy our way of life.
“People who want to destroy everything that is good about Australia.
“They want to introduce radical gender ideology into schools.
“Safe schools is out to corrupt the minds of innocent children.
“They are out to attack the most innocent people among us and I find it disgusting.
“Thank you for rallying for marriage – for a cause we believe in.”
University staff tried to settle the increasingly vocal crowd before police arrived. There were no arrests.
Rally supporter, Carrie McCormack, from the Australian Family Association, said the rally was about freedom of speech for young adults on campus who were struggling to do their work and have their belief because they are not even allowed to open their mouths in support of marriage.
“We gathered peacefully, we wanted to represent our view clearly and calmly,” Ms McCormack said.
“He (Wilson) was getting shouted down and sworn at by opposing voices.
“The microphone had to be switched off and there was shouting back to and fro – just like a schoolyard.”
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, a leading voice in the campaign against same-sex marriage shared video of the rally, inferring the clip was a “case in point” that supporters of same-sex marriage were “responsible for bullying and hate speech”.
On September 14, a similar rally at Sydney University encouraging students to vote “no” in the same-sex marriage postal survey drew hundreds of protesters.
A spokesman for the Sydney University Catholic Society said that “vote no” campaigners were “physically assaulted, verbally abused and repeatedly shouted down”.
