So now it is defamatory to say that the thought of male homosexual sex disgusts you. Not just socially unacceptable. But actually leaving you open to legal threats.
This is according to Alex Greenwich MP, the State of New South Wales’s famously homosexual, self-appointed woke conscience. At first blush, you might think, good luck with that one mate. But the way things are with the Australian polity and justice system these days, anything is possible. Lawfare is an ideological weapon. Just ask Bruce Lehrman. Or Craig McLachlan. Or Christian Porter. Or Fr John Fleming. Or the late Cardinal Pell. Or John Jarratt. All of them accused, probably falsely, of sex abuse or rape.
For those not acquainted with the most newsworthy story in NSW politics since the recent (25 March) election, let us recap. Just before the election, Mark Latham, leader of One Nation in New South Wales, spoke at an election event on parental rights in the face of transgender and other queer grooming efforts in our schools. This was at St Michael’s Catholic Parish at Belfield in Sydney. Outside the event, a bunch of placard waving queer ideologues began to protest. They may or may not have snapped in half, and then burned, a crucifix. They may or may not have been there with Greenwich’s knowledge or blessing. Then a large group of irate Lebanese Christian locals rocked up and gave the queer protesters what The Saint (Simon Templar) used to call “a lesson in manners”. (The protesters had been regulars at St Michael’s for around fifteen years, by the way, stirring up animosity with parishioners). Then the queer protesters went off squealing to the woke corporate media, who faithfully retold their side of the story. Over and over. Then Greenwich called Latham a “disgusting human being”, among other things. Like the (alleged) Nazis who appeared at Moira Deeming’s speech on a similar topic in Melbourne, the protesters at St Michael’s and their presumably Christian assailants had nothing whatever to do with Mark Latham.
Then Latham answered Greenwich’s war by Twitter-insult with a graphic statement, later deleted, outlining Latham’s disgust at homosexual sex. He did not mention Greenwich. Now Greenwich has threatened to sue Latham for defamation (and homophobia) unless he apologises.
According to news.com.au:
Sydney MP Alex Greenwich has threatened to launch legal action against NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham for a homophobic and vulgar tweet shared in March, giving him until May 17 to issue an apology.
On Monday, Mr Greenwich, who is openly gay, confirmed that his legal team had sent Mr Latham a notice on April 19; however, the One Nation leader continued to talk about Mr Greenwich’s sexuality, referencing an online radio with Chris Smith on Thursday.
Mr Latham will now have until May 17 to issue a public apology or Mr Greenwich’s legal team will file a defamation suit to the Federal Court.
“Obviously, he made a very sexualised, targeted attack at me on Twitter and seeked (sic) to impugn my reputation amongst colleagues,” Mr Greenwich said.
“He has continued to target me based on my sexuality, my role in this parliament and that does a great deal of damage and harm towards me and I will as a result be proceeding with defamation.”
… In addition to the looming defamation suit, the matter is also being investigated by the NSW Police and an anti-discrimination body.
The Sydney MP’s lawyer, Nicholas Stewart from Dowson Turco Lawyers, invited the former Labor leader to come to an agreement with his client.
“It could be resolved with an apology. It can be resolved through payment of damages to Mr Greenwich, and it can be resolved through the undertaking of Mr Latham to not to continue persecuting the LGBT community,” he said.
After Latham’s post, Greenwich said, we now know falsely, that, having had a little cry, he would let the matter rest and move on. He even said, on Channel Ten’s The Project, that he didn’t expect an apology from Latham. Let the matter rest? Oh no. He has, since, declared war on core Christian beliefs and on anyone else who, as is his or her right, finds particular sexual practices repugnant. Even “disgusting”. He has declared war on free speech. He has done everything except just shut up and deal with it. Can his word be trusted?
His claims against Latham are, on their face, preposterous. Targeting? Persecuting?
Mark Latham, sensibly, has maintained a dignified silence until recently. Equally sensibly, the new Liberal leader in the Rum Corps State, Mark Speakman, has said that he will work with Mark Latham. This distinguishes the Liberals from others who claim to find Latham so repugnant that they will “not work with him”. Whatever that actually means. Mind you, as far as Speakman and the sorry NSW Liberals go, frankly, who cares what they think?
Latham did appear on the Chris Smith show on TNT radio, however. And on 2HD Newcastle. In the latter broadcast, he proceeded to take Greenwich’s actions in relation to him apart, forensically, rationally, coolly and in a commendably dignified manner. He pointed out that it was Greenwich who started this. And he correctly concluded that Greenwich has a “glass jaw”. Latham referred to Greenwich’s grandstanding and political games. And Latham has in mind a counter-claim about Greenwich’s original post on Twitter. And he repeated his stance on transgenderism. Do what you like with your gender as an adult, but just “leave the kids alone”. Most significantly of all, he called out Greenwich’s own slanderous description of Latham as a “disgusting human being” for what it was. Far worse than an attack on someone’s politics, even their sexuality, it was an attack on the whole person.
https://www.2hd.com.au/2023/05/03/nsw-one-nations-mark-latham-on-lgbtqi-practices-in-schools/
One can only wonder what such an apology might look like:
· I am sorry I described the sexual practices that you as a homosexual male actually engage in.
· What I said was accurate – I am sorry if you are offended by your own activities.
· I did not mention anyone’s name in my original (deleted) Twitter post. Do you assume that everything is about you? In any case, I am sorry that you shed tears over a tweet of mine.
· I am sorry that you felt it necessary to describe me as a “disgusting human being” and a “hateful and dangerous individual” who is “causing a great deal of damage to our State”. Should we declare it a one-all draw?
· I am sorry that you engage in sexual practices that I find repugnant.
· I am sorry that you do not believe in freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.
· I will apologise to you if Reuben Kaye apologises for his blasphemous joke on The Project.
The Kiwi import who has, almost single-handedly, driven the State of New South Wales towards a culture of death through his championing of infanticide on demand (Tony Abbott’s phrase) and of euthanasia, now is proposing to use Latham’s post as the basis for further law reform, no doubt to drive even harder the homosexual lobby’s attempt to, in effect, make it all-but-compulsory. No doubt, Greenwich will be first in line to include homophobia in the list of sins to be targeted in future social credit-style surveillance regimes that will accompany the almost inevitable centralised digital currency that is coming down the track.
And it will be Greenwich and friends – and he has many, alas – who get to decide what constitutes “homophobia”. A little like the World Health Organisation getting to determine what counts as a pandemic and the Brighton Collaboration (with the Centre for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, CEPI) getting to decide what the definition of a vaccine injury is.
Greenwich is decidedly loose with the truth. He says he was “targeted”. This is baloney. He wasn’t even mentioned in the post. He is the one who made the song and dance of the deleted tweet. He says that Latham has been targeting queers for a long time. Does he have evidence of this? What I see Latham as having done is protecting the State’s children from homosexualist and transgender encroachment on schools and libraries, and giving more rights to parents who wish to resist the push.
Payment of damages? For what? Has Greenwich’s reputation been traduced? Nope. If anything, he has been “affirmed” – a favourite word of gays – by just about every woke person and institution in the land. He has silenced right-of-centre publications from publishing anything that could be construed as a defence of Latham. He has manouevred Latham into being regarded as poison. Oh no, all the damage done here has been done to Mark Latham, and those hundreds of thousands of voters who supported One Nation at the election. Many of whom, no doubt, agree with both Latham’s right to speak his mind and with the substance of his heteronormativity. Just take a look at the Mark Latham’s Outsiders Facebook page for the evidence of this.
https://www.facebook.com/MarkLathamsOutsiders/
A few weeks ago, I wondered (in these pages) whether it was now acceptable to hold views that hold homosexual sex to be repugnant, and whether it was acceptable to express those views in public.
https://paulcollits.substack.com/p/sodomy-disgust-and-twitter
Clearly, now, the question has shifted to – is it legally safe to express such views? Could you be sued by a queer activist for openly expressing a moral theological (or non-moral theological) position on homosexual sex that has been adhered to by Christians since the Didache of the Apostles, through St Thomas Aquinas – homosexuality, not unexpectedly, cannot form part of a properly conceived natural law position – all the way down to St John Paul II’s Theology of the Body? Thomism has been the default theological position in the Church since the thirteenth century, for all but a few decades:
Saint Thomas Aquinas was anything if not blunt in his condemnation of homosexual conduct:
[A] special kind of deformity whereby the venereal act is rendered unbecoming ... may occur in two ways: First, through being contrary to right reason, and this is common to all lustful vices; secondly, because, in addition, it is contrary to the natural order of the venereal act as becoming to the human race: and this is called the unnatural vice .. .[i.e.] copulation with an undue sex, male with male, or female with female... and this is called the vice of sodomy.
https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1870&context=scholar
So, there is a quite a history to the rejection of homosexuality, and not only from Thomists or even Christians. And rejection is surely worse, from the point of view of offended homosexuals, than mere revulsion.
We seem to have entered a whole new phase of our collective imprisonment. We are all, potentially, on Greenwich Mean Time in New South Wales now. And as for those folks who are steering clear of the Latham matter, sitting it out, in effect, or who defend Latham’s right to free speech while needing to virtue signal by saying loudly that they “disagree” with him, they are welcome to their view. As long as they realise that they are acting as Alex Greenwich’s useful idiots. They are controlled opposition. They hide behind words like “vulgar”, “crude” and OTT and insist that Latham should apologise. It is these people who, one day, will wake up to find a very different world, a world of rigidly mandated, correct views and ruthlessly enforced correct-think. So, we aren’t just on GMT. We are on borrowed time as well. Soon, if Greenwich gets his way, we will have police, lawyers and the Anti-Discrimination Board surveilling what we say on social media. For Greenwich is a champion of cancel culture, and is using lawfare to drive his agenda. In this context, his tears are ironic, and scarcely believable. He cries over a coarse, barbed social media post, yet, callously, sheds no tears for all of the unborn that will now be killed as a direct result of legislation that he sponsored.
It is to be hoped that Latham maintains his intention not to apologise, in order that this absurd legal action can be tested in the courts. And it will be interesting if anyone – anyone – in the corporate media dares to discuss the case.
Oh, and Alex, the word is “sought”, not “seeked”.
Paul Collits
4 May 2023
Bravo, Paul. Well said, I found Bolt’s rant childish and the silence from his friends on Outsiders is gutless. Mark has my support. Greenwich’s culture is death is abhorrent.
Brilliant,Paul! If this was a speech,being delivered in a crowded hall,attended by true believers of every nationality,thunderous applause would greet every paragraph - especially,the one highlighted above this Comments page! More power to your mighty pen! Thank you and bless you!