Carl Katter fights back with ad of his own

An ad starring gay rights advocate Carl Katter has been launched in Brisbane today urging Queenslanders to not “vote for hate” at the upcoming state election following the recent airing of a controversial anti-gay ad by his half-brother Bob Katter’s newly formed Katter’s Australian Party (KAP).

The GetUp ad featuring Carl comes as KAP State Leader Aidan McLindon warned that its now-notorious ad targeting LNP Leader Campbell Newman’s personal support for same-sex marriage was only “stage one” of its campaign before the March 24 election.

It has also come to light that failed NSW Christian Democratic Party candidate, Peter Madden, will be leading a “Queensland Election Prayer Rally Tour” with a truck travelling through NSW to Brisbane with attached banners warning of “the dark side of same-sex marriage ... homosexual sex-ed for your young children”.

The ‘End Marriage Discrimination’ ad by GetUp was launched as a response to the anti-gay marriage commercial aired by KAP on Channel Ten in Queensland last Sunday night.

“It was sad, it was sick and I knew somebody had to respond,” Carl said in a statement.

“My brother talks about family values. Well, I’m here to tell him that hate is not a family value.”

In the ad, Carl states that it’s not acceptable for the nation’s leaders and politicians to accept and propagate discrimination against minority groups.

“It’s not ok for politicians to get away with hatred and bigotry,” he says in the ad.

“They call themselves the Australian Party, but Australians and Queenslanders deserve better than this. We shouldn’t have to put up with politicians who seek election by appealing to the worst in human nature.”

It is likely KAP will continue with its controversial campaign methods despite its first ad being widely criticised by many including Premier Anna Blight for being homophobic, and party benefactor James Packer as well as a number of the party’s far north Queensland candidates distancing themselves from the ad’s message.

“I would have thought that everyone who thought that way (supported marriage equality) would have been pleased that their potential premier-in-waiting is in favour of that sort of thing,” Bob Katter told Fairfax Radio yesterday.

McLindon also suggested that he and the party “are not stopping now” with their divisive tactics.

“The hardest part was to choose which of the issues Newman doesn't have a position on, to go with,” McLindon told Brisbane Times.

“We had a whiteboard with 60 issues on it, where he says one thing and does another.”

Gay activists in Queensland are also now bracing themselves for the arrival of Madden, who is well-known in Sydney for his inflammatory rhetoric and extremists views concerning homosexuality.

The former self-confessed sex and pornography addict will be leading “prayer rallies” from Sydney to Brisbane, stopping off at Taree, Kempsey, Casino, Lismore, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast before a “major prayer rally” at King George Square in Brisbane’s CBD on March 22, just two days before the election.

“It is vital that we pray that God will have His way in Queensland in this election against the wickedness proposed by Anna Bligh and others, (who have pushed hard for the evil agenda of homosexual marriage in Queensland, clearly aimed at Australian children and families),” Madden said.

Queensland equal rights advocate, Phil Browne, has slammed Madden’s tour as “vilification” and “derogatory and offensive to most Queenslanders”, and has called on Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk to not give permission for the rally to take place.

“It’s just as unacceptable as vilifying blacks, Jews or women,” Browne said.