by Staff writer
Former Australian tennis player Margaret Court has made her most controversial statements yet after a week in which she spoke out against gay marriage.
In a letter to the West Australian newspaper earlier this week, the 74-year-old pentecostal minister said she was disappointed that Qantas Airways has become “an active promoter for same sex marriage” and said that she would boycott the airline.
Her rhetoric has now turned more extreme.
Speaking again on a radio program, she told host Neil Johnson she believes “gay lobbyists” are influencing the minds of children to turn them into homosexuals and transgender people as part of a national “plot” which she likened to mind control that occurred in Nazi Germany under Hitler.
“It’s all in The Bible, God’s got so much in there about the mind, how it affects us, affects our emotions and our feelings,” Court said.
“You can think ‘I’m a boy’ and it’ll affect your emotions and feelings and everything else, so that’s all the devil. That’s what Hitler did and that’s what communism did — got in the mind of the children — and that’s the whole plot in our nation and in the nations of the world to get in the mind of the children.”
Court also said she believes “gay lobbyists” in Australia are responsible for confusing young children when it comes to understanding their gender.
“The gay lobbyists are behind that bullying program in the schools and children not knowing. You’re taking out ‘he’ and ‘she’ and you become an ‘it’ and a ‘we’ and a ‘they’ and if you feel like being a girl, you can dress like a girl if you’re a boy, and if you’re a boy,” she said.
“The literature, the bullying and the stuff that’s put out today into children’s minds, I tell you what, if you haven’t got parents who bring you up [to understand your biological sex] and you’ve got parents that don’t care and you’re hurt and offended when someone is saying something to you, then your child can just start to think ‘well, maybe I am a girl’ when they’re a boy or ‘maybe I’m a boy and I’m a girl’.”
The comments come as part of Court’s strong public stance on marriage equality, but she continues to assert she “has nothing against gay people”.
“It affects our nation in all this. It’s not so much about that, it’s about marriage. I have nothing against gay people but a child needs a mother and a father and the first two chapters of the Bible are all about family,” she said.
“We’re built on a biblical constitution, we’re a Christian country and it’s undermining our values and our morals and it’s really a minority group of people and I think it’s sad in what’s trying to happen within our nation and so I’m just standing up.”
Court also said in the interview that “tennis is full of lesbians” and that lesbian players in her day tried to convert younger, impressionable players to their way of life.
“Tennis is full of lesbians. Even when I was playing there were there only a couple there, but those couple that led that took young ones into parties because they liked to be around heroes. What you get at the top is often what you’ll get right through that sport.”
Court even went as far as to suggest that the reason gay advocates are pursuing the issue of marriage equality is to spite Australian Christians.
“We know that homosexuality is a lust of the flesh, we know it’s not god and they too know this. This is why they want marriage because it’s self satisfying, I think they know it comes against Christianity, the beliefs of god.
“I’ve got nothing against homosexual people as individuals themselves, they can do what they want to do but my stand is, and my Christian belief is, marriage The Bible way.”
