The Tasmanian Council for Sexual & Gender Diverse People Inc urges our community members, family and friends, indeed all Tasmanians to vote carefully in the electorates on Saturday. In the past fundamentalist groups have made our community an election issue.
The recent LGBTI Election Forums conducted by the Council (TCS&GDP) have shown that there is much greater bi partisan support for the issues that our community faces in this election. There is now more support by some politicians from all the major parties to cross the floor on some issues. So it is different this election around and we call on people to carefully scrutinise those candidates who are unable to separate out fundamentalist religious dogmatic and doctrinal homophobic church directives from their responsibility to represent the whole community. This time these candidates are in the closet and so harder to identify but none the less very dangerous.
If you care about changing our state from being the most homophobic in the Nation with the resulting problems of hate crime, bullying, and social exclusion leading to self-harm and suicide by members of our community then you will consider your vote carefully.
Lack of understanding and respect for diversity, divides our community and results in reduced social cohesion. It also harms our local economies in lost production as well as reduced tourism and innovation.
