A gun lobbyist and former councillor who sold anti-gay bumper stickers and said he didn’t class gays as humans has faced Queensland’s Anti-Discrimination Tribunal.
Gun shop owner and former Cooloola Shire Councilor Ron Owen (pictured) represented himself when he faced the Tribunal in Gympie on April 3 and 4.
A group of three Sunshine Coast lesbians and a bisexual transwoman allege Owen publicly vilified gay people during a 2005 council meeting.
The then councillor was asked how he could claim to be the champion of the underdog while driving a car with anti-gay bumper sticker.
Owen reportedly replied: "That's because I probably don't class gays as humans".
The sticker, once sold through Owen’s now defunct right-wing magazine, Lock Stock & Barrel, read: “Gay rights? The only right ‘gays’ have is the right to die”.
Other stickers Owen sold in the magazine, at gun rallies and at public events such as the 1995 Spring Hill Fair included, "Register poofters, not guns" and "Animal vivisection is cruel – use the morally degenerate instead".
Citing free speech, Owen told the Tribunal he did not believe it had the constitutional authority to hear the case.
However, the Tribunal refused to accept Owen’s claim of immunity from defamation charges, as well as his insistence the Council itself should be co-respondents in the case.
Owen also questioned whether the complainants, Rhonda Bruce, Sue Turner, Tina Coutts and Richelle Menzies, met the legal definition of ‘homosexual’ because they identified as lesbian and bisexual.
Under the anti-vilification provisions of Queensland’s Anti-Discrimination Act, complainants must themselves be members of the vilified group.
Queensland Pride has been told several gay men living in Gympie declined to put their names to the complaint for fear of retribution.
Only two previous anti-vilification cases have been successful since the laws were introduced in 2003.
Earlier this year, a group of gay men in Townsville were successful in their case against a Mission Beach newspaper. The group did not seek damages.
And in May 2005, entertainer Rick Peters (AKA Tamara Tonite) was awarded $3,000 in damages after the Tribunal found the former television host had been “greatly upset” when a business visitor to his home wrongly called him a “paedophile” within earshot of neighbours.
The Sunshine Coast women are seeking an apology and damages, which they each intend to donate to LGBT organisations and charities if their case is successful.
The Tribunal is expected to hand down its decision on the Owen case by early June.
Though Owen attracted over 4,000 votes, he lost his bid for election to the Gympie Council in March.
Iain Clacher
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