Jewish group slams Kirby for Holocaust comparison in gay marriage issue
- The Australian
- Save
The Anti-Defamation Commission has urged Michael Kirby to withdraw contentious comments after the former High Court chief justice linked Jewish people who co-operated with the Nazi regime to gay Australians who want to boycott the same-sex marriage postal vote.
Mr Kirby, a prominent same-sex marriage advocate whose preference is for a free vote in parliament, initially declared he would have no part in the postal ballot but told The Weekend Australian he had always intended on voting Yes if it survived various legal challenges.
He drew fierce criticism from the Anti-Defamation Commission, a Jewish community group, after referring to the Holocaust while expressing his empathy for LGBTI Australians, such as his long-term partner, Johan van Vloten, who will not participate in the postal vote.
Mr Kirby said it made them feel like “second-class citizens”.
“During the run-up to the Second World War some Jewish people, though the situation was much more desperate and fraught, took part with the Nazis in the regulation of the Jewish community. Looking back on it, we can now see that that is something when you are being denigrated and treated unfairly and as a second-class citizen, you shouldn’t necessarily go along with,” Mr Kirby told ABC radio on Thursday.
“This postal vote isn’t in that order but it’s the same principle, so I can sort of understand my partner who gave away his perfectly good Netherlands citizenship, under which he could marry, for Australian citizenship, and feels he’s being humiliated and treated in a hostile way by members of parliament who shouldn’t be acting in this way.”
Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich seized on the remarks, declaring there was no comparison between contemporary political circumstances and the “incomprehensible conditions” endured by Jews under Adolf Hitler’s regime.
Dr Abramovich said he recognised how “irresistible” the Holocaust reference had become in generating headlines, but it could not be justified, “no matter how strong one’s objection may be to the postal vote”.
“The Turnbull government is certainly not the Third Reich and no one is being herded onto trains and sent to the death camps,” he said. “Invoking such inappropriate and offensive analogies to advance any agenda undermines the historical truth and the meaning of the Holocaust, and only serves to trivialise the extermination of six million Jews and millions of others, which, as we know, included gay people.”
Mr Kirby said he had meant no offence but stood by his comments, explaining his partner lived through World War II in The Netherlands as a small boy and strongly believed “no minority should ever co-operate with those who seek to oppress its members”.
“In our most respectful view, the Holocaust should not be consigned to books of history; nor restricted to the lessons it teaches for anti-Semitism,’’ Mr Kirby said.
“It should be available so all of us can learn from the wrongs that are done to minorities by reason of indelible features of their nature. This includes race and ethnicity. But, in our view, it also includes sexual orientation. Many of the leaders of LGBTIQ liberation have been Jewish.’’
Mr Kirby said the foundation of the gay marriage survey was unscientific. and its “hairbrained” predecessor, a mandatory plebiscite, would have been better.
WHAT THEY SAID
Michael Kirby on ABC radio, August 10:
I do understand the view of those who say ‘I am not going to participate in something that is my own humiliation. I am not going to participate is something that reinforces that I’m a second class citizen and damages especially young people in the community by making them see very clearly that they are second class citizens subjected to an impediment to the matter being determined in parliament in the normal way in a case of this kind on a conscience vote’. I do understand that.
During the run up to the Second World War some Jewish people, though the situation was much more desperate and fraught, took part with the Nazis in the regulation of the Jewish community. Looking back on it, we can now see that that is something when you are being denigrated and treated unfairly and as a second class citizen, you shouldn’t necessarily go along with.
This postal vote isn’t in that order but it’s the same principle, so I can sort of understand my partner who gave away his perfectly good Netherlands citizenship under which he could marry, for Australian citizenship, and feels he’s being humiliated and treated in a hostile way by members of parliament who shouldn’t be acting in this way.
Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, August 11:
I recognise how irresistible the Holocaust reference has become in today’s society in generating headlines. However, no matter how strong one’s objection may be to the postal vote on same-sex marriage, there is no comparison between contemporary political circumstances and the incomprehensible conditions that the Jewish community faced under Hitler’s evil regime.
The Turnbull government is certainly not the Third Reich and no one is being herded onto trains and sent to the death camps.
Invoking such inappropriate and offensive analogies to advance any agenda undermines the historical truth and the meaning of the Holocaust, and only serves to trivialize the extermination of six million Jews and millions of others, which, as we know, included gay people. The Holocaust was a singular event in human history and we urge all public leaders in this debate to refrain from using any Holocaust comparisons that are deeply hurtful to the survivors and which coarsen civil discourse. We hope that Justice Kirby reconsiders his words and retracts his remarks.”
Michael Kirby’s letter to the Anti-Defamation Commission, via The Australian, August 11:
The last thing I would wish to do would be to cause offence to members of the Jewish community, in Australia or anywhere else.
My nephew and niece, being born of a Jewish mother, are Jewish by ethnicity and upbringing. In our family, we are proud of our connection with the Jewish community and with our family’s Jewish members. On 27 August 2017, I will be speaking at the dinner for Hadassah Australia in support of that good cause of the Australian Jewish community. Every year, I am invited to, and do, address the Australian Jewish students Association to emphasise the importance of remembering and respecting the lessons of the Holocaust. And the need to combat anti-Semitism. And learn contemporary lessons about it. On 25 August 2017, I will be interviewed by the Australian Jewish News on the subjects of my forthcoming talk.
My partner Johan and I regularly visit the Joodsemuseum and Anne Frank Huis in Amsterdam. We have studied the terrible sufferings of the Jewish people in the Netherlands during the war. My partner lived through that time in the Netherlands and although then a small boy he was profoundly affected by the experience. We have talked about it often. I am sure you know that there are books written on the topic of cooperation with the occupying and local powers which was, and is a source of great pain in the Netherlands. It affected my partner’s strong belief (which I can entirely understand) that no minority should ever cooperate with those who seek to oppress its members. In our most respectful view, the Holocaust should not be consigned to books of history; nor restricted to the lessons it teaches for anti-Semitism. It should be available so all of us can learn from the wrongs that are done to minorities by reason of indelible features of their nature. This includes race and ethnicity. But, in our view, it also includes sexual orientation. Many of the leaders of LGBTIQ liberation have been Jewish.
I do assure you that no offence was meant and I was simply trying, in ex tempore unscripted answers to questions, to explain why my partner’s experience, which I have come to share over 48 years, brings about a strong feeling of non-cooperation with the imposition on minorities (in this case LGBTIQ people in Australia) of completely unprecedented, discriminatory, unfavourable and objectionable governmental actions that single them out for disadvantage and hostility. It would be my hope that the Anti-Defamation Commission would see similarities or analogies and insist that no such discriminatory laws or procedures should be adopted by our parliament and our government. I invite you to inform me of any statements by the Anti Defamation Commission making this point and rendering relevant to contemporary Australian society one of the main lessons to be learned from the oppression of the Jewish people.
In the end, I did not feel that LGBTIQ people in Australia should boycott the participation in the discriminatory postal sampling proposed by the government. But nothing will convince my partner Johan to participate. In this, he is a product of the history of his childhood. No one is more respectful of the Jewish people and their sufferings than Johan and me. If my language was considered infelicitous, I regret it. But my motives were truthful and based upon a profound appreciation of the terrible wrongs of the Holocaust. We honour the Jewish people and especially those of the Netherlands.
I hope that you will reconsider your decision to write a critical opinion. We should not allow others to divide those who resist serious discrimination.
Sincerely,
Michael Kirby