Three women who featured in an ad against legalising same-sex marriage have faced death threats, racist taunts, vitriolic abuse and even been sent gay porn by trolls.
Shocking messages sent to the women show the horrific nature of the abuse they have copped ever since fronting the Coalition for Marriage’s ‘no vote’ TV campaign.
But despite being labelled everything from ‘dumb c***s’ and ‘bigots’, and even sent graphic images of pornography, the three women say it hasn’t deterred them at all.
Three women who featured in a TV ad against same-sex marriage have faced death threats, racist taunts and widespread vitriolic abuse
Mrs McIvor (pictured with her husband Julian) received threats including that her church in the country Victorian town of Sale would be burnt to the ground
Among the shocking messages (pictured) sent to the women by trolls were images of gay porn
The three women fronted the controversial TV ad which was funded by the Coalition for Marriage
Among the shocking messages sent to each of the women were abuse and threats of violence to both them and their families.
‘F**k you and f**k your spastic kids,’ one wrote, while another said: ‘Dumb c**t’.
‘You’re a disgusting f**king disgrace of not only a mother, but a human being,’ said one man.
‘You are a horrid mother and should be ashamed to call yourself Australian,’ another wrote.
‘Your children will have all sorts of misery throughout their lives growing up with an ignorant, homophobic parents such as you,’ claimed another.
Lyle Shelton, the head of the Coalition for Marriage, said he had warned the mothers they would come under fire for the ad but never expected such vile backlash.
‘We tried to prepare them for it, we warned them and we did everything we could to protect them, they were demonised by the ‘yes’ campaign,’
‘Someone threatened to burn down Heidi’s church, Cella was called a liar, and Dr Lai had her registration threatened by a GetUp! powered petition.’
Heidi McIvor (pictured) was one of the women featured in the Coalition for Marriage’s TV ad
While acknowledging that there was widespread trolling from both sides, Mr Shelton claimed most of the vitriolic abuse came from the ‘yes’ side.
But he did say the alleged assault of Kevin Rudd’s godson Sean by an anti-gay voter was unacceptable.
‘I think it’s terrible that there’s violence on any side,’ Mr Shelton said.
‘That’s a shocking thing to have happened to anyone, my sympathies are with the young man and there must not be violence on any side.’
Lyle Shelton said the assault of Kevin Rudd’s god son (pictured) by an anti-gay marriage voter was ‘unacceptable’