Doctors opposed to gay marriage are being likened to racists and stand accused of pushing same-sex attracted people to the brink of suicide by their medical colleagues.
Chris Middleton, who resigned as the Australian Medical Association’s Tasmanian president over the issue of redefining marriage, has spoken out against a petition signed by 2000 doctors.
This petition likens opponents of gay marriage to racists and says doctors with socially conservative views are making homosexuals suffer ‘increased depression, anxiety, self harm and suicidal behaviour’, The Australian reports.
Tasmanian doctor Chris Middleton says he has been ‘smeared’ and ‘abused’ by the petition
‘To speak out against one sector of the community for wanting to access what everyone else can claim freely is discrimination in line with that historically practised against non-white people through the western world,’ this open letter says.
Dr Middleton, who quit the AMA over its support for gay marriage, told the newspaper this letter had ‘smeared’ and ‘abused’ him as a racist in an ‘astonishing and intemperate attack’.
‘May we suggest that such ad hominem attacks on any who question the LGBT orthodoxy is precisely what the public is repulsed by,’ he said.
‘We have made no such attacks, and we advise the authors and signatories of the rival document to reconsider their words.’
Sydney GP Dr Pansy Lai has been targeted by left-wing activists for being in a ‘no’ case ad
Dr Middleton is one of 400 doctors opposed to the AMA’s endorsement of gay marriage, including Sydney GP Pansy Lai who appeared in an ad for the ‘no’ case.
The new pro-gay marriage letter was written by third-year Perth medical student Carolyn O’Neil, whose petition is squarely aimed at doctors with conservative values.
‘As a body of medical professionals we are concerned at the move by some of our colleagues to speak out against marriage equality,’ it said, adding the term ‘same-sex marriage’ was a hurdle that had to be overcome.
The latest campaign against conservative doctors comes after left-wing activist group GetUp! dropped a petition calling for Dr Lai to be deregistered for appearing in an ad for the Coalition for Marriage, which opposes redefining matrimony.
The petition signed by 2000 doctors is clearly aimed at doctors with conservative values
Greens leader Richard Di Natale, a former GP, declined to denounce that campaign against Dr Lai at a media conference this week.
He instead voiced concern about ‘conservative doctors’ treating homosexual patients.
The petition was released on Wednesday, the day before the High Court unanimously rejected two legal challenges to the Turnbull Government’s postal vote on gay marriage.
Ballots are being sent out to Australian voters from September 12 with the results of the voluntary survey to be announced by mid-November.