Matt Wordsworth and Kerrin Binnie
Updated February 21, 2012 07:13:04
A teenage Queensland ALP candidate has resigned after admitting to a series of anti-gay rants on the internet.
Photo: Former Labor candidate Peter Watson. (queenslandlabor.org)
Peter Watson has been forced to resign as Labor’s candidate for the Southern Downs electorate after linking homosexuality to paedophilia in website postings made around four years ago.
Last night the ALP issued a statement saying Mr Watson “flatly denied” the allegations, but the 19-year-old has admitted to AM that he did write the posts.
“I said that homosexuality and paedophilia were linked because there’s been some research done … and it’s been published by the Catholic Church, that suggests that 30 per cent of male paedophiles are homosexual,” he said.
“Well I made the comments, so I do agree with it.
“These comments I made about homosexuals were made when I was like 14, 15 years old, so we’re talking about four, five years ago.
“[But] I do agree in some sense.”
Mr Watson’s posts also described homosexuals as “social degenerates” and accused them of destroying society’s values.
“Well they do, well in a sense homosexuality does degrade our society’s values,” he told AM.
Mr Watson said the initial ALP denial was issued because at the time he was not “actually aware of what allegations people were talking about”.
Labor’s state secretary Anthony Chisholm issued the statement saying Mr Watson had denied the allegations to party officials.
“Well that’s what he told our officials at the time, clearly he has had a change of mind on those matters,” he said.
“Clearly the decision to ask for his resignation was the correct one.”
Labor will seek to have Mr Watson thrown out of the party as early as today.
“We will make a decision on that but I will be recommending to officers that Mr Watson be expelled, because clearly his views have no place in the Australian Labor Party,” Mr Chisholm said.
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Peter Watson for Warwick LOLWUT?!?
How will a Stalinist, a Satanist and a KKK member vote?
you said it... 
I wonder if the Catholic Church extended their “research” to include what percentage of male paedophiles are Catholic Priests.
Any organisation which facilitates contact with children and young people is going to be a magnet for paedophiles. So schools, youth organisations and the churches are going to be at risk.
So by his personal theory:-
You can be a homosexual, and NOT be a Pedophile, so he can “CLAIM” that “all homosexuals ARE pedophiles”.
In that case the ALP is well within their rights to say that:-
You were racist as a 15-16 year old. So you MUST be a racist NOW
Another case where your personal internet history will always catch up with you
He can always re-nominate himself and represent Bob Katter’s Australian Party!
just goes to show that you never can tell what will come back to haunt you. Pretty valuable lesson!
Wait, so saying 30% of paedophiles are gay is an established link between homosexuality and paedophilia?
I’m far more concern about the link between heterosexuality and paedophilia. After all, 30% of paedophiles, so a significant majority, aren’t homosexual, and presumably most of that number would be heterosexual.
Whoops, never mind. This is me thinking through the rabid right’s comments again. You’d think I’d know better.
jm you can’t point out the obvious in the media. thier was also reasearch done that most pediphilia is done by a family member and much of it goes unreported. It’s so much easier to report a gay person than your hetero grandfather or even your father, Because of course with gay people it serves them right because being gay is a sin the catholic church says so. Well let me tell ya people something well hetero people commit pediphilia is a crime as well and a sin.Even though the bible and the catholic church never talk about that angle of it.
It gets better and better. Nice work, Queensland Labor:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/ok-to-be-racist-says-axed-candidate-20120221-1tlrx.html
Is it just me or do a lot of the people shamed on this site come from Queensland? Is something wrong with the water up there or something?
It’s the weather. The heat boils their brains.
So your answer to all the morons in Sydney and Melbourne then? Take your friend Sergio for example.
Ron Proud? Marg Lennon? Ricky Nixon?
Shall I keep going through your recent posts?
Back to hypocrisy I see. Let’s label a entire state of people because of where they come from. What’s the difference between what you have just said and someone who says all people from afghanistan are terrorists?
hear hear!
The question still remains, why won’t The LNP sack Gavin King?
In November, 2011 King made suggestions that women who drink to excess are partly to blame if the get raped or assaulted.[7] King subsequently became subject to a campaign to have him dis-endorsed as the Liberal National Party (LNP) candidate for the Queensland Parliament seat of Cairns.
Well the catholic church would know all about pedophiles…