Weakness of Australia's leaders akin to weakness of Nazi opponents, says Christian lobbyist

A Christian lobbyist has compared the situation in Nazi Germany in the 1930s to what is happening now in Australia, saying that the weakness of today's leaders is similar to the weakness of the opponents of the Nazis.

"The cowardice and weakness of Australia's 'gatekeepers' is causing unthinkable things to happen, just as unthinkable things happened in Germany in the 1930s," Lyle Shelton wrote on the Australian Christian Lobby website.

Shelton's post starts off by talking about the obituary of Fritz Stern, a German-born American historian, on The Economist. Stern's parents, with him as a child, moved to America in the late 1930s after fleeing Nazi Germany. As a grown-up, he spent time exploring "how his country-men could willingly capitulate to the ideology of Adolf Hitler and the horrors it spawned." Shelton then wrote that upon reading a quote on the obituary, he "saw parallels with today."

It reads: "Hitler's rise, he (Stern) argued, owed less to the Austrian corporal's personality, his thuggish supporters and brutish ideas, than to his opponents' cowardice and the weakness of Germany's 'gatekeepers' - the guardians of its cultural and moral standards."

Shelton said he is not again comparing the gay community to the Nazis; rather, he is saying that "the issues Australia faces are bigger than the rainbow political agenda."

He mentioned how, for six months, Archbishop Julian Porteous faced the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commission because he was "spreading Christian teaching on marriage and family." He also wrote of Labor leader Bill Shorten's support for the Safe Schools program that, he said, teaches school children that only they -- the children -- can tell if they're a boy or a girl. Not pushing back "is a failure of those of us who know better."

Shelton's stance is that there is a need to oppose policies that change the definition of marriage and those that teach children that their gender is fluid. He clarified to Fairfax Media that he was not saying that the Safe Schools program is on the same level as the Holocaust.

"Safe Schools is not like that, but it's a terrible ideology nonetheless. Different consequences, but it's a terrible ideology," he said, as quoted by The Sydney Morning Herald. "This is not comparing anyone to Nazis. I'm saying that bad things happen when people are fearful of speaking up."

The Safe Shools program is intended to let school children understand themselves better, especially when it comes to gender and sexuality issues. Upon review, however, an independent body found that some materials and content are not fit for young children; thus, according to SMH, the federal government made known in March the changes to the program, which include limiting it to secondary schools.

In closing, Shelton wrote: "Perhaps we have moved beyond cowardice to complicity. Whatever the case, we have much to learn from the dead."

Many find Shelton's words as offensive, including Dvir Abramovich, chair of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission, who called on him to make an apology.

"No matter how strong one's objections to marriage equality or to the Safe Schools program is, cynically debasing, twisting and abusing the Holocaust in order to advance any agenda and to attack opponents is repugnant," SMH quotes him as saying.

Likewise, Australian Marriage Equality spokeswoman Shirleene Robinson reminds everyone that "words can inflict terrible harm sometimes" and using "intemperate language" can deeply hurt LGBTI persons and their families.