Wacky homophobic leaflet linking Hitler to gay marriage condemned

A wacky homophobic letter linking gay people (left) and Adolf Hitler (right) has been condemned after it was handed out in Londonderry.

The leaflet, which bears the letterhead of a group or individual posing as the Children’s Protection Society (CPS), makes a number of weird claims about the recent equality referendum.

Among them: “This was the most tilted referendum in European history. The next one was Hitler’s German-Austria union referendum.”

It also makes a number of weird and irrelevant speculations about Hitler’s sexuality.

“The Southern Government did not want people to know that the order to murder the Jews - and Gypsies - was given by a man who was 7:1 homosexual, or 8:0 bisexual.

“This was Hitler, who also used his homosexual formation, the SS, to commit almost the whole Holocaust.”

Anthony Flynn, chair of Queer Greens said: “I am angered and dismayed that an inherently queerphobic leaflet has been distributed on the streets of Northern Ireland’s maiden city of Derry/Londonderry by a group known as the CPS.”

The leaflet also libels gay people by linking them to child abuse.

Mr Flynn said: “This leaflet makes hateful and outlandish claims that attempts to link Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) people to the abuse of children and the fascist Nazi party.

“Not only are these claims hurtful and damaging to the wellbeing of LGBTQ people, but they are totally inaccurate and completely disregard more than 50,000 LGBTQ people who were persecuted under the Nazi regime, many of whom were imprisoned again after the liberation of the concentration camps.

“It is vile queerphobic propaganda such as this which aims to once again turn our society against LGBTQ people and create a divide within our communities. We must not allow the hard work and sacrifice by those who came before us, who fought for our freedom and liberation to be outrageously misrepresented and torn apart by vicious lies and narrow-minded deception.

“The leaflet also makes sweeping claims as to the validity of the marriage equality referendum in the Republic of Ireland.

“This is a futile attempt to take away from the incredible work that was put into this campaign by the LGBTQ community and their allies.

“The Queer Greens wholly and utterly condemn this type of vile propaganda against the LGBTQ community and want to give our support to the local PSNI which has correctly recorded this as a hate incident.

“I can only hope that a thorough investigation leads to the swift apprehension of the alleged perpetrators.”

Twenty years ago, a letter claiming to be from the same organisation, which has an address in Templeogue, South Dublin, attacked the Irish transport provider Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ) for allowing the sale of condoms on its premises.

The letter, written in April 1996, claimed: “Last November a teen got condoms from a machine, and then died front drug abuse at a former CIE depot.”