I want the word ‘gay’ back: Bob Katter

Bob Katter accuses gays of stealing “the most beautiful word in English” and warning the same is happening with marriage.

Bob Katter has accused the gay community of stealing “the most beautiful word in the English language.” Picture: AAP

Crossbench MP Bob Katter has lashed out at the gay community, accusing it of stealing “the most beautiful word in the English language” and warned the same was happening with marriage.

Mr Katter said he was furious that homosexuals and lesbians had “taken” the word gay, which used to mean happy.

He said the word had a special meaning for him because it was used in a text he studied for his university-entrance exam.

“I have a very clear idea of what is going on here: the homosexuals in Australia, they took the word gay,” Mr Katter told Sky News last night.

“It has a particular meaning to me because I got 84 per cent in English, in matriculation, which was a very, very high mark indeed.”

He said the text, Rape of the Lock, had a line “then Belinda smiled and all the world was gay”.

“It just conjured up a beautiful image, it was the most beautiful word in the English language, and (homosexuals) said, ‘oh God we will take that word and we will have it as ours’,” Mr Katter said.

“‘Oh they’ve got this thing called marriage, the other mob, we will take that too’. Well what else are they going to take? Are they going to take our freedom to say we don’t approve of what you are doing?”

Mr Katter acknowledged “some people were born that way” but he did not want gay people to take marriage the same way they took the word gay.

“I don’t want them abrogating to themselves the right to take the most beautiful word in the English language and saying, ‘oh now that’s mine’,” he said.

“And then one of the most beautiful institutions in human history, marriage, and take that, and say ‘that’s mine’.

“If you want to have an arrangement of your own well have an arrangement of your own, call it what you like we will pass laws for you, but don’t take it off us.

“And that is what is happening here, they are taking it away from us, the same as the most beautiful word in the English language was taken away from all of us and they took it for themselves.”