Following statements by an authorised Salvation Army spokesperson that gay, lesbian, transgendered and intersex people should be put to death, the Australian Sex Party will send a formal complaint to the Attorney General to see whether Victoria’s vilification laws have been breached as well as a formal complaint to the Victorian Consumer Affairs Minister, requesting that the Salvos Fundraising registration be cancelled.

Sex Party president and candidate for the Melbourne by election, Fiona Patten, said that Major Andrew Craibe, the Salvation Army’s Territorial Media Relations Director for the Southern Territory in Victoria made the statement on radio station JOY FM while defending the Salvation Story: Salvationist Handbook of Doctrine on the Salt and Pepper show last Thursday. “Andrew Craibe’s statement’s are incredibly irresponsible and will give every red neck who hates gay people an excuse to assault or vilify them”, she said. “The Victorian government cannot give charitable status or any support to an organization that supports murder as this person appears to have done. The government should now move to tighten discrimination laws for religious groups rather than seeking ways to relax or exempt them as is currently the case”.

Ms Patten said that although the Salvation Army had distanced itself from Major Craibe’s statements they had not sacked him which indicated to the general public that the organization was not that upset by what he had said. “It was incredibly arrogant and inflammatory and it puts the Salvation Army in the same league as a terrorist or white supremacist organization” she said. “Craibe is a disgrace and the police should investigate his statements for criminal breaches of the law. Last time I looked it was an offence to threaten someone’s life on a public radio station. Because he’s from a religious organization he should be even more strenuously investigated”.

Ms Patten said that she would like to turn the electorate of Melbourne into a no-go zone for the Salvation Army until they sacked Mr Craibe and she was looking at ways to do this.