The longest-serving MP in the New South Wales parliament, homophobic ex-Christian Democrats leader Fred Nile, will retire after 41 years at the next state election.
But Reverend Nile wants voters to replace him with his wife in the March 2023 election to “continue his legacy” of “Christian values” in politics.
Nile, who has fought LGBTIQ+ rights since entering state parliament in 1981, said he’s endorsing wife Silvana Nile to take his Upper House seat.
She will be the lead candidate for Nile’s Revive Australia Party (Fred Nile Alliance).
Reverend Nile founded the Christian Democratic Party (CDP) more than 20 years ago. But the party collapsed in recent years after reported dwindling membership and bitter infighting.
He said this week, “I would like to thank you for your support over these past 42 years and implore you to rally behind Silvana.
“I have no doubt that her passion, empathy, Christian values and godliness will see Silvana continue my legacy in New South Wales State Parliament for many years to come.”
In April last year, Fred Nile announced he planned retire within months. Nile nominated self-described “culture warrior” Lyle Shelton to replace him.
Nile claimed at the time the “need for unashamedly Christian voices in public life has only increased in recent years.”
But soon after he dumped Shelton as successor and announced he’d complete his term in the New South Wales Upper House instead.
Ex-Christian Democrats leader Fred Nile fought LGBTIQ+ equality for decades
Fred Nile married wife Silvana Nile in 2013. He claimed at the time he would celebrate the recent defeat of a state-based same-sex marriage bill with the wedding.
Nile has opposed LGBTIQ+ rights and equality for decades, fighting same-sex marriage, same-sex adoption rights, and other law reform.
As recently as 2013, he said homosexuality should still be classed as a “mental disorder” and described it as a “lifestyle choice” that is “immoral, unnatural and abnormal”.
In 2011, he criticised Labor Senator Penny Wong for announcing her female partner was pregnant, accusing her of “promoting their lesbian lifestyle and trying to make it natural where it’s unnatural”.
For decades Reverend Fred Nile held anti-gay rallies and prayer sessions praying for rain on the night of Sydney’s annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. He repeatedly described Mardi Gras as a “public parade of immorality and blasphemy”.
Ahead of the 2006 parade, Nile publicly begged for God to “forgive Sydney”, saying he was praying for rain over the parade rather than “fire and brimstone… punishing those who deliberately sin and blaspheme”.
Australia's oldest homophobe politician Fred Nile just announced his retirement from NSW Parliament. Thanks for being the subject of my first voice edit (1987) & for being such a dick! Seeya, wooden wanna beeya 👋https://t.co/0gGUS1ZOey
— Pauline Pantsdown (@PPantsdown) October 18, 2022
In 1989, Fred Nile led a Christian anti-gay march. Gay activists responded by mobilising, significantly outnumbering his crowd and, for whatever reason, wearing masks made to look like Fred Nile’s face pic.twitter.com/dSya7aI4g3
— Cameron! (@CEColwelll) October 16, 2022
I see Fred Nile will retire from the NSW Upper House at the 2023 NSW election. Good riddance to Fred Nile's outrageously conservative, theocracy based politics and policies that have attempted to take NSW back to some of the most regressive policies of the 1950's.
— Wayne Kosh (@wayne_kosh) October 18, 2022
The first win of the March 2023 election has been won: Fred Nile to creep away into even deeper irrelevance. #nswpol
— andrew lambkin (@feverpitch96) October 18, 2022
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