Two Queensland based drag performers have lost their case vilification against Lyle Shelton, the former Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby.
Warning: This story has details of suicide which might be distressing to some readers. For 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention call Lifeline on 13 11 14. For Australia-wide LGBTQI peer support call QLife on 1800 184 527 or webchat.
The Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal has ruled that entertainers Johnny Valkyrie and Dwayne Hill and the wider LGBTIQA+ communities, were not vilified by Shelton in multiple blog spots and a video podcast published in 2020.
Shelton was commenting on a Drag Storytime event that had been held at Brisbane City Council library.
The event which has been organised by the council and local community group Rainbow Families saw the performers read stories and play games with around 20 young children. Hill performs as Diamond Goodrim, but shortens their name to Diamond for children’s events, while Valkyrie uses the name Queeny.
The event was protested by a group of university students who chanted “Drag queens are not for kids” which drew national media attention. The protestors were led by Wilson Gavin, a member of the Young Liberals, who had developed a public profile during the marriage equality campaign where he argued against allowing same-sex marriage. The day after the library protest Gavin took his own life.
Shelton posted a piece on his website that was critical of the event and the two drag performers. The post deployed what many would describe as crude terms to describe gender confirmation surgery.
Tribunal finds comments were too generalised to count as vilification
The performer’s case centred around concern that Shelton had claimed that the performers were ‘dangerous’ to children because of their sexuality and gender identity. In his online post Shelton mentioned high profile cases of sexual abuse including those of Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein. The case claimed that Shelton has vilified both the two complainants and people who are gay or transgender in the wider community.
The tribunal did note that some of the claims published by Shelton were incorrect, specifically that Hill had a past working in the pornography industry.
“Contrary to what was said or implied on numerous occasions in the respondent’s published material, when working with children he only uses the name ‘Diamond’ and he had never been involved in the pornography or prostitution industries”. Tribunal member Jeremy Gordon said in the decision, later noting that as a former journalist Shelton “should have known better”.
In the complex 78-page ruling Gordon outlined that it was not possible to draw a clear link between the different parts of Shelton’s posts, noting that the posts discussed multiple issues at the same time. Nor was it possible to draw a clear link between the post and comments from third parties that were posted online on Shelton’s social media pages because it could not be ascertained which sections of the post people were responding to, or if they were responding to the post or other comments on the Facebook page.
“The belief of those in the hypothetical audience that when performing drag queen story time the complainants were involved in some sort of child abuse or pedophilia, would not have come from anything in the respondent’s published material but from something else,” Gordon said in his reasons.
The tribunal member also found that it was not possible to declare that the comments were vilifying drag performers because such a wide range of different people were included within the profession.
“There is a difficulty in that, for there to be a contravention of section 124A the incitement to hatred or serious contempt would need to be on the ground of the sexuality or gender identity of drag queens,” he said in the judgement.
“On the evidence I have heard and seen, some drag queens are transgender persons and some are persons with homosexual sexual orientation, but a substantial proportion of drag queens are neither,” he wrote.
The tribunal noted that Shelton had introduced a moderation policy to his page which saw comments with particular key words automatically hidden and repetitive offenders of unsuitable comment being banned from his page.
Lyle Shelton responds to the judgement
Responding to the judgement Shelton posted on his blog “A legal battle ends, but the war is far from over.”
“This is a big win for the freedom to speak publicly and boldly for the protection of little children from early sexualisation and indoctrination into harmful gender-fluid concepts promoted by LGBTIQA+ activists and many politicians.” Shelton said.
The Christian activist, who is now the National Director of the Family First party, said his case showed that was a problem with Australia’s anti-discrimination and anti-vilification laws, noting that his case had cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
“No Australian should ever again be dragged through a three-year legal process costing hundreds of thousands of dollars for engaging in important public debate about the welfare of children.
In a free society debate should be met with debate, not taxpayer-funded legal action designed to silence and punish a fellow citizen.” Shelton said.
Valkyrie and Hill were represented by Queensland’s LGBTI Legal Service, while Shelton was represented by non-for-profit body the Human Rights Law Alliance which has strong ties to the Australian Christian Lobby.
Commenting on the assertions that information he had posted about Hill were “incorrect” or “false” Shelton said it would be up to his readers to be the judge – as he re-shared the links to four posts he’d previously made with the statements.
OIP Staff, Dwayne Hill and Johnny Valkyrie were approached for comment.
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