Fred Nile
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Rev. Hon. Frederick John Nile (15 September 1934 —), Australian politician and clergyman, is a member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, Australia. He was a member from 1981 to 2004, before resigning in an unsuccessful bid to be elected to the Australian Senate at the Australian election of 9 October 2004. He was subsequently re-elected to his still vacant seat in October 2004 (despite the fact that his party had nominated Ross Clifford to succeed him).
Early life
Fred Nile was born in Kings Cross, New South Wales to a taxi driver father and a waitress mother. His schooling occured at Mascot Public and Cleveland Street High School before attending a bible college where he was a rebel with the code name 'Nasser'. Fred Nile is married to Elaine Nile (who is also a former member of the Legislative Council) and they have four children.
Political career
He is National President of the Christian Democratic Party, a minor political party which espouses conservative views on issues such as abortion, homosexuality and pornography. He is best known in for his outspoken opposition to the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
Nile has made a number of highly controversial comments over the years. In the early 1980s he suggested that homosexual men should be quarantined to halt the spread of AIDS. After the Moscow theatre hostage crisis in 2002, he suggested a ban of Muslim women from wearing the chador in public to prevent weapons being hidden inside them. In 2005 he called for the repealing of New South Wales anti-vilification laws, in a response to a ruling by the Equal Opportunity Division of the Administrative Decisions Tribunal. The ruling involved two radio hosts, John Laws and Steve Price, who have said to have made vilificatory comments against a gay couple on a television show, saying "You make a joke about Baptists, Catholics, the Pope, Irish people... why can't you make a joke about homosexuals?".
Politically, Nile has set himself in direct opposition to The Greens (above all others) and often attacks their secular views most vehemently. He usually describes them as the "Brown Green Party, which is really a watermelon party - Green on the outside but red and pink on the inside"; a phrase that has been repeated by other conservative Australian politicians, such as Family First. Nevertheless, Bob Brown publicly welcomed Nile's announcement that he intended to run for the Senate.
He is also the National Co-ordinator and NSW Director, Australian Federation of Festival of Light, a Christian organisation. In 2003 Nile resigned from the Uniting Church in Australia when that church officially decided openly to allow for the ordination of practising homosexual clergy. He has since joined the continuing and non-concurring Congregational Church, a splinter group of Australian Congregationalists which declined to enter the 1977 Church Union with many congregations from the Presbyterian Church of Australia and the Methodist Church of Australasia.