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CONSERVATIVE MP Bob Katter has accused the LGBTI community of stealing the word ‘gay’, and he wants it back.

Katter told Sky News last night that he was furious gay people had “taken” the word, The Australian has reported.


“I have a very clear idea of what is going on here: the homosexuals in Australia, they took the word gay,” he said.

“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.”

Katter went on to talk about The Rape of the Lock, a text he studied in school, which uses the word ‘gay’ in its original sense.

“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’,” Katter said.

He expressed concern that gay people would also “take” marriage and freedom of speech.

“’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?

“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.”

Voters have only today to enrol or update their details to ensure they can vote in the upcoming postal poll for marriage equality.