Gary Burns (Australia)

Gary Burns is an Australian anti-discrimination campaigner and serial litigant.

He tested the homosexual vilification provisions of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 with a complaint of personal homosexual vilification that concluded in his favour in 2002.

Gary went on to front public interest cases against high profile figures and media establishments for unlawful homosexual vilification.

Burns caused controversy in November 2006 when he suggested members of the gay community should support a campaign by the Rev. Fred Nile and the Christian Democratic Party to raise the age of consent to 18 in the State of New South Wales following the Milton Orkopoulos scandal. A higher age of consent for homosexual [...] had been equalised by the Parliament of New South Wales only three years before. Nile and his party had consistently sought to block or remove gay rights reforms in the Parliament.

The following year, Burns wrote to gay media outlets, and was published by SX, encouraging members of the gay and lesbian community to vote for the Christian Democrats at the 2007 NSW State election because of that party's policy of freezing Muslim immigration to Australia. Burns' letter said it was necessary that the number of Muslims in Australia be reduced from 1.4 percent to less than 1 percent of the total population.

In November 2007, during the lead up to that year's federal election, Burns endorsed the Australian Labor Party and volunteered for its candidate for the seat of Wentworth, George Newhouse. After publicly verballing Lucy Turnbull, a former Lord Mayor of Sydney and wife of the incumbent Liberal candidate, Malcolm Turnbull, Burns was dumped from the campaign and an apology issued by Newhouse.

In 2009, Burns initiated action against Jeff Kennett, a former Premier of Victoria, now President of the Hawthorn Football Club and Chair of the national depression initiative BeyondBlue. Kennett made comments in 2008 which appeared to equate homosexuality with pedophilia in reference to the sacking of a bisexual sports trainer, Ken Campagnolo, by the Bonnie Doon Football Club. Burns declined a request by the subject of the comments, Campagnolo, asking Burns to stay out of the matter lest his actions endanger Campagnolo's bid to receive compensation.. A conciliation hearing was held in NSW, with Kennett refusing meet Burns' key demands: that he apologise publicly to the gay community and donate a sum of money to a nominated GLBT youth charity, Twenty10.