Martina blasts ‘sick’ Court comments
Sydney, June 1: Tennis great Martina Navratilova slammed “sick and dangerous” comments by Australia’s Margaret Court that the sport was “full of lesbians” and transgender child were the result of a Nazi-style plot.
Navratilova said Melbourne’s Margaret Court Arena should be renamed after another Australian great, Evonne Goolagong Cawley, after Court’s comments caused a furore in the tennis community.
Court, 74, had already been criticised after she said she would avoid using Australian airline Qantas over its support for samesex marriage, even before her latest salvo Christian radio.
“Linking LGBT to Nazis, communists, the devil? This is not OK,” Navratilova, who is gay, wrote in an open letter addressed to Margaret Court Arena and published by Australia’s Fairfax newspapers.
“This is in fact sick and it is dangerous. Kids will suffer more because of this continuous bashing and stigmatising of our LGBT community.”
Navratilova added: “It is now clear exactly who Court is: an amazing tennis player, and a racist and a homophobe.
“The platform people like Margaret Court use needs over to be made smaller, not bigger.
“Which is why I think it’s time to change your name. And I think the Evonne Goolagong Arena has a great ring to it.
“Now there is a person we can all celebrate.”
By calling Court “racist”, Navratilova was referring to her 1970 comments about apartheid, when she said: “South Africans have this thing better organised than any other country.”
On Wednesday, Court, who is a church pastor, told Vision Christian Radio that she wasn’t “against” gay people but wanted to “help them overcome”.