A professional rugby star who has played 73 times for his country, Australian Israel Folau, now finds himself without about A$4 million in salary and sponsorships and a career in shreds.
A disciplinary hearing ruled recently that the national team fullback was guilty of a “high-level breach” of Rugby Australia’s code of conduct when he used social media to criticize gays. A confirmed Christian Folau has been in trouble before for his tweets. These ones appeared last year -
But it was this recent tweet below that landed him in serious trouble with the rugby authorities.
Folau has 72 hours to appeal the decision but any reinstatement seems highly unlikely. His rugby career is over! What an idiot!
This homophobe decided to fight his ban from the Australian National Rugby Team and the consequent loss of million of A$s in sponsorships. Although he must be pretty rich, he decided others should pay for his legal defence. So he started up a crowdfunding site seeking donations from the public. Oops! He chose the GoFundMe site. Mistake! GoFundMe has now informed him that his site breaks its rules since he was promoting the exclusion of LGBT people.
So homophobe Folau's page has been shut down and he is now forced to give back nearly A$760,000 raised so far. I shed no tears!
Folau is a fundamentalist religious nutter, as are the members of his family.
As has been pointed out in the media, gofundme is normally used to solicit donations for sick children, not for covering the legal fees of a multi-millionaire like him.
I have the fight of my life on my hands. If you can and choose to donate, thank you.
The fight of his life? For God's sake! Who got himself into this ungodly (sic) mess other than he himself through his homophobic rants. Another recent posting -
I only visit Australia and do not know its laws. But spouting evil about gays surely has to be some sort of hate speech. Unfortunately the Australian Christian lobby has now taken up his fund-raising efforts. Over A$500,000 has already been raised.
I wonder if Folau believes in " the right of Australians to" live their lives "without fear of discrimination in the workplace."
He also posted that Gofundme "buckled to demands against the freedoms of Australians." It seems he does not believe one of these freedoms is to be gay.
