User:Catiline52/Rod Bower (activist)

Rod Bower is an Australian Anglican priest and social activist. He is currently the Rector of Gosford and Archdeacon of the Central Coast. He is popularly known for his controversial church signs which advocate progressive causes.

Activism
Rod Bower is known for his controversial political activism in which he promotes progressive causes through the Gosford Anglican Church's message sign. He has promoted issues relating to gay marriage, refugee rights, gun control, anti-nationalism, and anti-Rupert Murdoch's media monopoly. He has stated his views have been inspired by the liberation theologist Dom Helder Camara.

Bower first began his activism in 2013 when he put up "DEAR CHRISTIANS, SOME PPL ARE GAY. GET OVER IT. LOVE GOD" after delivering the last rites of a dying man whereby the family hid the man's partner due to fear of the Church's stance on homosexuality. After an image of the sign became viral online, he continued using it as a method of activism.

In 2017, Bower was criticised for a controversial sign in which he labelled Peter Dutton, the Australian Immigration Minister]], a Sodomite. In the same year, he chained himself to Kirribili House to protest the Manus Island detention centres.

His controversial signs relating to multiculturalism and anti-nationalism has led to counter-demonstrations by right-wing groups. In 2016, The Party for Freedom interrupted his service clothed in islamic dress to protest his "social justice agenda". In April 2018, after putting up a sign stating "Lest we forget Manus & Nauru", he received a threat by a member of the Australian Defense Force that they'd "set that church on fire". Later in the same year, a group interrupted the service wielding fake weaponry.

In 2018, Bower announced he would run in the 2019 federal election for a New South Wales senate seat to "to give a voice to the marginalised". He has expressed an emphasis on policies surrounding "climate change, refugees and basic human rights".

In 2019, Bower was criticised by the Australian Jewish Association for comparing the Nauru processing centre to the Holocaust.