Electro musician Nick Bertke slammed for anti-gay rant

AN ELECTRONIC musician from Perth whose videos have more than 110 million plays on YouTube is copping a massive backlash after he posted an anti-gay rant on social media.

In the sick tirade, which has been viewed more than quarter of a million times, Nick Bertke, also known as DJ Pogo, called gay people “an abomination”.

He then goes on to praise the “fantastic” 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting which left 49 people dead.

“I’ve always had a very thorough dislike of homosexuals,” he says in the clip. “I’ve never liked a grown man acting like a 12-year-old girl. I’ve always found that to be quite disgusting. And so I thought to myself, how best can I express to the world that gays are just an abomination?

“I have a fairly robust resentment of the gay community. I don’t want to really get into this, but when there was the Orlando shooting and the guy was shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ or something I was like (pumps fist).

“But yeah, I’ve got to be a bit careful with that because well, you know, I don’t like gays, but I don’t want to see people getting killed in nightclubs either. But still, I mean, it’s just fantastic.”

Thousands have slammed the DJ, who later said his comments were a joke, on social media.

“It’s just disgusting, and there is no way you can brush this off as a joke, if you say those words and they come out of your youth that is just unforgivable,” gay activist Graeme Watson told 9 News.

However, the 29-year-old is unlikely to face criminal charges because anti-vilification laws don’t exist in WA, unlike New South Wales, Queensland, the ACT and Tasmania.

In a video response, the DJ denied he was homophobic and claims to have many friends and supporters are gay.

“I took it too far.” Bertke said in his statement. “There is no pinch of salt big enough to be taken with what I said. It’s all good and well for me to open a valve and draw people out into the open, people I don’t like, hypocrites etc, but I feel very strongly it’s been very naive behaviour on my part.”

“If I’m going to tuck my tail between my legs and admit anything, it’s that these posts and these videos and these things I’ve made for the sake of being edgy have not contributed to any productive conversation.”

The statement has been viewed almost 60,000 times and many of his disappointed fans didn’t impressed by his response.

“I thought the gay-bashing video was so over the top that I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you were just being an a*s on purpose,” wrote one of his former fans.

“However, I didn’t hear you unequivocally disavow the words you used in that video, or say that you have no hatred or resentment toward gay people — you only said that you have many gay fans and friends and sort of left it at that.

“Obviously, you can have gay fans while still harbouring disgust toward them and opposing equal rights for them. It would go a long way to acknowledge that you support the gay community, if that is the case.”

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