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Anna Wintour slams Margaret Court and the prime minister in tennis speech

US <i>Vogue </i>editor Anna Wintour called for change in her speech to the Australian Open.

US Vogue editor Anna Wintour called for change in her speech to the Australian Open. Photo: AAP

Fashion icon Anna Wintour has called for Margaret Court Arena to be renamed to ensure “intolerance has no place in tennis”.

Speaking at the Australian Open Inspirational Series in Melbourne on Thursday, Wintour slammed retired tennis star Margaret Court, 76, who has compared homosexuality to “devil’s work” and Nazism.

“I find that it is inconsistent with the sport for Margaret Court’s name to be on a stadium that does so much to bring all people together across their differences,” the US Vogue editor told an official Open lunch.

“This much, I think, is clear to anyone who understands the spirit and the joy of the game. Intolerance has no place in tennis.”

Wintour acknowledged Court was “a champion on the court” but said tennis should celebrate someone who is “a champion off the court as well”, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

She went on to call out Prime Minister Scott Morrison, following the debate about whether religious schools should have the right to expel students based on their gender identity or sexuality.

“I have been alarmed by your Prime Minister’s record on LGBTQ rights, which seems backward in all senses,” Wintour said.

“That no one can be expelled from school for their orientation, should not require clarification. A government should protect its people, not make it unclear whether they will be accepted.”

Mr Morrison has said he wanted to strike a balance to protect LGBTI students, as well as religious freedoms.

He abstained from the 2017 same-sex marriage vote.

Wintour, who has been editor-in-chief of Vogue since 1988, said it was “time to turn a page forward from the prejudices of the past”.

“I have been most inspired over the past year by women, by people of colour and young people being bold, standing up, telling their stories and outlining paths to towards a different future.”

Court was surrounded by controversy in 2017 after saying homosexuality was an ungodly “lust for the flesh” and that young LGBTI people were “all the devil”.

“You can think ‘I’m a boy’ and it’ll affect your emotions and feelings and everything else, so that’s all the devil. That’s what Hitler did and that’s what communism did – got in the mind of the children – and that’s the whole plot in our nation and in the nations of the world to get in the mind of the children,” she said on 20Twenty Vision Christian Radio.

There were widespread calls for Margaret Court Arena to be renamed in the lead-up to the 2017 same-sex marriage vote.

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