Politics

Please Enjoy This Lady’s Reaction As A Minister Explains His Support For Marriage Equality

Can't win 'em all.

by Rob Stott  29 May 2018
Q&A

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Despite the overwhelming success of the Yes campaign in last year’s postal survey, marriage equality is still a thorny issue for many people, especially if it conflicts with your religious beliefs.

And that was the theme of a question on last night’s Q&A, as an audience member questioned Anglican priest and prominent same-sex marriage supporter Father Rod Bower on how he could support same-sex marriage and call himself a Christian.

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The questioner quoted several Bible verses that she interpreted to be against homosexuality, and asked Bower, who campaigned strongly for the Yes vote last year, to explain himself.

Bower explained that in his view, the Bible doesn’t directly address homosexuality, because homosexuality as we understand it today wasn’t really a concept when the Bible was written.

“The only concept of human sexuality that’s available to Biblical writers is what we would call ‘heterosexuality’ — the opposite-sex attraction. [The Bible’s authors] are aware that there is behaviour that they see, that they believe is deviant. But what they don’t know that there is something that exists called same-sex attraction.”

“And so it’s not Biblically fair from a scholar’s point of view to look at that as homosexuality. What the Bible is really saying, if anything, is heterosexual people shouldn’t have gay sex. And I’m OK with that. But we can’t impose a 20th century psychological concept on to writers that had no idea that same-sex attraction was actually a thing.”

Bower’s answer prompted this reaction from the questioner, which I just love. I guess we can’t win all of them over at once, but here’s hoping she’ll come around one day.

#Qanda

The conversation then moved on, discussing Pope Francis’ evolving views on homosexuality, and the recent treatment of outspoken rugby star Israel Folau.

The questioner, clearly not impressed, drew the conversation back to Bower, and again asked him to clarify his view on gay people and same-sex marriage. Bower confirmed that he “absolutely” supports marriage equality.

“[Gay people] are loved by God. They are worthy of love from everybody. And that’s my personal belief.”

Isn’t that nice? You can watch the whole exchange below.