Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered a fiery and passionate response when questioned about his support for marriage equality on the ABC program Q&A.
“If you think that homosexuality is an unnatural condition, then frankly I cannot agree with you.”
Pastor Matt Prater from Brisbane’s New Hope Church told the Prime Minister that he worked for a national christian radio station and that most of the station’s christian listeners would not be voting for him because they are disillusioned with Rudd – “Chopping and changing your beliefs just to get the popular vote in regards to things like marriage.” The pastor asked the Prime Minister why people should vote for him.
The Prime Minister said he had changed his position because he had a informed conscience and listed the reasoning behind his change in position.
“Number one, I do not believe that people when they are born choose their sexuality. They are gay if they are born gay, you don’t decide at some later stage in life to be one thing or the other. It is how people are built and therefore, the idea that this is somehow an abnormal condition is just wrong. I don’t get that, it’s just a completely ill-founded view.
“Secondly if you accept that it is natural and normal for someone to be gay, because that’s the way they are, then it follows from that. That I don’t think it is right to say that if these two folk here who are in love with each other and are of the same gender should be denied the opportunity of legal recognition of the duration of their relationship by having marriage equality.
“If you accept that, if your starting point is that homosexuality is abnormal, I don’t know if that’s your view?”
Host Tony Jones asked Pastor Prater what he felt that Christians were particularly upset about?
The pastor responded, “I think the thing is that every pastor, we do marriages between husbands and wives and Jesus said and man will leave his father and mother and be married and that’s the biblical definition. I just believe in what the bible says, and I’m just curious for you Kevin, if you call yourself a Christian, why don’t you believe the words of Jesus in the bible?
The Prime Minister fired back,
“Well mate, if I was going to have that view the bible also says that slavery is a natural condition.”
The Prime Minister’s reaction drew a round of applause from the crowd, Mr Rudd paused for a moment before continuing.
“Because St Paul said in the New Testament, ‘Salves be obedient to your masters.’ And therefore we should have all fought for the confederacy in the US civil war.”
Throwing his arms in the air, the PM continued on, “For goodness sake, the human condition and social conditions change, what is the fundamental principle of the New Testament. It is one of universal love. Loving your fellow man, and if we get obsessed with a particular definition of that through a form of sexuality then I think we’re missing the centrality of the gospel, whether you call it a social gospel, a personal gospel, or a spiritual gospel, is all about.
“And therefore I go back to my question, if you think that homosexuality is an unnatural condition, then frankly I cannot agree with you based on any element of the science and therefore if a person’s sexuality is how they are made, then you’ve got to ask the second question.
“Should therefore their loving relationship be legally recognised and the conclusion I’ve reached is that they should.
“And on the question of chopping and changing, I wrote a two or three thousand word essay, stuck it online, months and months and months ago, before returning to the Prime Ministership, so everyone would know why I changed my position, the reasons for it and it was the product of some many many months and years of reflection in good Christian conscience.
Watch the exchange below.
