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The Australian PM, in campaigning for the national election, appeared on the Q and A program last night. He answered a question regarding why as a ‘good Christian’ he supports homosexuality by a Pastor at a New Age church. He has been applauded by the media for the way in which he answered and his commitment to gay rights. But to me this isn’t the issue at all, the issue is that a Pastor, at a large Church, can appear on a national TV show and ask such a bigoted and ridiculous question without having his own beliefs questioned. Now I am sure that Rudd, and others (me included) will be decried for ‘taking the Bible out of context’ when other things that the Bible says are cool to do (such as Rudd’s point on slavery). It seems to me that this very weak argument can be used by Christians, but not by humanists, or atheists. Could it be possible that (some) Christians are taking the Bible out of context when they say that the act of homosexuality is a sin?
I also wonder what would happen if another person got up and made a bigoted statement about women in the workforce, Aboriginal Australians literacy and unemployment rates, or the influx of immigrants, how that would have been seen? Guaranteed something like this would have got no air time, it would have been a ‘sit down sir, you are being a dick’ moment, and why don’t we treat the lack of acceptance of homosexuality as the same? I don’t care what your old book there says about being gay being a good person is not about blindly following, but about questioning issues from a modern day standpoint, rather than from the views of book written in a different age. Much like slavery isn’t cool anymore and a lot of people work the Sabbath due to conflicting pressures, and we can wear clothes of mixed fibres, because the world has changed since the book was written and people and cultures have too.
Maybe Rudd, and all others who claim themselves to be Christian, should stop being a ‘good Christian’ and start being a good person, there seems to be more room to move there at least.
