Former Australian PM Kevin Rudd now supports marriage equality
In his post titled Church and State are able to have different positions on same sex marriage, he wrote in part:
I "have come to the conclusion that church and state can have different positions and practices on the question of same sex marriage. I believe the secular Australian state should be able to recognise same sex marriage. I also believe that this change should legally exempt religious institutions from any requirement to change their historic position and practice that marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman. For me, this change in position has come about as a result of a lot of reflection, over a long period of time, including conversations with good people grappling with deep questions of life, sexuality and faith."
Following a talk with an unnamed former political staffer, a gay Christian who is active in his Pentecostal Church, who told the former PM that he wanted to be married to a man, Rudd said that he rethought the issue and came to a different conclusion:
"And so the re-think began, once again taking me back to first principles. First, given that I profess to be a Christian (albeit not a particularly virtuous one) and given that this belief informs a number of my basic views; and given that I am given a conscience vote on these issues; then what constitutes for me a credible Christian view of same sex marriage, and is such a view amenable to change? Second, irrespective of what that view might be, do such views have a proper place in a secular state, in a secular definition of marriage, or in a country where the census tells us that while 70% of the population profess a religious belief, some 70% of marriages no longer occur in religious institutions, Christian or otherwise."
Rudd added that he had never thought homosecuaity to be a "choice" or an "abnormality" please read it all:
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