Kevin Rudd illogical thinking on immoral Homosexual Marriage
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| English: Kevin Rudd, 26th Prime Minister of Australia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
In a blaze of carefully-scripted publicity, after long and deep reflection, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has endorsed same-sex marriage.
The odd thing about the essay in which he explains why he changed his mind is that he has framed the debate as a Christian issue.
Rudd describes himself as "a bit of a god-botherer" (aka Christian) who has been seeking Christian reasons to support same-sex marriage. "Given that I am allowed a conscience vote on these issues, then what constitutes for me a credible Christian view of same-sex marriage?" he wrote.
This is an odd question for an experienced politician. Surely in the days when Rudd opposed the legalisation of same-sex marriage he was not doing so simply because he was a god-botherer.
Rudd contends that the government has no right to impose Christian views on a godless electorate. He is absolutely correct on this score. The government should not compel church attendance on Sunday or require MPs to be members of the Church of England.
Admittedly, among Christians there are many reasons for opposing the redefinition of marriage, but the only ones which merit consideration in Parliament are based on good social policy.
Christian views on redefining marriage vary, of course. But Australia's traditional definition of marriage as a partnership between a man and a woman is not fundamentally based upon the Bible. It is based on the notion that marriage is the only institution which unites children with their mothers and fathers.
Every child has a right to a mother and a father.
Christians oppose redefining marriage because it is an important social justice issue, but so do atheists. To take one example, Brendan O'Neill, the atheist libertarian Marxist editor of Spiked, a quirky and influential UK on-line magazine, recently spoke at (at, not in) the House of Lords against same-sex marriage.
He vigorously attacked the notion that marriage is all about love, one of the mainstays of the marriage equality movement.
"Love is not enough to enter into the institution of marriage. Marriage already discriminates, even against people who are in love. For example, a man might be genuinely and passionately in love with his sister, and she with him, but they are absolutely forbidden from getting married."
Redefining marriage should be opposed because it does a colossal injustice to vulnerable children. It makes it legal to deprive kids of the right to know their natural mother and father and to be raised by them.
One of Mr Rudd's finest moments as PM was his apology to indigenous Australian for the stolen generations. The result of same-sex marriage will be the creation of generations of genetic orphans. Does he really want this?
Rudd seems to have decided that whatever Christians support cannot be secular. This is nonsense.
Take an exhortation from the Book of Deuteronomy: "For the poor will never cease out of the land; therefore I command you, 'You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor in the land.'" Aha! God-botherers support disability benefits. Abolish them now!
Or the Gospel of Matthew: "Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world for… I was a stranger, and you took me in.” Aha! God-botherers support open door migration. Turn back the boats!
Christian reasoning and secular reasoning are not mutually exclusive.
Christians may find solace and motivation in their Scriptures, just as secularists do by reading Darwin or Dawkins. But the only valid arguments in the public square on same-sex marriage or any other issue are those which are based squarely upon reason.
Curiously, for a politician with a reputation for being detached and cerebral, what swayed Rudd seems to have been emotion rather than reason.
How did he evolve from resolute opposition to warm support? He felt alone. His children regarded him as "an unreconstructed dinosaur". His wife described him as "antediluvian".
He didn't want to offend a hard-working affable gay staffer who was a good friend who claims to be Pentecostal who claims his pastors supports his sinful desires...???
He sounds very much like another lonely former PM meditating on the nature of marriage, Thomas More. Back in 1535 More was asked to queue up with England's great and good in acquiescing to Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon.
He refused. His response, as dramatised in the play A Man for All Seasons, seems particularly relevant to Mr Rudd's situation.
More's friend Norfolk says, "But damn it, Thomas, look at those names... You know those men! Can't you do what I did, and come with us for friendship?"
To which More responds: "And when we stand before God, and you are sent to Paradise for doing according to your conscience, and I am damned for not doing according to mine, will you come with me, for friendship?"
Thomas More lost his friends (and his head) but he kept intact his reputation as a Christian thinker.
Kevin Rudd has kept his friends, but this decision has shown that he is no expert on Christianity.
Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet. View his full profile here.
