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Marriage equality ‘impossible’

By on April 11, 2012

The new Catholic archbishop of Brisbane has used his first press conference to make it clear that he opposes civil unions, said the Catholic Church would never ordain women, and that gay marriage was “impossible”.

During last week’s media conference, Archbishop Mark Coleridge was asked for his views on controversial subjects, including marriage equality.

“It’s not that the Catholic Church finds gay marriage unacceptable, we simply find it impossible,” he said.

“Don’t call it marriage. If you do call it marriage you run the risk of degrading marriage by reducing it to any one of equally valid or invalid options.”

But when asked whether civil unions were an acceptable alternative, Coleridge seemed just as critical.

“Experience would suggest … that civil unions are a way towards homosexual marriage,” he said. “I am uneasy about civil unions for that reason.”

Coleridge stipulated that he believed discrimination against the gay community of any kind was unacceptable except on the issue of marriage equality.

“You may be talking about love, but nuptial love is a love of a particular kind,” he said.

“To talk about a relationship that is not based upon the difference of complementarity of the sexes and the potential fruitfulness that implies … don’t call it marriage.”

The archbishop did, however, seem to have an open-minded attitude about allowing priests to marry.

“You can’t have the Catholic Church without priests and at this point of the church’s life that means male, celibate priests,” he said.

“The male bit I think, is unnegotiable [sic]. The celibate bit is negotiable but not at this time.”

Coleridge officially starts as the Archbishop of Brisbane on May 11.

About Drew Sheldrick

25 Comments

  1. John

    April 11, 2012 at 1:14 pm


    I’m sure not so long ago some Dinosaur Bishop was saying inter-racial and inter-faith marriages were “impossible” too. They weren’t and neither is Marriage Equality for Gay couples – it will become a reality and the Catholic Church can scream all they want – nobody is listening.

  2. Nikola

    April 11, 2012 at 1:39 pm


    The Catholic Church are fast becoming a complete irrelevance.

  3. vinny

    April 11, 2012 at 5:39 pm


    “….The celibate bit is negotiable but not at this time.” Does that mean he fancies having a shag in the future? I’ve never quite understood why they had to be celibate and never understood how a the church building could be a clergy’s bride.

    As for nuns being the brides of christ, how come he gets to practice polygamy?

  4. Craig

    April 12, 2012 at 8:21 am


    If Queensland continues down this new path, it will reap the consequences. Remember Colorado in the nineties, over in the states? I suggest that Aussie and Kiwi readers might want to initiate a boycott of Queensland goods, services and products unless they see sense on the issue of civil unions

  5. Andy

    April 12, 2012 at 9:59 am


    He thinks priests should now be allowed to get married?
    Can you imagine the amount of women married to these “priests” who are going to live a sad life with a middle aged virgin?
    I challenge the Vatican to allow its priests to get married.
    After all who could stay with a man who hates sex, thinks he as a man has a say on what you can or can’t do with your own body and supports a man who harbours and hides pedophiles.
    Sounds like a real cartch! Lol

  6. WhoCares

    April 12, 2012 at 11:13 am


    Don’t worry about what the Catholic Church says..they are insignificant.

    Just watch ‘Zeitgeist’ and it will all be revealed.

  7. Bipolar Bear

    April 12, 2012 at 11:51 am


    The Catholic Church also once thought it impossible that the earth was round. It only took them four hundred years to apologise for getting it wrong.

  8. Peter In Brisbane

    April 12, 2012 at 12:06 pm


    We will never set foot in a Catholic church again not even for a wedding
    We will not do business with known LNP supporters. We will boycott all Queensland products.
    I will never make the dessert ‘Pineapple Princess’ again.

  9. Perkin Warbeck

    April 12, 2012 at 10:20 pm


    Bipolar Bear: it was the notion that the Sun was the centre of the solar system and that the Earth revolved around the Sun, not the way it had been believed by the doctrines of the church where the Earth was the centre.

  10. Stuart Baanstra

    April 13, 2012 at 8:09 am


    It comes down to taxes. If we pay equal taxes, we’re entitled to equal marriage. If the government refuses us the right to marry, we stop paying our taxes. I have.

  11. Tom

    April 13, 2012 at 3:24 pm


    How Stuart? I’d like to do the same thing. I think we all should.

  12. Keith Bowker

    April 14, 2012 at 1:49 am


    Yet again, we have another Church Leader far more focused on condemning and judging others rather than being the example of Christ on Earth.
    We never hear these people condemning couples who do not have children; which according to the archbishop, would mean they are defying the purpose of marriage. (This would include my wife and I)
    We never hear them condemning divorce, which according to the Marriage Act, should not exist, considering marriage is a life long joining together of a man and a woman. This also means pre-nuptials should be outlawed as it shows that couples don’t truly believe they are entering a life long commitment.
    It’s just more gay bashing. The archbishop, like so many other Church leaders is partly to blame for the high rate of depression and suicide amongst the LGBT population. Something else they take no responsibility for or even consider when making their defamatory statements making LGBT people out to be second class citizens of Australia.

  13. Stuart Baanstra

    April 14, 2012 at 8:34 am


    Hi Tom,

    Three years ago I wrote to the tax office telling them I was gay. I said I would no longer pay tax or lodge forms until the government ended all discrimination against GLBTI people. In the past week I received three (3) Penalty Notices for overdue returns. The ATO demands payment for the Penalties by 23 April 2012.

  14. Stuart Baanstra

    April 14, 2012 at 2:46 pm


    On this day April 14, 2012, let us pause to reflect. Will my action against the Establishment be as immense as the iceberg that sunk the Titanic?

  15. Gyan Wilson

    April 14, 2012 at 8:35 pm


    Get your god out of my relationship; my faith has many gods, some with more than one gender. None of them care. Long before Christ picked up a chisel, we were doing the same-sex wild thing. My relationship is my marriage; I tell the churches what’s moral. Get your god out of my orgasm.

  16. A Faithliaig

    April 14, 2012 at 8:42 pm


    People have been marrying each other since long before the existence of Jews or Christians; archaeologists have found abundant evidence of neolithic marriages, and it was Babylon that gave us the word ‘honeymoon,’ which denoted the fact that the prospective groom was entitled to all the mead he could drink for a month.
    Since when did the Judeo-Christian religions hold a monopoly on the concept or the definition of marriage? Marriage is an institution practised by those of every faith ever to have existed on this planet. A fundamental principle of law states that what belongs to all in fact belongs to none and is therefore under the jurisdiction of the State.
    It is our right to demand that the State extend marriage equality to us, and it is not the right of Christian institutions to attempt to politically manipulate the State into doing otherwise. This country possesses the political principle of separation of church and State; it is high time the people demanded that their government showed sufficient spine to enforce this binding political principle.

  17. Stuart Baanstra

    April 16, 2012 at 11:12 am


    I’ve written to the ATO advising them that I shall disregard the Penalty Notices. They are threatening to send the matter to Debt Recovery, as well as pursuing prosecution.

  18. DavidB

    April 16, 2012 at 10:37 pm


    Is the marriage law actually discriminatory. It is there for men and women. If you find a woman you can get married too. I actually can’t see the problem.

    If you really want to enter into a bond with a person, why not enter into a common law contract.

  19. Stuart Baanstra

    April 17, 2012 at 1:46 pm


    I guess you’ve got a point, Dave. If I’m wrong, I go to gaol.

  20. Andrew

    April 18, 2012 at 1:00 pm


    I would hope that the archbish would agree that hetro couples who are infertil or older and can’t have children then should be banned from marrying. After all we would hate to think he had one rule for homo and one rule for hetro’sexuals. Or is he just a bigot?

  21. Jessica

    April 18, 2012 at 4:43 pm


    The Catholic Church has been eralavent for a lone time, they are a relic of the dark ages. I can’t wate till they no longer exist in this country and that will happen if they continue to go down this parth. No body wants to be a priest when you cant have a partner and when alot of people think priest they rightly or worgly think pedofile why would any sane person join the Catholic Church.

  22. Stuart Baanstra

    April 19, 2012 at 10:45 am


    “Religion is the conflict that causes us to evolve”

  23. John

    April 20, 2012 at 6:45 pm


    I have stop reading this as I am going to an ordination

  24. Evan

    April 22, 2012 at 1:23 pm


    @ Stuart, not paying taxes will gain nothing but a tax debt. I dont like that my taxes contribute to a government that spends millions of dollars a year to pay for medicare funded killing of unborn children in the womb. Paying taxes is the law. Pay tax or suffer the consequences.

  25. Stuart Baanstra

    April 23, 2012 at 7:41 am


    Evan, I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complex than that. The ATO treats “failure to lodge” as a separate offence, liable to prosecution.

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