Turnbull defends churches refusing to marry pro-equality straight couples

Turnbull defends churches refusing to marry pro-equality straight couples
Image: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on ABC's 7.30. Photo: ABC

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said churches are within their rights to refuse to marry couple who support marriage equality.

Turnbull has encouraged all Australians to debate marriage equality respectfully, but also defended a church that recently cancelled a wedding over the couple’s views, according to The Age.

Ebenezer St John’s church in Ballarat cancelled a couple’s planned wedding because the bride made a post on Facebook in support of marriage equality.

In a letter to the bride, the minister who had been set to marry the couple wrote, “After the pre-marital counselling that you attended and the sermons delivered at Ebenezer on this subject, you must surely appreciate that your commitment to same-sex marriage opposes the teaching of Christ Jesus and the scriptural position practised by the Presbyterian Church of Australia and by me.”

Turnbull spoke out in defence of the church, saying that they have a right to choose who they marry.

“Churches are free to marry whoever they like, you know,” he said.

“Churches are entitled to marry or not marry whom they please. That is part of religious freedom.

“There are many churches, including my own church the Catholic Church, who will not marry someone who has been married before.”

Turnbull doubled down on his defence of religious freedom, saying, “As strongly as I believe in the right of same-sex couples to marry, even more strongly do I believe in religious freedom.”

He promised that if the marriage equality vote returns a majority ‘yes’ result, any marriage equality vote will contain strong protections for religious groups.

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5 responses to “Turnbull defends churches refusing to marry pro-equality straight couples”

  1. I have no problem with this church choosing not to marry someone because of their support for SSM and I have no problem with Turnbull supporting it. We need to fight the immediate battle of marriage equality and eventually these other petty issues will go away.

    It will come to a point where people will think it’s weird that a particular minister or church won’t perform a SSM marriage and the more we ignore them the more we take their power away,

  2. Easy fix…
    The Hetrosexual Couple involved can easily get hitched under Australian Law by simply using a Celebrant instead,Yep 70% of Hetro’s have been openly ignoring Religious wedding for years….they get married in Parks & Beaches etc with a Celebrant……Not a Church.

  3. The minister doesn’t seem very up on the New Testament. I’m puzzled as to what the ‘teaching of Jesus Christ’ ever had to say about same sex relationships.

    Malcolm Turnbull needs to think long and hard about the religious freedom of inclusive people not just the hard right theocrats.

  4. This whole story highlights why John Howard’s urging people to vote No to save religious freedom is BULLSHIT. Churches can and do say No to straight couples all the time, they’ll say No to same sex couples if they want to, none of that is a reason to oppose marriage equality.

    So thanks to the Presbyterian minister for confirming what we already knew – John Howard is hiding his homophobia behind some pretend legal bullshit because he’s a lying rodent.