Court: Sexuality is a choice
Tennis champion Margaret Court is standing firm in her opposition to the LGBTI community, saying sexuality is a choice and reaffirming her stance against gay marriage in an opinion piece published in the Herald Sun today.
In the editorial, Court said Australia is blind to its “sliding lifestyle” and losing touch with fundamental Christian values.
“Minorities are now making it harder for the majority,” she said.
“They are increasingly taking everything that is good in society and pushing it to the side.
“Looking back, you can see that there has been a steep decline, especially when it comes to the issue of sexuality.
Court goes on to say she believes homosexuals choose to be gay.
“In the Bible it said that homosexuality is among sins that are works of the flesh,” she said.
“It is not something you are born with. My concern is that we are advocating to young people that it is OK to have these feelings.”
“But I truly believe if you are told you are gay from a young age, soon enough it will start to impact your life and you will live it. If somebody is told they are gay they often start to believe it.”
Court said she is also opposed to same-sex marriage because children need a mother and a father.
“I can’t understand, if we are a blessed nation under a biblical Constitution, why there is such a push to change it? We will only start to tear away at the rich fabric and sustained values. Then God will take his hand off our nation and the lights will go out.”
“That is why I believe we need to protect marriage because it has been God-ordained from the beginning.
“God told man to be united with his wife and to multiply on earth.”
Please Star Observer, stop posting news about Court. Who cares? She USED to be a star tennis player. Nowadays she looks like an ugly old cow, shes old as dirt and even if she can still play tennis at her age (which I doubt) who cares? Many devout christians, muslims and jews hate gays. Its no secret, not all of them do but many do and her interpretation of the bible is correct. Who cares what she thinks? I am sick of reading about the ugly old bitch, her views are irrelevant. We care about her tennis playing ability, NOT her religious views
ED: Torchwood, we’re a newspaper and it is our job to report this stuff. As distasteful as we all might find it, ignoring it won’t make it go away.
Clearly reason is not getting through to this bigot. Mainly because homophobia is not a rational decision but an emotional response. However, I wonder if she would refuse the services of gay doctors or paramedics if she had a health scare? Or she throw principles to wind?
I also agree with previous posters about what the Bible says about women trying to take leadership roles. Clearly she does overlook Biblical writings to suit her purposes.
I hope this woman who used to play tennis also preaches that eating shellfish is also an abomination against her faggot hating God? So watch out Maggie if I catch you eating a a raw prawn again it’s all over red rover. because you will be damned just as sure as if you’d been eating a big juicy …… (that’s right steak) gluttony is after all a sin. And sinners go to hell don’t they? At least in your sick world where your God loves you so much that eating a prawn means an eternity of hell fire and torture. Just think what you’d get if you’d been eating pussy?
Margaret needs to drink a nice big glass of STFU. It’s a shame she’s become a professional God-botherer, but why on earth does she feel the need to bother the rest of us with her unenlightened, uneducated and unelucidated views??
Where is Bobby Riggs when we need him?
In response to the article in todays Herald Sun I sent this response…
I am not sure where Margaret Court is looking but everywhere I look, I see gay and lesbian couples fighting hard for simple equality. These men and women are working hard at raising a family that took a lot more effort to bring into existence than a marriage that doesn’t last. They are making a better lifestyle for themselves and their children and most of the people I know see it as a great future for our country and are applauding their efforts.
I seem to recall that there is a separation between Church and State
in our country and that, when you look at it, many biblical rinciples
are common to most faiths – don’t kill, steal and do unto others as
you would have them do unto you. This strong moral fabric of our
multicultural society is made up of families of Christians, Muslims,
Hindu, Buddhists, and atheists, amongst others. Some (indeed the
majority) of them are single parents, separated or divorced and some
are homosexual. I agree family and marriage are core and it is
because they want to have that core that same sex couples want the
right to marry and have their families recognised.
None of these families that I know of are teaching their children that anything goes. They teach tolerance, understanding, acceptance and good moral values. An understanding of equality and a clear education of right and wrong is fundamental to all families, no one faith or type of family has claims to some higher moral ground in this regard. If anyone is teaching our children that anything goes it’s those who are saying we are not discriminating, but we will not allow full equality, that say that God’s message is love, but my God does not love and accept you.
There are those who would sooner see our society as some traditional
Christian patriarchal ideal rather than the reality it is today with
the majority of marriages ending in divorce, children being raised in
blended families and a government willing to provide financial
incentives to women to have children regardless of whether they are
fit and capable of raising them or not. Is there is a problem with
our society it’s that we don’t educate on how to be parents, it’s just assumed knowledge from the good Christian values we have.
When same sex attracted people realise that what they most want to do
in life is to raise a family, they demonstrate the same desire as
heterosexuals. Not all want to be parents and raise a family, but for same sex attracted people they don’t become parents accidentally.
It’s not something that just happens, it costs a lot of time and
effort and when there is something you really want to do, you work
hard at making sure you do your best at it. Perhaps this is why some
research is suggesting that GLBT parents may make better parents –
because the vast majority of them have worked really hard to become
parents.
As a society I think we are in fact getting more in touch with good
moral values and our leaders are realising that the fundamentalist
Christian agenda and source of funds is at odds with an increasing
majority of Australians. I don’t think it is taking the easy way out
to say we need to right the wrongs of the past. “Sorry” took a long
time to say to the indigenous people of this nation – I hardly think
that this was “taking everything that is good in society and pushing
it to the side”.
It concerns me most that in spite of all the published research and
literature out there by highly qualified individuals that people like
Margaret still hold the belief that sexuality is a choice. There are
many great books on (and practitioners of) psychology that will
indicate that she is mistaken. Is it this blind faith and belief that is the basis for her informed views? Perhaps rather what she meant to say is that how you act on your feelings is up to you.
I have yet to meet a born again Christian homosexual over the age of
30, that hasn’t suffered years of anguish and frustration trying to
live up to their good Christian values. It is people like Margaret
who support the “ex-Gay” movement and organisations like Exodus who
try all sorts of ways to ‘save’ people from their ‘choice’ to be gay.
The number of suicides and the stories of those now “ex-ex-Gay” show
how hard these people have tried and the many suicides talk even
louder of the damage this “sense of discipline” has caused.
Let me be clear, I am no expert on the Bible. I am no famous tennis
player or church minister, but I am a gay man and a father and I know
I love my children as does my current partner and I am proud to say
that I will accept and love them unconditionally regardless of their
sexuality. I doubt that the many children growing up in such
fundamentalist Christian households as Margaret would have are being
told that they are gay, yet they seem somehow to discover this and
have to hide it from their family for fear of rejection – how damaging can this be to a child’s understanding of love?
You only need to look at such organisations as Freedom2be to see the
many stories of struggle from these good Christian souls. I wonder
how Margaret would justify these people’s lives, was it society or
their teachers who were constantly telling them they are gay? Is it
any surprise that it takes many of these people a long time to find
their place in life and then to realise that something is missing, the desire to raise a family of their own.
We are living in a society that has families of all sorts.
Traditional nuclear families, extended families from African, Asian
and Pacific Islander origin, single parent families and same sex
parented families. It is only this last category that we are denying
recognition to, only the children of these families that we are
telling they are not equal and their family is not worthy of
recognition. This is what denying marriage to same sex couple means.
These same sex families too often come from individuals who have been
cast out by their own families because they are gay. They have
struggled to develop a new life and worked hard to make things better. Getting an education and a job, saving for a home and being able to provide for your children is something they have each trained hard and worked towards.
If people like Margaret believe in the sanctity of marriage and that a child needs a mother and a father then why are they not campaigning to have divorce removed from the law books? What impact would it have if, in our society, marriage was for life? I would suggest a lot less heterosexuals would get married but the demand from same-sex couples would remain unchanged.
I respect the right for a Church to have Marriage as a sacrament and
to limit such ceremony to members of their own faith, but Marriage is
also a legal institution that brings with it rights and
responsibilities under the law and this includes responsibilities with regards to children. Whilst Marriage in the Church may well be God ordained, and you can choose your faith for which God you prefer,
Marriage in the State is a matter of statute and if the fabric of our
society is to be made stronger then sustaining the values of equality
and fairness for all demands that we move out of the dark ages and
into the light of a new dawn.
To think that same sex marriage will destroy society has as much
validity as believing that daylight savings fades the curtains (with
apologies to Queenslanders).
The only way to treat all children equally is to allow those children
with same-sex parents to have their parents legally recognised and
allowed to marry. Discipline our children when they do wrong by all
means, but not by denying their parents the recognition of their
commitment that marriage brings. To do otherwise is to perpetuate a
society with two classes of citizens. This is not the Australia I
believe in.
I looked at the pics of Rev Court and thought “Pray away the gay!”
Homophobes are often running away from their true selves, well that’s a ‘choice’ they have made – but doesn’t mean they have the right to impose that misery on others who are content to be their natural and authentic selves.
And I agree with you Tim. Maybe Martina and Billy turned her down.
So according to her, she’s basically saying in the opening paragraphs that all minority groups are evil or wrong? Well, this is now more than just about LGBT rights – it’s rights for all minorities.
I think we should reopen Tassie as a prison island – she can be it’s first resident for vilification, racism, and for saying that the law is based on Christianity, when the constitution itself CLEARLY states that Australia is ruled (HAHAHA) by a Secularism.
When will these old people depart the planet?
People don’t choose their sexuality – they choose to ignore it! Perhaps this is what Margaret Court has done??
I just don’t understand what is going on? What is all the fuss about the naming of this ‘Ye Olde Buzzard Stadium’? The tennis will be soon be over and the said creature will fly back to it’s perch in stifling, conservative Perth! 5000 dead rotting fish in the Swan River, about says it all!
Citing hate speech is also a choice, Margaret.
just one question for Margaret Court……does she choose being a str8 woman or she was born with it. Enough said………
Why do Christians get so steamed up over sex ?
Funny thing sex, I wonder is Margaret Court ever mentions prostitution or Saint Mary the Harlot, or about St Afra, St Thias or St Pelagia in her Sunday School message, all of whom had swung handbags beneath the Lamp-posts of the ancient world.
Her real hostility is aimed at Homosexuals, there is notoriety, church/job security and money in it. She wouldn’t be brave enough to lash out at our wonderful working girls.
Gay marriage is surly coming Margaret, you may as well legislate against floods and bush fires.
So she is saying that children are brainwashed to become gay? Who by? Their church going parents? The only brainwashing I see is done by the church. Someone send this idito back to the dark ages where she belongs.
By all means give her a megaphone for tennis and her religion (two fields she is an expert in) but on the subject of homosexuality she is ill-informed, biased and, frankly, incorrect. Why is the Star Observer printing her words on a topic she has absolutely no study or knowledge in?
“But I truly believe if you are told you are gay from a young age, soon enough it will start to impact your life and you will live it. If somebody is told they are gay they often start to believe it.”
This quote in particular is so astoundingly laughable. You can ‘truly believe’ whatever you want, it doesn’t stop you from being wrong.
Ignore the silly old thing. People like her and her “congregation” of nut-jobs are not worth writing about.
They most certainly do not represent the majority of Aussies and their beliefs in the writings of The Old Testament ie: before the “Christian Era”, are irrelevant to Christianity and modern life in general.
Maybe Margaret Court should read the WHOLE Bible…
“Women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be submissive, as the law also says.” (1 Corinthians 14:34)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Ms. Court is a retired tennis player. This is not America, we do not fawn over pretend celebrities the way they do. We should be ignoring this silly, anti-intellectual, misguided female.