All bigotry is sincere, Jim

Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) chief Jim Wallace plumbed new depths last week when he claimed critics of same-sex marriage opponents were using tactics reminiscent of the Nazis.

It is tempting to revisit what the Nazis did to Germany’s homosexuals, but that would distract from the real issue here — that Christian opponents of marriage equality believe no one has a right to take offense at their claims, no matter how outlandish they are, because they are sincerely held.

We get it, Jim. Our being offended by the offensive things you say offends you — but all bigotry is sincere.

You and your ilk’s objections to same-sex marriage today are as sincerely held as those of Judge Leon Bazile when he sentenced Mildred and Richard Loving for marrying outside their races in the state of Virginia in 1959, ruling, “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents … that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix”.

Many at the time attested that their opposition to racial mixing was not born of hatred. Many cited the Bible as the source of their convictions while others expressed concerns about the bullying that mixed race children might face.

Your objections are as sincerely held as those of Christian men who for centuries believed in the subservience of women because of biblical edicts like Ephesians 5:

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church … Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.”

And your objections are as sincere as those of generations of Christians who believed the Jewish people were eternally cursed for the death of Jesus Christ — a mainstream viewpoint among both Protestant and Catholics right into the 20th century and one not repudiated by the Vatican until 1965.

In the debate over marriage equality in Australia, opponents of same-sex marriage have suggested that same-sex marriage is a slippery slope towards the legalisation of bestiality, incest and pedophilia and have fanned fears that churches will be forced to marry couples against their will when this has not happened in a single jurisdiction in the world where same-sex marriage has been legalised.

They have likened the quality of love shared by same-sex couples to that between humans and their pets, declared them a threat to families and to children, and diagnosed us as victims of treatable conditions.

Please don’t talk to us about offensive debate.

Changing civil laws that govern civil marriages will not affect definitions of marriage held by Christian denominations — only Christians can do that.