Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV program Compass aired on Sunday night September 5th 2004. http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s1192915.htm

The show was called “Gay Christians”. “Australian Christians who are also gay and out show how they reconcile their belief with their sexuality.”

Please note: the filming of the interview with me took a couple of hours. Generally I’m happy with the few minutes they edited out of it, but would have liked more! Note further: the voice-over segment (Geraldine Doogue) did not adequately reflect my view of homosexuals and sexual activity. I’d prefer Tony Campolo’s approach: ‘If we’re going to be critical of homosexuality and homosexual behavior, we’ve got to do *much more* than simply prevail upon homosexuals to abstain from sexual activity’.

There were a couple of very brief segments also from two conservatives: Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jenson, and the Catholic Archbishop George Pell. I would have preferred more space given to an expositions of the biblical/traditional *reasons* for their theological stance. Practising – and other – Christian homosexuals got a more-than-fair chunk of program-time (probably more than 90%).

Click image to play video, or right-click image and select “Save As” to download it. (Windows Media format, 2Mb filesize)

Here are transcripts of my three short segments (tidied up a little for easier reading, without altering the basic meaning):

[ 1 ]

“The time has come inevitably where we have to face issues of quality between human being on every level, and homosexuals have been marginalised, in my view, for too long.”

[ 2 ]

“People who kick people out of the Church for reasons of a sexual orientation that they did not choose – or if they are parents of someone who has a sexual orientation they did not choose – they are going to have a hard time facing the Judge in my view. Jesus was not like that. The Pharisees were. And that’s why Jesus got so uptight, so angry, with this kind of Pharisaical attitude.. that, you know, if you don’t conform to our view or the Gospel view or truth or whatever it is, however we define it, then your outa here. Those are the people Jesus got most angry at…

Voice over

“Rowland Croucher is a Baptist Minister who runs John Mark Ministries, an organisation providing counselling and support to pastors and Church leaders many of whom are homosexual. He’s critical of the conservative Christian view that homosexuals should either change their orientation or abstain from sexual activity. “

Rowland:

“There are three categories of sexual activity which are proscribed, in the Bible. And I believe this too. Fornication – sex between at least one unmarried person, Adultary – sex with a married person whose not your spouse, and homosexual activity. Homosexual acitivty and adultery are generally policed pretty thoroughly [in the Church]. But not fornication. The vast majority of our young people who are married in conservative Churches, and other Churches for that matter, are not virgins. So not to put too fine a point on it they’re fornicators. But they are not disciplined publicly as the others might be. Now I have a question about that kind of hypocrisy. “

[ 3 ]

Rowland

“The way forward has to be some way of acceptance of people wherever they are in the process of change. But the way forward also has to be to reinforce the traditional macro-theological foundations of the Church. And they are very few really. They are to do with God and our loving one another, and the authority of the Bible, and our relating to one another in terms of compassion and acceptance. Now if we can do that there will be a way forward. But if we’re going to be judgmental on the one hand, or totally permissive on the other, I don’t think there is any way we are going to reconcile those two ends of the spectrum.

A full transcript available at http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s1192915.htm