There's lots of talk about Public Theology. But it gets a whole lot harder when you actually have to do it in public. This morning Jim Wallace of the Australian Christian Lobby was on Sunrise with "Mel and Kochie" talking about gay marriage. On the other side were Peter Furness from Australian Marriage Equality and his long term partner Theo Phillip. You can watch the video here.Jim began with the argument that this could be extended to allow someone to marry their cat. That seemed like bad move. First of all it is a reductio ad absurdum, and that is usually a weak argument. More importantly it sounded as if he was saying that homosexuality was equivalent to beastiality: and that didn't seem a great opening line! His next argument was that the gay lobby was trying to make the lifestyle of 1.2% of the population to be 'normative'. I don't think this worked, since they are not trying to make gay marriage 'normative' but allowable. Finally he argued that heterosexual marriages are more stable and therefore better for children (I think that was the argument it got a bit messy at this point). That was a complicated argument to run on breakfast TV, and Kochie thought he was saying that homosexual couples would abuse children (or least that's what he said he thought Jim was saying, which raised the temperature of the debate nicely!)
So Jim's argument seemed thin. Not suprisingly so since he had to argue about consequences, when the real difference between the two views is a view of what is according to nature, and what role nature (i.e. created order) has in deciding how we should act. Jim raised that issue slightly, talking about what was "natural", but the argument was not clear.
Jim's best argument was that our society regularly restricts the rights of some people (e.g. smokers). But that doesn't explain to people why the right to marry should be restricted to heterosexual couples.
The interchange showed how hard it is for Christians to make positive arguments in the public square. That doesn't mean we shouldn't work at it. I don't know what I would have said if I was in Jim's role. I know that I don't want Australia to have legal gay marriages and I know why I don't want that. The reasons don't make sense apart from my Christian commitments. Conclusion - more worked needed on this issue from ACL and any other Christians who want to try the argument in the media.
There is a blog on the Chanel Seven site with lots of comments.
