Friday, September 07, 2012

Head of the Australian Christian Lobby says smoking is healthier than gay marriage

The head of the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) Jim Wallace says smoking is healthier than the lifestyle that would be promoted by same-sex marriage.

Mr Wallace made the claim in a debate on marriage equality with Greens leader Christine Milne at the University of Tasmania. Answering a question from a student on the relevance of his views, he said health statistics among the gay community were worse than those for smokers.



"I think we're going to owe smokers a big apology when the homosexual community's own statistics for its health - which it presents when it wants more money for health - are that is has higher rates of drug-taking, of suicide, it has the life of a male reduced by up to 20 years," he told the audience. "The life of smokers is reduced by something like seven to 10 years and yet we tell all our kids at school they shouldn't smoke."

After the debate, Mr Wallace said the figures saddened him. Senator Milne accused the ACL of homophobia and said Christians should be more concerned with poverty than homosexuality. Mr Wallace accused the Greens of demonising churches with "hate language" and caring more for trees than children.

3 comments:

Barbwire said...

I suspect that with wide acceptance of gays and wide-spread same-sex marriage, those statistics would change radically.

e said...

apparently in even more liberal and 'progressive' country's, the statistics are very similar

Insolitus said...

The fact a gay person can't get married doesn't make him or her any less gay, and marriage equality doesn't make any straight person gay. So how does this lying Christian think denying gay people their rights would reduce the ill effects of homosexuality? I guess one would need to be a nutty Christian to understand that logic.