It looks like Brisbane (Australia) Archbishop Mark Coleridge didn’t learn his lesson from Catholic leaders in the U.S. when it comes to talking about marriage equality to a secular audience: Don’t do it.

Whenever religious leaders try offering rational reasons for opposing same-sex marriage, it backfires since those reasons just don’t exist. But since the nation is on the verge of legalizing equality, he’s eager to get in front of the camera and make his case. Even though he doesn’t have one.

He made the comments today during an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Among other things, Coleridge compared same-sex relationships to ones which are incestuous, before pivoting to the argument that gay couples are no more than friends (as if friends can’t get married), before pivoting again to say of course gay couples are equal to straight ones but they’re not the same… whatever the hell that means.

“Parents can’t marry their children, children can’t marry their parents … sibling marrying sibling has always been ruled out,” Archbishop Coleridge said. … The Archbishop said love between same-sex couples was “like the love of friends … it is valuable, but it’s not, and it can’t be, the kind of love that we call marriage”. … “Is it about equality? Well, yes and no,” he said. “Every human being is equal, but not all are the same.”

Coleridge declined to participate in a follow-up interview with a local newspaper. I guess he realized his words were doing more to advance the equality side of the argument because he was coming off as a damned fool.

The good news is that his bigotry isn’t even working within the Church walls. A recent poll found that 66% of Australian Catholics support marriage equality despite the opposition coming from Church leaders.

So maybe Coleridge should keep talking. The more people equate religion with bigotry, the faster both will fade away.

(Thanks to Gunnar for the link)

