‘God said homosexuals will burn’: Well-dressed woman confronts Anglican priest over a sign supporting gay rights outside his church
- Anglican priest Rod Bower has been confronted outside his Gosford church
- The theologically liberal archdeacon has street signs supporting gay rights
- A woman called him a ‘hypocrite’ for denouncing sacked rugby star Israel Folau
An Anglican priest who regularly puts up politically-provocative signs on the street has been called a hypocrite outside his church.
Father Rod Bower had just put up a new message criticising the need for new religious freedom laws when a woman on the footpath remonstrated with him.
‘God hates hypocrites. He said homosexuals will burn,’ she said in an altercation filmed by the ABC’s 7.30 program.
An Anglican priest Father Rod Bower (pictured outside his Gosford church) had just put up a new message criticising the need for new religious freedom laws when a woman on the footpath remonstrated with him
Father Bower, a theologically liberal archdeacon based at Gosford north of Sydney, responded by asking her where in the Bible it said that.
The woman wearing high-heeled shoes continued by suggesting adulterers and alcoholics would burn in hell before accusing the reverend of failing to read the Bible.
‘Read your commandments, read it in the Bible,’ she said during the Tuesday exchange.
Father Bower had just put up a new sign, slamming Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s push for new religious freedom laws, when the confrontation took place on the New South Wales Central Coast.
‘True religious freedom is the freedom not to discriminate,’ he said with red letters on a message board.
Father Bower had just replaced a sign which denounced former Wallabies star Israel Folau, who was sacked by Rugby Australia in May for tweeting that ‘drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters’ needed to repent if they wanted to be spared from hell.
The woman (pictured) told Father Bower, ‘God hates hypocrites’ after he had just finished putting up a new sign outside his church
She also told him ‘homosexuals will burn’ after he had denounced sacked Wallabies star Israel Folau in a previous message board
The heckling outside of his church has become more intense since he put up a sign which said, ‘Folau is wrong, don’t listen to him.’
After a quick chuckle, Father Bower said his latest confrontation was about Folau.
‘She was saying Folau was right that the Bible says homosexuals are going to burn,’ he said.
‘My question to her was, “Tell me where, tell me where it actually says that”.
‘It doesn’t say it anywhere.’
The heckling outside his church has become more intense since he put up a sign which said, ‘Folau is wrong, don’t listen to him’
Later this month, the federal government is putting forward draft legislation to create a new Religious Discrimination Act.
It follows a review into faith freedom by former attorney-general Philip Ruddock, with plans for a new Religious Freedom Commissioner flagged in December.
Section 116 of the Constitution already bans the federal government from ‘imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion’.
It also says there shall be ‘no religious test’ to hold a Commonwealth position.
University of Sydney law lecturer Anne Twomey said the Constitution did not extend to employment contracts.