Watch: Australian gay couple move in with homophobic pastor
An Australian gay couple have moved in with a homophobic pastor for a new documentary.
Michael Barnett and Gregory Storer, a couple from Melbourne, shack up with David Ould, an Anglican minister who doesn’t think same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.
As part of the series, titled Living with the Enemy, the couple spend five days in Ould’s house, before he joined them in theirs.
Mr Storer said: “David doesn’t think he’s forcing his beliefs on other people, but by the very fact that he stands up in church in front of his congregation — with us there in the church — and preaches to us that homosexuality is detestable, young people sitting there in his congregation hear that and this young person’s parents are going hallelujah and amen as a way of acknowledging that what he’s saying is right, that’s forcing your faith onto other people.
“I don’t know that you’d go as far to say that he’s inciting hate. I don’t think that’s his intention. I think what’s missing in David’s thinking is he doesn’t recognise that the potential to cause harm to others is there.”
Ould said: “Marriage is a basic building block of our society, and now we have a powerful lobby group that actually wants to redefine marriage and actually dilute its meaning — and certainly my experience during the show was that there was no alternative definition of marriage being provided and it really was very much it means what it means to me, which actually makes it mean nothing at all.”
Two recent opinion polls have found that 72% and 68% of Australians support equal marriage.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is strongly opposed, though he may be forced to allow his MPs a conscience vote on the issue.
The episode will air on September 3.
