Australia: Judge Raps Reverend for Giving Anti-Gay Evidence

A JUDGE has criticised an Anglican Church elder for supporting the evangelical Christian Brethren church's claims that homosexuality is a sin.

Reverend Peter Adam, a canon of St Paul's Cathedral, who was called as an expert witness in a recent discrimination case brought against the brethren, was also criticised for not giving impartial evidence.

Suicide prevention group Way Out claimed the Brethren and its Christian Youth Camps discriminated against them by refusing to let a group of young gays stay at the church's Phillip Island camp because they were homosexuals.

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In evidence, Dr Adam, who is principal of Ridley College, an Anglican theological college, said the Bible's book of Leviticus was the main source of his beliefs on homosexuality but admitted he did not accept passages calling for the ''stoning of mediums, wizards and blasphemers, the killing of adulterers and permitting slavery''.

''His independence and impartiality in respect of the evidence he gave was seriously compromised,'' Judge Hampel said. ''He became in my view an advocate for the cause for which he had been retained and in which he believed.

''That cause was to advance the interests of those who hold the belief … that homosexual sexual activity is forbidden by the Scriptures, to engage in it endangers salvation, and that conduct motivated by those beliefs is justified.''

On October 8, Judge Hampel found the church had discriminated against Way Out, and ordered it to pay $5000 compensation. The judge said Dr Adam and Mr Morgan - a trustee of the Christian Brethren Trust and a director of the youth camp - had shaped Dr Adam's evidence.

''Dr Adam wrote the initial draft of each of his statements, but the many drafts which succeeded them before a final draft was filed were largely drafted by Mr Morgan,'' the judge said.

''[The statements] contained expressions of opinion on matters well beyond [Dr Adam's] expertise as a theologian.''

The judge said Dr Adam acknowledged some language in his statement was not his.