Gay for pray

A Christian group will make a bold appearance at this year’s Mardi Gras parade with a float  depicting an unconventional rendition of the Garden of Eden.

The Sydney’s  Metropolitan Community Church(MCC) designed its float, featuring Adam and Steve and Jane and Eve, to send a tongue-in-cheek message of hope to gay Christians

The float’s organiser Alex Pittaway said: “For too many, especially in the LGBT community, Jesus has been used [as] a tool of judgement instead of a source of infinite love.”

“MCC wants to turn that story around bring the love and grace of Jesus to Sydney, we want to tear down walls and build up hope.”

Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ is the inspiration for the float, which will also include a modern day Garden Of Eden, under the title ‘God Makes No Mistakes’. “We’ll be having a large tree with four different Jane and Eve, Adam and Steve couples on our float to highlight the diversity of our congregation,” Mr Pittaway said.

The MCC has been involved with the LGBT community since 1974, with many members marching in the first Mardi Gras in 1979.

“I think increasingly younger Christians are living in diverse communities and see firsthand the human cost of ignorance. When you see human suffering, whether that be as a result of a hardline misinterpretation of the Bible or as a result of any form of ignorance, you have to get up and do something,” Mr Pittaway said.

Convener of the Queer Students Network at Sydney University, Tommy Berne, has concerns about the role of religion in the LGBT community. “I see religion as being a source of great harm to the queer community,” he said.

“It is largely the church that serves to reinforce damaging heteronormitive ideas of how we should live our lives and that condemns people as ‘immoral’ for breaking with tradition.”

“Some people in our community are queer and religious. They have the right to deal with the internal contradictions of this position themselves.

“It is, however, important to remember the harm that religions can do to queers in our community as well as the benefits it may give to them.”

Reverend Fred Nile has gained notoriety since the mid 1980’s, for denouncing the parade by praying to God to send rain. The leader of the Christian Democratic Party plans to pray again this year.

“I object to the leading politicians who continue to promote and support the homosexual and lesbian Mardi Gras,” he said. “I believe that what goes on in the Mardi Gras parade is not supported by the community.”

Christian activist Peter Madden will also be at the Prayer for rain, which will take place at Hyde Park on Mardi Gras night. “We need to pray that God will put a stop to the homosexual community’s recruitment night” he said.

Mr Pittaway said: “I’m 22 and if you doubled my lifetime that would give you an idea of how long Fred Nile or people like him have been doing things like this. I look at the number of people who show up to his gatherings and I look at the spirit of acceptance at Mardi Gras and I think that speaks for itself.”

Greens MP, Cate Faehrmann said: “Reverend Nile belongs in a very outdated era. Everybody is entitled to their own views, but his are so bigoted that they are unacceptable.”

“The theme of Mardi Gras is universal love. It’s all about love and acceptance and Mr Nile is the antefix of everything that the parade stands for.”

“With the presence of floats like the MCC Church float, we see how isolated he and his cohorts are within the Christian community,” she said. “Luckily, he seems to be in a very small minority of people who continue to share these homophobic views.”

By Georgia Fullerton