Israel Folau refuses to back down, tells Rugby Australia he’s prepared to quit code, by Alan Jones.

Israel Folau is a star Australian rugby player who was recently asked in an Instagram post, “what was gods plan for gay people?”. His reply: “HELL.. Unless they repent of their sins and turn to God.” Israel takes the Bible seriously, and accurately reflects its teachings. Qantas, led by CEO Alan Joyce who is gay and outspoken about it, is a sponsor of Australian Rugby and wants Israel to retract and shut up.

As noted in a previous post, “Qantas is in a partnership with Emirates, an airline owned by a government that jails people for being gay. Alan Joyce’s hypocrisy is astounding but no journalist seems to ever bother calling him out on this.”

Israel Folau

It is not believable that the only thing Raelene Castle seems to have done, after months in charge of Rugby Australia, is to haul in ­Israel Folau for comments that he made about homosexual people and the Bible. And then Castle couldn’t wait to rush out to the media after the meeting, as if this was a defining moment of her leadership. …

This issue has nothing to do, in my opinion, with gays or with the Bible.

This is about the stuff that men and women went to war for and gave their lives to defend.

It is simply called freedom, in this case freedom of speech, and Folau, along with every other Australian, ought to be free to express his views.

But of course Rugby Australia, leaderless and often gutless, are terrified of losing a Qantas sponsorship.

Qantas objecting to what Folau is saying about homosexuality is beyond laughable.

I don’t agree with Israel but I’ve told him most explicitly that he must not back down.

He is entitled to his views.

Or are Rugby Australia going to next tell him what to eat and what time to get up? …

My understanding is that Folau told Rugby Australia that if they were worried about the sponsorship and the money and they couldn’t accommodate his views, he would be happy to walk. He certainly will not yield to this kind of bullying — my words, not his.

Interestingly, if Israel was a Muslim rather than a devout Christian, I wonder what Qantas would have to say. We should be grateful that it has taken a talented and courageous young athlete to stand up to all this rubbish and ­affirm his entitlement to freedom of speech.

hat-tip Stephen Neil