Is Julia Gillard a hypocritical bigot?

It’s not a nice question to ask of a serving prime minister, but it occurred to me today:

1. Julia Gillard chooses to live with a partner whom she is not married to.
2. Julia Gillard insists she is an atheist.
3. Julia Gillard insists she is against same-sex marriage because it’s contrary to what she grew up with.
4. Julia Gillard contacts church leaders in Australia to reassure them that she’s all for traditional values, and notably to reassure them she’s against same-sex marriage and euthanasia.

That last one really sticks in my craw. Quoting the Australian, “Julia Gillard reaches out to Christian leaders”  (which I’m normally loathe to do), we’re told:

Ms Gillard repeated her personal opposition to same-sex marriage and euthanasia, while the church leaders told her of their concerns about changes to the anti-discrimination act that could make it more difficult for Christian schools to hire on the basis of religion.

We’re also told:

In recent weeks, Ms Gillard, who has publicly declared she is an atheist, has told parliament she can still recite scripture learned at her Baptist Sunday school and opposes euthanasia and same-sex marriage on the basis of maintaining traditional values.

Now, here’s what confuses me. She’s all for maintaining traditional values – yet she lives in sin. Yes, she lives in sin. Julia Gillard was born in 1961; her parents, obviously a generation before her.

I know when I was growing up, and I was born in 1973, that women and men who lived together in that era, without being married were being dirty sinners. Or at best, were likely to be sleeping around and that’s why they didn’t go through with getting married.

It didn’t matter that de facto relationships had been legally recognised in Victoria since 1958, or in NSW since 1984, etc., our parents – the people of Gillard’s generation and older – didn’t really approve of de facto relationships. They certainly “tsk tsk’d” behind closed doors, that’s for sure.

I bet you in her Baptist Sunday School lessons – which she claims to be able to still quote scripture with the best of them – she didn’t learn about the virtues and correctness of women who choose not to get married but still live with a man.

So I must ask – if Julia is against same sex marriage on the basis of maintaining traditional values, does that make her a hypocrite, given her personal arrangements?

And if she is an atheist – if she’s not some closet baptist who still prays but finds it socially awkward to admit – and therefore have no “religious shield”*, then does that mean she’s also a bigot?

I want Rudd back. At least he had the balls to present a logical reason as to why he was against same sex marriage. That’s easier to argue against than hypocrisy.

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* FWIW, I don’t for a moment accept that just because someone has a religious belief about something it entitles them to get away with being a bigot.

Related posts:

1. Why Julia won't get my vote
2. Julia for PM?
3. Gillard on Internet Censorship – Same old tripe