Clinton’s VP nominee Tim Kaine says he thinks Catholic Church will end opposition to gay marriage

Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine has predicted that the Catholic Church will eventually drop its opposition to same-sex marriage.

Senator Kaine, who is a Catholic himself, made the comments at a Human Rights Campaign during its national dinner on Saturday in Washington.

Speaking of his own previous opposition to same-sex marriage on which he changed his mind in 2005, he said he thought the Roman Catholic Church would eventually do the same.

“For a long time while I was battling for LGBT equality, I believed that marriage was something different,” he said of his own previous opposition to marriage equality.

He said: “I think it’s going to change because my church also teaches me about a creator who, in the first chapter of Genesis, surveyed the entire world, including mankind, and said, ‘It is very good,’”

Of the diversity of the human race, Mr Kaine said he thought God would believe that: “I want to add: ‘who am I to challenge God for the beautiful diversity of the human family?’ I think we’re supposed to celebrate it, not challenge it.”

Mrs Clinton’s VP pick also referred to Republican nominee Donald Trump as the “gravest threat” to LGBT rights the community has ever faced.

Democratic Presidential candidate Mrs Clinton in July named Senator Kaine as her running mate.

Senator Kaine has been a long-time advocate for LGBT+ equality. He was one of the original sponsors of the Equality Act, and in 2006 on becoming the Governor of Virginia he signed an executive order to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation.

His views contrast with Donald Trump’s VP pick Mike Pence, a diehard opponent of LGBT rights who previously signed a ‘religious freedom’ law permitting anti-LGBT discrimination.

Mrs Clinton yesterday said she regretted taking aim at half of Donald Trump supporters, saying they were “the basket of deplorables” for being “Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic.”

Speaking to an audience of donors on Friday the Democratic Presidential hopeful said Trump’s campaign had emboldened the prejudiced supporters.

• Dec 01 2023

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