ISRAEL FOLAU CAUSED a heated Twitter debate on Wednesday after posting a message to explain he would not be supporting same-sex marriage in Australia.
A postal survey on the subject is to be held between September and November, with the Australian Rugby Union behind the ‘Yes’ campaign.
The side’s official Twitter account has been updated with a rainbow wallaby as its picture, while captain Michael Hooper has recently expressed his – and the team’s – support for same-sex marriage.
But that does seemingly not include full-back Folau, a devout Christian, who took to Twitter to make clear his stance:
That post prompted hundreds of responses, most of which expressed disappointment in Folau’s view.
If you love and respect “all” people, then let “all” people have the same rights to be married & be happy #MarriageEquality,” was one reply.
“You can’t say you love and respect people for who they are and in the same sentence say you don’t support gay marriage,” came another.
While one response read:
What a disappointing use of your platform. Disgraceful. Way to contribute to the oppression of LGBTQ community.”
While there were plenty of replies disagreeing with Folau, the 28-year-old also received a number of messages from people defending his right to express his opinion.
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There was nothing wrong with the challenge on Gomez. Hopefully it’s nothing too serious as he has been in serious form all season.
Matip and Lovren are liabilities. It’s hard to have confidence in either of em with big games coming up if Gomez is ruled out for a significant period of time.
@Maureen: I can’t understand Klopps logic in Gomez selection at rb. He is much more likely to be tackled at pace running up and down the sideline than at centre half and get injured. 1 of best 2 centre backs at the club this year and klopp plays him at rb. Crazy call considering Matip and Lovren have mistakes in them and one of the will now have to be played.
@Gerard Smith: yea Clyne has obviously dropped well down the pecking order, hes rarely in the squad anymore. When Klopp wants to give Trent a rest there is not many options but to switch Gomez who looks uncomfortable playing there. It looks like that he is going to pay for his mistake now.
Hard to be confident of keeping a clean sheet against Napoli if he ain’t there but Lovren can surprise and look good pretty often. He can’t be any worse than he was against PSG anyway.
@Gerard Smith: We will be watching the next few games through our fingers alright but Lovren can be solid enough when he’s alongside VVD. I know neither of them were great against PSG but they did well as a pair in the second half of the PL last season.