Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Member of Parliament hotly tipped to be the next leader of the Conservative Party, announced his opposition to abortion, and support for the Catholic church’s definition that marriage is between a man and a woman.
The committed Roman Catholic, who voted against the same-sex marriage bill in 2013, told Good Morning Britain viewers on Wednesday that “marriage is a sacrament and the decision of what is a sacrament lies with the church and not with Parliament”.
“I’m a Catholic and I take the teachings of the Catholic church seriously, and that’s on [matters of] faith and morals,” he asserted.
Mr. Rees-Mogg elaborated on how his beliefs interact with his position as a politician: “I don’t want to criticise people who live lives different to mine, but equally I don’t want to divert from the historic teaching of the Catholic church.”
The pro-Brexit MP for North East Somerset also made a fierce and confident defence of the life of unborn children created in all circumstances of conception, telling show hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid: “I’m completely opposed to abortion.”
Attempting to ambush Rees-Mogg on his use of language for affirming that “supports” church teaching on traditional marriage but would not allegedly admit to being “opposed” to gay marriage yet will state he is “opposed” to abortion, he made the clear distinction on who the affected parties were in both sets of circumstances.
“With same-sex marriage, that is something people are doing for themselves. With abortion, it is something that is done to the unborn child.”
“Life is sacrosanct at the point of conception, and abortion is morally indefensible,” he added.
Batting back insinuations from Morgan that Rees-Mogg, like Tim Farron, had “depth-charged” his own leadership bid by acknowledging his traditional stance on social issues, Rees-Mogg pointed out that “[Farron] is a Liberal Democrat and the Lib Dems have a very different ‘tolerance’.”
Committed Christian and former Liberal Democrat leader Farron was branded a bigot for refusing to say that gay sex was not a sin, and later stepped down citing he felt “torn between living as a faithful Christian and serving as a political leader”.
“The Lib Dems pretend they are liberal but could not cope with having a Christian as their leader,” the Brexit campaigner observed.
He stated that it was “fundamentally wrong” for politicians to claim that the United Kingdom is a “multicultural country” when Christian and Catholics who “hold traditional views” are pilloried and forced from office.
“People are entitled to hold these views but also the democratic majority is entitled to have the laws of the land as they are which do not go with the teaching of the Catholic church and will not go with the teaching of the Catholic church,” he said.
Tipped to be the future candidate for prime minister, the socially conservative back-bencher has gained “Moggmentum” and developed an online cult following, with even the left-liberal news site HuffPost UK publishing an article entitled: “Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Instagram Should Break The Internet: We are not worthy.”
Britain’s ‘paper of record’, The Times, hailed him as “an English Trump but better at Latin”.
In reaction to Mr. Rees-Mogg making a stand for protecting innocent life and traditional marriage, left wing LBC radio host James O’Brien said it put him “on the same page as imams on the lunatic fringe of Islam”, comparing him to parents in Pakistan who “forgive” their daughters’ rapists, denying them justice in court.
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