The Australian Open may be in its final weekend but the furor over former champion Margaret Court's statements against gay marriage continues to rage on.

Martina Navratilova, the first female tennis player to come out while still playing on the women's tour, asks Court in a newspaper column on Friday: 'You say it is a choice to be gay; do you mean to say you had feelings for women as well as men and chose men? That might explain your certainty on the issue.'

'You frame the whole gay issue in religious terms and quote the Bible,' Navratilova added. 'While I am not a theologian, I do know these same Bibles have been used in the past to justify slavery, to deny men of color the right to vote and to try to deny inter-racial couples the right to marry.'

Court has been speaking out against efforts in Australia to legalize same-sex marriage and caused a furor after saying that same-sex marriage is an effort to legitimize 'abominable sexual practices that include sodomy.'

She won a record 24 grand slam singles titles during her career and is now senior pastor in Perth’s Victory Life Church.

There are those who want the Margaret Court Arena at Melbourne Park to be renamed because of Court's anti-gay statements. Some fans and players, including Navratilova, are wearing rainbow-colored clothing at the tournament.

Navratilova, a three-time winner of the tournament in singles, is in Melbourne competing in the senior women's doubles competition and doing television commentary. Some of her matches have been played on Margaret Court Arena.

Court told the Herald Sun this week: 'I love my nation and I don't like seeing it in moral decline. I pray for it, I love it and I want to protect the young of the future. My heart is for the next generation.'