The Christian Vote
The inevitable result of the 2017 plebiscite
vote for same-sex marriage will be the everincreasing
loss of our religious freedoms.Pre-plebiscite assurances - notably, from then Turnbull government frontbenchers Senator George Brandis and Christopher Pyne - that marriage equality would not diminish freedom of religious freedom and speech, have turned out to be misleading.
The diminishment of religious freedom has occurred wherever same-sex marriage has been enacted. More than six years ago, Robert P. George, a law professor at Princeton University, writing in Public Discourse (July 19, 2012), described how religious liberties in the United States had been seriously curtailed in recent years, despite the public constantly being reassured (as in Australia) that the redefinition of marriage "would have no impact on persons and institutions that hold to the traditional view of marriage".
He warned defenders of traditional marriage against being naive about political realities: "The fundamental error made by some supporters of conjugal marriage was and is, I believe, to imagine that a grand bargain could be struck with their opponents: 'We will accept the legal redefinition of marriage; you will respect our right to act on our consciences without penalty, discrimination, or civil disabilities of any type. Same-sex partners will get marriage licenses, but no one will be forced for any reason to recognize those marriages or suffer discrimination or disabilities for declining to recognize them.' There was never any hope of such a bargain being accepted." [Italics are Robert George's].
A pity more people at the time didn't heed his warning.
In Australia, the only time that anything could have been done to safeguard religious freedoms was before the House of Representatives voted to redefine marriage in December 2017.
Any Coalition prime minister worth his salt should have called the bluff of people like Senator Brandis and Mr Pyne and declared the government was under no obligation to ratify the result of the marriage plebiscite unless parliament first enshrined in law some robust safeguards for the religious faithful. Surely that would not have been an unreasonable demand, given marriage equality advocates' repeated assurances that religious believers should have nothing to fear.
Instead, the then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull rushed the marriage amendment through parliament, and then congratulated himself on having succeeded in doing so in time for Christmas.
Far too few Coalition MPs at the time spoke up for religious freedom. Apparently, the freedoms that generations of Australians have long taken for granted are a hill that not many parliamentarians are willing to die upon.
Even if the current prime minister, Scott Morrison, were now to draft a bill to safeguard religious freedom, what chance would it have of passing the House of Representatives, especially now that Mr Morrison heads a minority government? Christians had better face it: their vote is no longer particularly valued by either side of politics.
John Ballantyne is editor of Endeavour Forum newsletter. 