Australian Greens Senator Robert Simms says the Australian Christian Lobby is “scraping the bottom of the barrel” with its bid to get the federal government to suspend anti-discrimination laws during the upcoming gay marriage plebiscite campaign.
ACL managing director Lyle Shelton (pictured) told Fairfax Media his organisation was very concerned about fairness during the campaign as state anti-discrimination laws in particular have “such a low threshold”.
As well as federal laws, all states and territories have laws which prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexuality.
But Senator Simms said it simply exposed the ACL’s intention to run an ugly and discriminatory campaign against marriage equality.
“These laws are designed to protect Australians from acts of hatred, vilification and incitement,” Senator Simms said.
“The ACL has a history of scraping the bottom of barrel and fanning the flames of hatred and division against LGBTI people.”
Mr Shelton claims the ACL does not want to make any “bigoted” arguments, and simply wants to put forward the “millenia-old” argument that marriage is “between a man and a woman”.
Australian Marriage Equality executive Rodney Croome said it was impractical and unnecessary to suspend the laws.
“Instead, both sides should be mature enough to sit down and agree on the framework for a free and respectful debate, facilitated by the Human Rights Commission or some other impartial body,” Mr Croome said.
“Public funding for the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ cases should be equal and kept to the absolute minimum, with resources directed instead to counselling for those people whose mental health will suffer from attacks on their basic rights.”
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is insistent on sticking with plans for a public vote (plebiscite) on equal marriage, which will not take place until 2017 or 2018, after the federal election.
There is no hatred, bigotry or discrimination to uphold the millennia-old understanding that marriage is solely between a man and a woman. History has held this view for a reason – it is the only way that civilizations can thrive and be prosperous. The family unit is vital to how society functions and when it is distorted or changed, so does society. Already, heterosexual children are told not to use the terms “boy, girl, him, her, mummy, daddy, etc” because these terms are gender specific and oppose the same-sex/transgender identification – so heterosexual people (from a very young age onwards) are impacted in thousands of ways by the same sex marriage re-definition. Plus all heterosexual marriages change from being recognised as “married to a member of the opposite sex for life” to “someone I am temporarily having sex with” which, for me, would be insulting if I was in anyway assumed to be married just for sex or to another man. So every time I say the words “I’m married”, my marriage is being damaged by the re-definition of marriage.
The Rome Empire that had rampant hedonism and debauchery in the 1st-3rd centuries were not Christian (they killed Christians for sport in the “circuses” where lions would eat Christians) and the Emperor Constantine turned to Christianity as a way out of the horrors going on in the Roman society. So there is a perfect example of how we must also avoid the same horrors of rampant hedonism and debauchery by following the Christian teachings. In other words, we can be “saved from ourselves”. The ACL are highlighting the unfair and dishonest name-calling and dirty political tactics used by the same sex lobby group to silence their critics and shove their agenda down our throats. This will be highlighted a thousand times as the same sex lobby group continue with their dishonest bully tactics and prove the ACL to be true over-and-over-and-over again.
I experienced their involvement at a respectful dialogue in Melb. ACL sends its members to these places to do and say the most comments to try and cause division. The general topic was about inclusion and ACL used verbal imagery of pornographical nature of “penis in bum” which was so graphic and very unchristian. It offended us as gay Christians especially when we found out by overhearing the ACL giving a verbal confirmation over the phone outside saying they did it and do they stay or is that enough. These are dangerous people who are on the fringe of madness. We as gay Christian are always marginalised by ACL’s vicious psychological attacks designed to make us feel in welcomed. They have forgotten John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Anti-discrimination laws are a Trojan Horse to criminalize Christian beliefs. The “tolerance” movement has no tolerance for people of faith.