Rowan Dean, Lyle Shelton, and Morgan Begg discuss same-sex marriage, Safe Schools, anti-discrimination laws and the failure of senior Liberals to protect basic freedoms. Lyle Shelton’s remarks are worth highlighting:
“This is not just a matter of religious protections. Freedom of speech is not even protected under the Dean Smith bill. That is a fact. Forget about paid professional clergy, or people like me who’ve got a faith. If you’re a non-Christian or a non-Muslim and you want to express the idea that marriage is between a man and a woman, you could be taken to a tribunal. That’s just a fact…
James Paterson’s bill is very thought out. It protects freedom of speech. It protects freedom of conscience. It protects religious charities. It protects Muslim and Christians school from losing their funding for acting out their beliefs about marriage and teaching that to their children. None of that is protected in the Dean Smith bill. The fact that there are senior members of the Liberal Party, the party that’s supposed to be the party of free speech, not coming to the defense of free speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of charities, that is a big shock. And probably a big wake up call to many Australians that the instincts of a Liberal government, or many of their senior members, is not to protect freedom of speech. I think that’s a seismic shift in Australian politics, when you haven’t got senior Liberals rushing to the defense – and they don’t even have the numbers – to protect these basic liberties…
By changing the federal Marriage Act, you weaponise the state based anti-discrimination laws.”
The entire exchange can be viewed below.
