Same-Sex Marriage: After the plebiscite and the legislation
The results of the same-sex plebiscite were announced on 15 November 2017, and a few weeks later Australia became the 26th nation in the world to legislate for same-sex marriage. The Prime Minister was beside himself, as he punched the air, like an Aussie batsman who had just scored a century against the old foe, England. ‘Australia has done it,’ he proclaimed, ‘What a day for love, for equality, for respect.’ Step aside Neville Chamberlain who was overjoyed at guaranteeing peace in our time in 1938. Here is Malcolm Turnbull in 2017: ‘This belongs to us all. This is Australia…
Religious liberty and Australian culture
Roughly 40% of Australians voted No to same-sex marriage and, according to a recent Newspoll, roughly 40% also reject the legitimacy of religious protections for Australians who disagree with same-sex marriage. The debates taking place in Federal parliament regarding religious liberty are culturally significant. The cultural reformation of the 1960s has transformed social views on sex, marriage, family, and, increasingly, gender. And yet clearly not all have gone with the tide. What became increasingly obvious during the same-sex marriage debate and now with the debate over religious protections is that culturally Australia is shifting back to the acrimonious sectarianism that…
Government, Education, and the Bible, according to Noah Webster
“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed… No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people… When I speak of the Christian religion as the basis of government… I mean the primitive Christianity in its simplicity as taught by Christ and His apostles, consisting of a belief in the being, perfections, and government of God; in the…