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Showing posts with the label Mathias Cormann

Free speech and vilification in the marriage law postal survey

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Australia is involved in a debate about whether same sex marriage should be introduced. The question is being put to the electors in the form of a voluntary postal survey, the  question  in which is simply: “Should the law be changed to allow same sex couples to marry?” The original intention of the current Government had been to put this question to the people of Australia in a compulsory plebiscite. This option being defeated twice in Parliament, the postal survey has been designed to be run without explicit authorising legislation . However, once it was decided that the survey would proceed, concerns were expressed that the debate might contain misleading and deceptive advertising, which would usually have been dealt with under the electoral laws (but since the survey was not being run under those laws, no such protections applied for the survey.) In addition, concerns were expressed about hateful and harmful speech on both side of the debate. In response to these co

Australia: Chinese Families Voting NO to homosexual marriage

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Islamic and ethnic groups are sounding warnings about the consequences of same-sex marriage in Australia , questioning whether parents will retain the freedom to promote the traditional definition of marriage to their children. Co-founder of the Australian Chinese for Families Association Pansy Lai said she was concerned that schemes such as the Safe Schools program, familiarising students with transgender concepts, could become compulsory if same-sex marriage were legalised. Last year, Dr Lai organised a NSW petition amassing 17,500 signatures from members of the Australian Chinese community in favour of scrapping Safe Schools, which she said promoted “in­appropriate sexual content to ­underage children”. She told The Australian yesterday that large numbers of the Austral­ian Chinese community kept to a traditional view of marriage­, many for reasons un­related to relig­ious conviction, and question­ed whether there were sufficient protections for them. “The religious people m

LGBTQ - barrage of bullies

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“The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney­ has branded radical same-sex marriage campaigners as a ‘barge of bullies’ who are swamping the public debate with an ‘intro­spective, authoritarian den­ial of free speech’. Writing in The Australian today, Glenn Davies says the corporate world in Australia has been ‘press-ganged’ into supporting marriage equality and backing div­ersity by gay activists. ‘What kind of diversity is so monochrome that it does not allow differing­ expressions of opinion in the debate?’ he says. ‘This narrow-minded, freedom-restricting carping is what the same-sex marriage­ campaign has come to.’…” – Story from The Australian . Here is an excerpt from Archbishop Davies’ piece – “There is only one upside from the recent attacks and unprecedented abuse directed at an academic and the directors of Christian organisations: people are beginning to wake up and take notice. They are starting to understand that the campaign for same-sex marriage is not sailing on a raft

Same-sex marriage could see Christians persecuted: ACT Senator Zed Seselja

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ACT Senator Zed Seselja will vote "no" in the Turnbull government 's postal plebiscite on same-sex marriage , arguing Christians and other religious believers could persecuted for their views on marriage and sexuality if the law is changed. A long-time opponent of same-sex couples' right to marry, the Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs said the voluntary, non-binding vote would give every Australian adult their chance to express their view. He confirmed he would vote to support changes to the law in Parliament if the results of the plebiscite favour same-sex marriage. "Obviously there will be a vigorous campaign and I will be voting "no", I'll be voting against changing the Marriage Act ," he said. "I've long been on the record for that. I think some of the issues that have been raised about issues like religious freedom, we've seen in other parts of the world that when we do redefine marriag

Dear Gay Community: Your Kids are hurting

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Heather Barwick was raised by her mother and her mother's same-sex partner . She is a former gay -marriage advocate turned children's rights activist. She is a wife and mother of four rambunctious kids. Gay community , I am your daughter. My mom raised me with her same-sex partner back in the ’80s and ’90s. She and my dad were married for a little while. She knew she was gay before they got married, but things were different back then. That’s how I got here. It was complicated as you can imagine. She left him when I was two or three because she wanted a chance to be happy with someone she really loved: a woman. I loved my mom’s partner, but another mom could never have replaced the father I lost My dad wasn’t a great guy, and after she left him he didn’t bother coming around anymore. Do you remember that book, “ Heather Has Two Mommies ”? That was my life. My mom, her partner, and I lived in a cozy little house in the ‘burbs of a very liberal and open-minded area. Her