GAY TRUTH

A Christian minister has filed a federal lawsuit arguing that a local “anti-discrimination” law will effectively force her to officiate same-sex “weddings.” Kristi Stokes owns Covenant Weddings, which offers marriage services as well as homilies, vows, and prayers for unions “between one biological man and one biological woman.” Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), she is suing to block an ordinance adding “sexual orientation and gender identity” to local non-discrimination rules, which she says will not only force her to unite same-sex couples but forbid her from explaining why she only believes in heterosexual unions. The ordinance penalizes violating businesses starting at $1,000 per violation, plus additional costs such as attorneys’ fees. Stokes says she has not faced such a suit yet, but realized she was in danger in December 2019, when she turned down a request to officiate a same-sex union and realized she could have been sued for doing so – despite the fact

The Australian Greens party has hardened its stance on the LGBT agenda in view of the 2019 federal elections to the Senate on May 18 and the House of Representatives on November 2. The long list of “LGBTIQ+” policies the Greens want to implement includes a commitment to end an existing program funding the presence of religious chaplains in public schools and to use the money in favor of “secular” and “inclusive” support for “diverse” students. Other anti-religious initiatives are included on the list, in particular, “the removal of religious exemptions from anti-discrimination laws.” Religious and private schools are especially targeted. The Australian Greens are a nominally environmentalist organization that started with “ecological” concerns. From its creation in 1992, the left-leaning party not only campaigned for “sustainability” but also for “social justice,” participative democracy and pacifism, in the vein of the Green movement that had objectively supported the Soviet

Florists and bakers are being charged with illegal discrimination. State governments won’t let them decline to service same-sex marriage ceremonies. They were exercising their freedom of conscience. Some were also exercising their freedom of religion. Did it matter to the state? No. Next to be hit with these charges? Lawyers. State Bars Change The Rules State bars are expanding nondiscrimination rules to include sexual orientation and gender identity. The American Bar Association proposed the rule changes . The relevant part of the new rule changes the section titled “Maintaining The Integrity Of The Profession.” It defines “professional misconduct.” The rule forbids engaging in “harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law.” (The new language is italicized.) The new language goes well beyond federal

The Northern Territory government has released a discussion paper called  Modernisation of the Anti-Discrimination Act  (Sept 2017). It invites comments by 3 December 2017. You can almost get the tone of the paper from the title! After all, who in this fast-changing age could oppose anything called “modernisation”? But there are a number of concerning recommendations and comments made from the law and religion perspective, and there are some real doubts whether the proposals properly reflect religious freedom principles. My colleague  Dr Alex Deagon  from QUT has graciously provided a guest blog post in which he outlines his comments on two major concerns with the proposals to amend the Act. Those who are interested in the interaction of discrimination law and religious freedom should find them very helpful, and may wish to make their own comments in response to the discussion paper. There are other controversial proposals in the paper which may be the subject of future post

“ Don’t LGBTI couples deserve equality? ” Every man and woman in Australia needs to know they’re equally valuable to God . This applies to LGBTI people just as it does for everyone else. So Christians are against any law that unfairly discriminates against an LGBTI person.  We actively supported the Same-Sex Relationships reforms in 2008 because it provided equal treatment, such as with laws to do with superannuation.  Minister Tanya Plibersek said at the time, “We removed every piece of legal discrimination against gay men, lesbians and same-sex couples on the statute books”.1 It was the right thing to do for individuals.  Today the debate isn’t really about discrimination – as Minister Plibersek says, the discrimination had been removed. It’s about changing the definition of marriage .  And when that happens, it could actually create new forms of discrimination. That’s because marriage is a compound right: the right of two adults to commit to a binding u