GAY TRUTH

Australia has seen two recent initiatives by local Parliaments aimed at what are often called "conversion therapy" practices. No-one supports coercive electro-shock or other oppressive practices imposed on someone without their consent, to change their sexual preferences or identity. But the problem with the recent legislative proposals is that the laws do not target these practices alone (as to which it is hard to find any evidence of them occurring in Australia in recent years), but seem to reach further and to prevent religious groups sharing the teaching of their faith. The Legislation There are two legislative initiatives here. (a) The Queensland Act Queensland has already enacted its version among other changes to its health laws. The  Health Legislation Amendment Act  2020  (Qld) (No 31 of 2020) received the Royal Assent on 20 August 2020. As no other provision is made for commencement of the relevant provisions in Part 5, it has now commenced ope...

Sounds bad. Australia’s new religious freedom bill “hands a sword to people of faith.” We know what they’ll do. They will certainly use it to cut down everyone they disagree with and put down everyone they disapprove of. It sounds really bad. The end of freedom in Australia. But wait a minute, who says so? Looking at the Australian press, it’s LGBT advocates and moral liberals. They’re people, as we Americans know so well, who see the quietest statement of Christian morality as hateful, knuckle-dragging bigotry. So maybe it’s not so bad after all. Maybe the ruling party just wants to create a level playing field. Maybe the party wants to balance the right of LGBT people to celebrate their sexuality with other people’s right to say that it’s not God’s will.  The Real Story What’s the real story? Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter introduced the bill on August 29. Three months earlier, Rugby Australia fired player Israel Folau for an Instagram post claiming “hell...

Sounds bad. Australia’s new religious freedom bill “hands a sword to people of faith.” We know what they’ll do. They will certainly use it to cut down everyone they disagree with and put down everyone they disapprove of. Sounds really bad. The end of freedom in Australia. But wait a minute, who says so? Looking at the Australian press, it’s LGBT advocates and moral liberals. They’re people, as we Americans know so well, who see the quietest statement of Christian morality as hateful, knuckle-dragging bigotry. So maybe it’s not so bad after all. Maybe the ruling party just wants to create a level playing field. Maybe the party wants to balance the right of LGBT people to celebrate their sexuality with other people’s right to say that it’s not God’s will.  The Real Story What’s the real story? Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter introduced the bill on August 29. Three months earlier, Rugby Australia fired player Israel Folau for an Instagram post claiming “hell awa...

The former head of the Australian Christian Lobby says Christians have suffered consequences as a result of the legalization of same-sex marriage. Israel Folau is the prime example of intolerance towards Christians who know homosexuality is a sin. Lyle Shelton, managing director of the powerful ACL said the government had ignored his warnings in the lead up to the 2017 plebiscite and passage of same-sex marriage laws.  "They ploughed ahead with the change the definition of the marriage based on the Yes campaign saying there were no consequences, " Mr Shelton told Sky News on Thursday night. "I'm going to say that was a lie and not true. Massive consequences have emerged since the legislation. There's big complications and implications for people's freedom of speech and freedom of religion and parents' rights about gender indoctrination at schools."  LGBTQ deny any consequences and mock any evidence, lie about any situation that question thei...

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 ...

Australia: The national parliament was deadlocked yesterday on the issue of the age — how to protect religious freedom in schools and worship with the need to protect gay children from discrimination. The dispute here is about religious freedom in Australia — how much it should exist, how much it should be curtailed and how it should be protected in law. The Morrison government and the Shorten Labor Party cannot agree, pointing to a schism likely to run throughout the nation. The assurances from both sides of politics for more than a year that LGBTIQ rights would be reconciled with religious freedom have failed. This project has collapsed with serious implications. Labor Senate leader and lesbian -Penny Wong admitted defeat yesterday, saying efforts to remove discrimination against LGBTIQ kids “will be delayed until next year.” But no Christian school has dismissed any homosexual children. This ploy is being used as a method for LGBT zealots to control, manipulate even ...

The New Zealand athlete, Gavin Hubbard, who now pretends he is a she, and calls himself Laurel Hubbard, was to have competed today in a weightlifting event. But an elbow injury has meant he was forced to withdraw from competing. And that is a good thing too. Born in New Zealand in 1978, he lived as a biological birth male until his early thirties as Gavin, the child of a former mayor of Auckland. Then he decided to transition to become female and to compete as an elite athlete using her reassigned gender. Totally unfair! This doesn't work the other way. The upshot? A labyrinthine legal and ethical mess, for which the Commonwealth Games offer just a fleeting platform. Come the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 , Gavin Hubbard is likely to present such an insoluble dilemma for those who support hte non-scientific view of transgenderism. . Here in Australia , he didn't escaped a full trial in the court of public opinion by dubious virtue of injuring himself.   Just as Hubbard tri...

Same Sex Marriage : Implications for Christian Health Professionals by  Neil Foster I’d like to thank Catherine and Andrea for inviting me along tonight to discuss some of  the legal implications for Christian health professionals of the introduction of same sex  marriage in Australia . I think it is especially generous of medico’s to have a lawyer come into  the room and even to offer them supper! I teach law at Newcastle Law School and have done so for about 23 years. Lately they  have let me teach a course on “ Law and Religion ” to upper level law students, and this is one  of the areas I am developing in teaching and research. You may also know that I run a blog on  this topic.2 So I have done a bit of thinking about same sex marriage , which raises a number of  law and religion issues (for reasons I will outline shortly). I should say that my own position is that same sex marriage was not a good legislative development, but o...