GAY TRUTH

For the vast majority of religious schools, it was a shock to learn that they might be allowed to remove a student simply because of their sexual orientation—they had never considered that course of action. However, while that particular issue may have been a storm in a teacup, behind the irrational bullying furor  of the last week, there are much bigger questions that need to be resolved. Like what it means for a religious community to be able to live in accordance with its deepest convictions and beliefs. That is the question the Ruddock Review was asked to address. Changes to discrimination laws could compel faith-based schools to either change their convictions or to close. In a culture increasingly unfamiliar with religious conviction, it can be hard to understand what it’s like to have religious faith. Contrary to the stereotypes, faith usually means serious thought, regular self-examination, times of doubt and times of intellectual wrestle. It also means believing th...

In the latest and clearest break from the pro-homosexual movement’s past assurances that “gay rights” wouldn’t endanger religious freedom, on Wednesday the speaker of the United Kingdom’s House of Commons explicitly declared that the former should override the latter. HOMOSEXUALITY IS NOT A HUMAN RIGHT John Bercow made the declaration at a July 4 PinkNews reception, PinkNews  reports . “Gay rights, lesbian rights, bi rights and trans rights are not gay rights, lesbian rights, bi rights or trans rights, they are human rights,” he declared, “and that seems to me to be the inescapable conclusion of any serious consideration of these matters.” Bercow went on to claim to “respect people’s rights to adhere to and profess their faith,” but asserted that when “somebody’s adherence to faith on the one hand and the acknowledgement of and demonstration of respect for human rights” come into conflict, “the latter has to trump the former.” “If there are people who take a different v...

On Friday, June 15, the Supreme Court of Canada threw out a quarter-century of legal precedent on religious liberty by deciding, by a margin of 7-2, that it was “proportionate and reasonable” for the law societies of British Columbia and Ontario to refuse accreditation to any law students coming from Trinity Western University due to TWU’s much-maligned “community covenant.” The covenant, which students who choose to attend Trinity agree to, is a lifestyle policy that asks students to adhere to biblical codes of conduct, including the restriction of sexual activity to heterosexual marriage. It was this covenant—again, a code of conduct for a small, privately-funded evangelical university that nobody has to attend if they don’t want to—that led law societies to claim that students coming from a TWU law school would not be able to escape their particular bias, and thus should not be accredited.  Their presumption, apparently, is that people who have a specific set of religi...

In the attempt to defend permitting homosexuals to marry (i.e., man to man and woman to woman), proponents of homosexual marriage ask how such marriages would personally affect those who are opposed to it .   This is worth answering, and I believe there are two areas we need to look at in response. Philosophical Concerns How does a murder in another state between two people living in a trailer park in the middle of nowhere, among people whom we have never known and who don't know anyone we know, affect us personally?   It doesn't, but because it has no effect on us personally this doesn't mean that we should ignore the moral issues associated with  murder  and not condemn such actions.   Murder is morally wrong , and when any moral law is broken we are all ultimately affected and we know that if such actions were to increase, society would be affected...no matter where you are. Am I comparing homosexual marriage to murder a...

In a Federation like Australia , different jurisdictions (States and Territories) may have different rules on what amounts to “discrimination” or “vilification”, and how those things interact with religious freedom. One of the pressing issues here in recent years has been whether there will be a “race to the bottom” in freedom of speech on religious issues, with one jurisdiction in particular, Tasmania, raising deep concerns with a very broad prohibition on causing “offence” related to matters such as sexual orientation. Today the High Court of Australia , on appeal from NSW , has affirmed the decision of the NSW Court of Appeal that State and Territory “tribunals” (non-judicial panels usually used in discrimination issues) have no jurisdiction to impose penalties on residents of other Australian jurisdictions under their own local laws. The important decision in  Burns v Corbett [2018] HCA 15 (18 April 2018) (court-prepared summary available  here ) is a good o...

South Carolina legislators have proposed a bill that calls homosexual “marriage” a “parody” of “natural” marriage between a man and a woman.  The “ Marriage and Constitution Restoration Act ” (H. 4949) introduced earlier this month clarifies that marriage is between one man and one woman, and defines same-sex arrangements, whether legally solemnized or not, “parody marriage.” “‘Marriage’ means a union of one man and one woman,” the Act reads. “‘Parody marriage’ means any form of marriage that does not involve one man and one woman.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “parody” as “a feeble or ridiculous imitation.” Six Republicans sponsored the Act, which uses Constitutional arguments to “prohibit the state from respecting, endorsing, or recognizing any parody marriage policy.” The preamble of the proposed amendment to South Carolina’s Constitution states that it is scientifically “unsettled” if homosexuality is “immutable or genetic,” and therefore sexual ori...

As is well known, Australia has now joined those other (mainly Western, developed) countries which recognise same-sex marriage.3 The law of Australia on this topic was, following a popular vote in a “postal survey”, officially changed on the commencement of the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms ) Act 2017 (Cth) on 9 December 2017. The title of the amending legislation seemed to promise that careful attention would be paid the topic of “religious freedoms”; but as it turns out, the protections formally provided were fairly minimal.  The purpose of this paper is to survey those protections which were provided, and to consider some Constitutional issues relating both to the amendments and to religious freedom protections. Suggestions are made as to the need for further protections. Adoption of same sex marriage raises religious freedom issues because the move effectively amounts to a change in a nation’s “public morality”, and takes a stance on the issue ...