Marriage debate at risk of turning toxic

We’re in an abysmal state when the Catholic church is dragged before an Anti-Discrimination Commission for talking about traditional Christian teaching on marriage.

But that is what is happening in Tasmania, where Australians’ basic right to religious liberty is under threat from the intolerant forces of ‘tolerance’ such as the Greens.

The traditional Catholic view of marriage has offended Ms Martine Delaney, Greens candidate for the Federal seat of Franklin and a spokesperson for the activist Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group.

She was born a man but became woman, and now lives in a same-sex relationship with another woman. No problem with that. Thankfully, we live in a great country where people are free to make all kinds of choices about how they want to live their lives, and to do so without fear of persecution or even execution. Live and let live, I say.

But that’s not good enough for Ms Delaney. It’s not enough for her that in Australia she is free to make her choices about how, where, and with whom she wants to live. Once she’s made all those choices, she demands that you and every other Australian affirm them.

Ms Delaney is upset that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tasmania won’t affirm her views about same-sex marriage. She says she has been insulted by the Archdiocese distributing copies of the booklet Don’t Mess With Marriage to Catholic parents of Catholic pupils in Catholic schools in Tasmania.

The booklet is a pastoral letter from the Catholic Bishops of Australia intended to outline the church’s position on same-sex marriage. Don’t Mess With Marriage is courteous, it is polite, it is respectful. But it is also principled, and clearly sets out Roman Catholic teaching on marriage.

Not surprisingly, the booklet takes a somewhat different view of marriage from that espoused by the Australian Greens. Don’t Mess With Marriage doesn’t blur differences between men and women; it argues they are clearly and importantly distinct.

Nor does it dissolve the differences between mothers and fathers. “Every child has a biological mother and father. But the importance of mothers and fathers goes far beyond reproduction,” say the bishops. Same-sex unions cannot be marriages, they say.

And the bishops also issue a warning: “A view of marriage — as between a man and a woman — which was previously common to believers and nonbelievers alike, across a whole variety of cultures and times, is increasingly becoming a truth which cannot be spoken.”

The Tasmanian Greens are apparently upset by this traditional Christian teaching. Ms Delaney says the booklet breaches the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 which makes it an offence to offend, humiliate, intimidate, insult or ridicule another person on the basis of sexual orientation.

The law provides 19 grounds of attribute, such as sexual orientation, against which someone can claim to have been discriminated – which simply means treated ‘less favourably’. In Ms Delaney’s view, you are treating her ‘less favourably’ if you dare disagree with her.

“The church has every right to freedom of speech and religion, but it must exercise these rights responsibly, and within the law, which in this case it hasn’t,” claims Ms Delaney.

She demands that you tolerate everything for which she stands, but she refuses to tolerate the views of anyone who respectfully and courteously takes issue with her. Instead, she will pepper you with words like ‘harm’ and ‘hatred’ for proposing another point of view.

The argument for the acceptance of gay and lesbian people in Australia was won long ago, and not before time. Greater acceptance has led to changes in the criminal law, to a distaste for discrimination, and to much greater openness and support.

The debate on same-sex marriage has also evolved with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull now publicly committed to holding a plebiscite on the issue. But now proponents of same-sex marriage are in danger of turning the debate toxic.

Acceptance is no longer enough. Now they are demanding agreement and endorsement of their views and decisions, and threatening ‘lawfare’ against those who dare hold out against them, traducing, as they do so, the reputations of any who speak out.

This is a risky strategy. Australians are open and tolerant people, but in a recent poll, only 70% agreed that excluding same-sex couples from marriage fosters discrimination. 30% have yet to be persuaded. That number is likely to rise in the face of vindictive, egregious persecution from those who profess tolerance.

You don’t need to be religious to be worried about this. Nor do you need have clear view one way or another about same-sex marriage to be worried. You need to be worried about this because the totalitarian Left is waging war against the values of an open and free society.

Instead of upholding the right of the individual to manifest his or her beliefs, the Greens are determined to destroy it and put in its place the right to be free from dogma and doctrine. Freedom of religion is set to become freedom from religion.

By denouncing those with whom they disagree as purveyors of hatred and bigotry, the totalitarianism of the Australian Greens is giving the lie to the very values of tolerance for which they profess to stand.

Peter Kurti is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies and author of A Quartet of Freedoms: Freedom of Religion, Speech, Association and Conscience and The Forgotten Freedom: Threats to Religious Liberty in Australia.