Australians Say ‘Yes’ to Same-Sex Marriage, Clearing Path for Legalization

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Scowler said:
As a private citizen you cannot be “forced” to participate in anything. As a business owner…
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Business owners are private citizens. When did one need to give up moral principle to operate a business? It arises only by the operation of a law that produces just that result. A law that can be reviewed to better serve all of the people.
 
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Rau said:
Business owners are private citizens. When did one need to give up moral principle to operate a business?
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I guess you missed the all important “AS”. And you can keep your “moral” principles, if you operate your business AS a closed club.
Rau said:
A law that can be reviewed to better serve all of the people.
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It was. And the result is that you cannot discriminate against a significant portion of “all the people”. How annoying, isn’t it?
 
The SSM enabling bill has passed the last hurdle in the Australian Parliament. The only protections that were allowed are:
  • Religious celebrants are not obliged to marry same sex couples if they have religious grounds;
  • Churches can decline to provide their facilities for SSM weddings where they are inconsistent with their religious views on marriage;
  • Existing civil celebrants may refuse SSM on religious grounds however new civil celebrants will not be allowed any such freedom.
Of interest to note was that SSM proponents would not allow these amendments:
  • Inclusion of an allowance for people to speak freely about their view of marriage without fear of legal action. This was a “good faith” proposal by the AG, which he felt was unnecessary.
  • any other amendment
The above is the “bare minimalist” view of protections (ie, largely none beyond the Churches themselves).

Separately, the government has initiated an enquiry to examine religious freedoms.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...alias-religious-freedoms-20171121-gzq9cl.html

A Catholic Priest (and eminent lawyer) is included on the review panel. Interestingly, he personally advocated in favour of SSM, not on the grounds of any moral merit, but rather that he saw the civil marriage as essentially a civil contract and thus there were no grounds to impose a “man+woman” restriction. On the surface, that view ought not preclude him from favouring a range of religious freedoms. Time will tell.
 
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I agree, Rau. I am very surprised that Catholics such as Christopher Pyne will not press for religious protections. They knew that this would happen the whole time and just tricked us, I think.

If I had children, I would definitely home-school them, under these circumstances.
 
Polygamy, extending transsgender rights and gender fluidity, shutting down freedoms of religion, speech and association… I don’t think so, Lonnie.
 
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