The Australian Christian Lobby have called for a pause in anti-discrimination laws, so they can ‘speak freely’ when the same-sex marriage plebiscite occurs.
The anti-discrimination laws exist to protect minorities. If you engage in hate speech against someone on the basis of their sexuality, gender, or race, you’ve broken the law. It’s pretty basic.
So, the ACL is essentially saying their campaign against same-sex marriage won’t be effective without the use of hate speech. Fkn hell, if that doesn’t tell you that you’re on the wrong side of history, then what will? It’s not hard to create a campaign that is respectful, and complies with the laws.
ACL managing directer Lyle Shelton said that he thought the threshold for what constitutes discrimination was ‘too low’:
“I don’t think anyone in Australia would ever have thought that just for speaking about marriage between a man and a woman and a right to children, not vilifying or being disrespectful to anyone, but simply talking about marriage and distributing literature about it in a respectful way, that you could end up in front of a government commission.I think the threshold for offence under many of these state-based anti-discrimination laws is way too low.”
Australian Marriage Equality director Rodney Croome responded by saying that actually, the discrimination actually protects both sides of the issue:
“If it does descend into hatred and vitriol, then I think people on both sides need protections that are there already from our Anti-Discrimination Acts to ensure that the debate stays respectful.”
How weird is the concept of, ‘I need hateful/offensive words to convince others that demonising people for being something I dislike/do not understand is normal and okay.’ Ahhhhhhh… nup.
Nah ACL, nah.
Source: ABC.
Photo: Funny or Die.
