Andrew Bolt: Marriage equality debate has made dissent a crime
WE were promised making marriage equality legal wouldn’t impinge on free speech, but it’s happening already, writes Andrew Bolt.
Andrew Bolt
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SO THOSE warnings were right. We haven’t yet voted on same-sex marriage and already we’re losing our freedoms. Remember the yes crusaders scoffing at predictions that making same-sex marriage legal would lead to new laws against free speech?
OUTRAGE OVER LATEST GAY MARRIAGE BULLY HOAX
How they sneered — not just activists but members of the Liberals’ Left. “Marriage equality will not limit free speech,” insisted Paula Matthewson, former media adviser to John Howard.
“It is a complete red herring,” said Liberal Christopher Pyne. “It has got nothing to do with freedom of speech, nothing to do with religious freedom.”
And the Prime Minister, who in March declared he’d “defend our freedom of speech”, seemed convinced Australians needed no such curbs on their tongues.
“I respect their wisdom and their good sense and their decency,” he said just last Sunday.
“I am confident … that this will be a respectful debate.”
Yet on Tuesday, two days later, his government showed what little faith it had in the voters’ good sense by announcing exactly what many gay-marriage opponents predicted: new laws against free speech. Australians claiming to feel vilified, intimidated or threatened during the same-sex marriage campaign will be able to sue for up to $12,600 under “emergency” laws passed by parliament on Wednesday.
The only protection from legal harassment by activists is that Attorney-General George Brandis must approve any proceedings.
What odds that these laws will ever be used against gay-marriage hate-speakers like Fairfax columnist Benjamin Law, who said he’d like to “hate-f--k all the anti-gay MPs in parliament”? Or against the screaming protesters who last week forced shut a Christian meeting?
This isn’t the first warning we’ve had, either. Three preachers, including a Catholic archbishop, have already been dragged before Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Tribunal.
Worse will come, despite the Liberals saying this law will expire when the voting is done. Labor and the Greens want such restrictions made permanent. What’s more, overseas experience suggest they’ll win. Denmark, for instance, passed laws forcing churches to marry gay couples and Sweden’s Prime Minister wants the same for Church of Sweden priests.
Activists keep insisting same-sex marriage won’t take away your freedom to dissent, but the Turnbull Government has just nailed that lie in the saddest way.
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