Religion has always been a factor in politics, used to help and hurt

Scott Morrison and wife Jenny allowed the cameras into an Easter service at his Horizon Church. Picture; AAP.

The Prime Minister is “very disappointed” that Bill Shorten brought up his faith during this election campaign: Shorten wanted clarification to a non-answer Scott Morrison gave to a question whether he thought gays go to hell.

The context quite obviously is the Israel Folau case.

We all know Morrison is a man of faith. If you didn’t know that before the campaign you do now: he invited the media into his Pentecostal church on Easter – the images were splashed across the newspapers.

The PM at first refused to answer the question about gays and hell, it’s that simple. That’s his right. The Opposition Leader, albeit in a very clumsy way, called him out for not doing so. That’s his right too. Morrison subsequently clarified he doesn’t believe gays go to hell (cue applause), at the same time as describing Shorten as “grubby”.

The idea that someone’s religion shouldn’t be relevant to their political office is nice in theory, but complete rubbish in practice. It’s always been a factor in politics, used to help or harm political careers. The only difference today is that as Australia changes — and becomes less doctrinal — the shoe is slowly moving to the other foot: the deeply religious whose views sometimes discriminate are no longer in the majority, and those less strident in their religious world view (or not religious at all) are now in the majority.

I just hope that the new majority which is coming to fruition doesn’t do to the dwindling religious community what for so many years the religious did to non-believers.

Julia Gillard was attacked for her atheist views. Mark Latham had to battle similar jibes on religious grounds when he was opposition leader. Too many PMs to recount in this article have held door stops in front of churches (no one more than Kevin Rudd), or like Morrison invited the media into their church at the same time as ask others to keep faith and politics separate.

I would like to know why Morrison was part of a cabinet that insisted on a plebiscite on Same Sex Marriage, because we were told the people’s will needed to be reflected by the parliament, yet then walked out of the chamber rather than vote for the successful yes vote to make marriage equality law.

Because if Morrison’s faith was the reason, then faith is a factor in politics. It must be for same sex couples thinking about their votes at this election. But this issue goes deeper than that.

The plebiscite was about a government seeking the public’s decision making on an issue, and the cabinet of which Morrison was a senior member decided to make that the mechanism for policy development. Rather than offering a free parliamentary vote, cabinet decided they would give the people a direct say via a plebiscite.

Walking out of the chamber when the vote to honour that people’s vote was put is therefore thumbing ones nose at the will of the people. Plenty of other people of faith voted yes to make SSM legal, despite their faith – the devout Catholic Craig Laundy for one. Even Peter Dutton, the leader of the hard right in the Liberal Party, stayed in the chamber and voted yes, honouring the will of the public. Because Dutton realised that as a member of a cabinet that said it wanted the public to make the decision, not the parliament, that was the right thing to do.

Dutton refused to attend Kevin Rudd’s apology to Indigenous Australians after the 2007 election, and he has since apologised for the snub. I would like to know if Morrison regrets walking out of a vote to endorse what an overwhelming majority of Australians across the country (as well as specifically in Morrison’s electorate) wanted the parliament to do – that is, enact SSM. If not why not?

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.