Cultural-left wants to banish religion from the public square

The heading to Aubrey Perry’s comment piece in yesterday’s Fairfax press (“This survey is about much more than same-sex marriage”) reveals the true intent behind the cultural-left’s campaign to redefine the definition of marriage.

Forget minister Simon Birmingham’s argument that changing the Marriage Act is simply about saying Yes or No.

Saying Yes will radically undermine the place of religion in Australian ­society and deny the individual’s right to religious freedom.

Perry, like many in the LGBTQI community committed to Marxist-inspired gender and sexuality theories, argues the central issue related to same-sex marriage is about “the shaping of our country and future freedoms, an acceptance or denial of ­religion steering our public policymaking and governing our legislative body”.

Perry sees no place for religion when she argues: “This survey ­offers us a conscious opportunity to make a firm stand in support of a secular government and to ­reject discrimination or favouritism based on religion. It’s our ­opportunity to say that religion has no part in the shaping of our laws”.

While many Australians genuinely believe that gay people should be allowed to marry, it’s also obvious that the cultural left’s agenda is to banish religion from the public square and to enforce a secular world view devoid of ­religious belief and faith.

The gender and sexuality policies advocated by the ALP and the Greens best illustrate the cultural left’s intention to enforce a secular agenda on religious ­organisations, schools and charities — currently exempted under existing anti-discrimination laws.

The Greens argue: “All people have fundamental human rights and are entitled to equal protection of the law without any discrimination, including on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status”.

The ALP’s policy states it will “strengthen laws and expand programs against discrimination and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status”.

Whether faith-based aged care, health, education, hospitals or schools, the ALP’s and the Greens’ policies are clearly aimed at restricting freedom of religion. One only needs to look at overseas examples to see what will occur if the ALP and the Greens are successful.

One of the arguments employed to justify same-sex marriage is that Australia is a secular society where religion no longer has any importance or significance. Not so.

While it is true that Australia is a secular society, the reality is that our legal and political institutions owe much to Judeo-Christianity.

As detailed in Douglas Murray’s recent book, The Strange Death of Europe, it is impossible to deny the historical and ongoing influence of Christianity on Western civilisations such as Australia.

Perry concludes by arguing that a Yes vote will move “us ­toward a government free from religious influence and discrimination”. As Murray notes, based on examples of secular ideologies like fascism, communism and postmodernism, to deny religion does not always lead to a better world.

Kevin Donnelly is a senior research fellow at the Australian Catholic University and author of The Culture of Freedom