Originally published in The Christian Institute.
A Bill proposing a public vote to decide on same-sex marriage has been blocked in Australia. The Bill was rejected on Monday in the Senate by 33 votes to 29. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had intended to hold a public vote on the issue in February 2017.
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Move on
Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby, Lyle Shelton, responded to the decision by calling on politicians to now consider other issues.“Australians have had enough of the same-sex marriage debate. After six years of relentless activism in the Parliament, it should be time to move on.”Shelton added that politicians “may have unwittingly done the nation a favour by allowing more time for people to understand the consequences” of redefining marriage.
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Excessive preoccupation
Australian political analyst Nick Economou also said that the Government can now shift its focus. Economu said: “There has been an excessive preoccupation with a small number of social-policy issues. Maybe the government can now get on with what the voters want them to do”.
Illiberal
Last year a prominent opponent of same-sex marriage, who is an atheist, stressed that redefining marriage affects society at large, in a discussion on Australian TV. Brendan O’Neill, the Editor of online magazine Spiked, detailed the “illiberal” attitude of same-sex marriage advocates and how they have targeted Christians.He argued that homosexual marriage presents itself as a liberal civil-rights issue, but that in reality, “it has this really ugly, intolerant streak to it”.
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Harassed
O’Neill said: “Anyone who opposes gay marriage is demonised, harassed. We’ve seen people thrown out of their jobs because they criticise gay marriage.”
He continued: “Within the space of a decade, something that humanity believed for thousands of years has suddenly become a form of bigotry, a form of hate”.
