November 15 will live in history as the day Australia took a terrible wrong turn.
It’s four years today since Australians voted to change the definition of marriage.
November 15, 2017, was the day the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced the result of the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey.
After a three-month campaign, the “Yes” vote was 61.6 per cent while “No” was 38.4pc.
No one else’s rights and freedoms would be affected, the Yes Campaign said. The only consequence would be that gay people could get “married”.
That of course was a lie. Here’s what’s happened since.
- Christians schools have faced multiple legal and legislative attacks to stop them upholding their beliefs about marriage;
- Radical gender fluid ideological indoctrination of little children has accelerated;
- Parents in Victoria and the ACT risk jail if they counsel their own children against harmful genderfluid ideology;
- Doctors and counsellors in Queensland, the ACT and Victoria face fines and even jail if they do not affirm someone in their gender confusion;
- The Morrison Government has launched guidelines requiring biological males to be allowed to participate in girls’ and women’s sports;
- Anti-free speech litigation has increased – I’m being sued by two drag queens in a case which has cost $70,000 and shows no sign of ending;
- There is an epidemic of children being prescribed harmful puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones with some girls even going on to have their breasts cut off;
- Pressure for commercial surrogacy so two blokes can rent a womb and buy babies on an open market is intensifying;
- The number of children being deliberately denied the love of their mother and father is increasing.
- Sadly the Morrison Government’s election promise of religious freedom protections has not materialised and is being fought from within by the so-called “modern Liberals”.
Australians were told there would be “no consequences” as a result of “marriage equality” and voted for it.
But as one of their leaders, ABC favourite Benjamin Law, said at the time, “same-sex marriage is far from the last frontier in the battle against ‘homophobia’.”
Indoctrinating children at school and quashing free speech and religion were next and no end is in sight.
November 15 will live in history as the day Australia took a terrible wrong turn.
Gay couples were already free and equal. Their political activist class was after more than nomenclature, they wanted to change Australia. And they did.
The good news is that in a democracy when enough people wake up to the harms of a particular law, it can be made right.
The only questions will be how many kids will suffer trans regret in the meantime?
How much money and stress will go into frivolous anti-free speech and anti-freedom of religion court cases?
How many children will suffer from being deliberately denied access to the love and nurture of their biological mother or father?
The other consequence will be the shrinking back from advocacy for the natural family for fear of being labelled a “bigot” or worse, being sued.
There’s never been a greater need for the family unit of mum, dad and the kids to be promoted in public policy and celebrated in culture.
The intolerance of the radical rainbow political movement means few now have the courage to promote what is good, true and beautiful about marriage and family.
Same-sex marriage was a mistake that is only going to harm our nation over time.
I look forward to the day when we celebrate the anniversary of the day we reversed the decision of November 15, 2017.
That day will surely come. If it doesn’t, we will no longer have a civilisation.
Lyle Shelton is director of campaign and communications for the Christian Democratic Party. During the marriage plebiscite, he was a director and spokesman for the “No” campaign’s Coalition for Marriage.