Marriage equality will lead to gender confusion, Australian Christian Lobby claims

Jan 16, 2017 by Jill

by Paul Karp, Guardian:

Marriage equality will increase gender confusion because it undermines the “complementarity” of males and females, the Australian Christian Lobby has said.

ACL makes the claim in submissions to the Senate committee examining the government’s marriage equality bill exposure draft, in which it argues marriage is a “child-centric” institution and calls for changes to allow discrimination against same-sex couples on the grounds of freedom of religion.

The bill, released before the Senate vote blocking the government’s proposed plebiscite, would allow civil celebrants and religious organisations to refuse to provide goods and services to gay weddings.

LGBTI rights groups, including Australian Marriage Equality and Just Equal, have called to remove those exemptions and warned that allowing for practices based on “conscientious belief” could open the door to discrimination on other grounds, including race.

ACL argued that freedom of religion is a fundamental right that protects both individuals’ beliefs and practices. It approved the exposure draft’s plan to allow civil celebrants to refuse to perform same-sex weddings and advocated that providers of goods of services including bakers and florists should have the same right.

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