Here’s what we know about the Liberals’ marriage bill

Here’s what we know about the Liberals’ marriage bill

Senator Dean Smith has circulated a private members’ bill he’s constructed in collaboration with MPs Warren Entsch, Trevor Evans, Tim Wilson and Trent Zimmerman, ahead of a partyroom meeting on the issue tomorrow.

The Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill 2017 will allow ‘two people’ to marry regardless of their sex or gender, while still maintaining the right for religious ministers and religious service providers to refuse their services to same-sex couples in accordance with their beliefs.

Commercial businesses and non-religious organisations will be required to uphold civil law and not discriminate.

The bill is a product of the select senate committee inquiry conducted earlier this year, co-chair of the Equality Campaign Anna Brown said during a press conference earlier today.

“It’s a historic and welcome step, that contains provisions that deliver equality for same-sex couples while protecting religious celebration of marriage,” she said.

“The inquiry earlier this year was the most comprehensive and rigorous examination of this issue in the parliament’s history, and this bill reflects the outcome of that inquiry.”

Currently, ministers of religion are not bound to solemnise any marriage provided they comply with anti-discrimination laws, and this will not change.

However, the bill contains a new category of celebrants, religious marriage celebrants, that will help to accommodate new and emerging and independent churches, enabling religious figures to carry out marriages in accordance with their beliefs, and to distinguish them from civil marriage celebrants.

Civil marriage celebrants were set up as a secular alternative for providing marriage and they won’t be able to discriminate.

For the small number of civil marriage celebrants that wish to carry out religious marriages in accordance with their beliefs, they’ll be able to transfer to the new religious category of celebrants.

The bill will also allow members of the Australian Defence Force – who can currently only be married by a military chaplain – a secular option, ensuring that LGBTI Defence Force members deployed overseas would be able to marry.

Australian Marriage Equality co-chair Alex Greenwich said they fully endorse and support the legislation.

“This bill is strong and robust – there have been many but it is the strongest one we’ve seen, it’s designed to pass the Senate,” he said.

“This is a reform that would truly make our nation proud. It’s time for our parliament to get on and just do it.”

Senator Smith and his Liberal colleagues will take the bill the Coalition partyroom, with a crisis meeting scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

The Bill will be debated and voted on in the House of Representatives, where it needs Coalition MPs to cross the floor for it to pass.

Watch this space.

 

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3 responses to “Here’s what we know about the Liberals’ marriage bill”

  1. God Never discrimination never judge never segregation. only conservative conservative conservative conservative They separated. they discrimination. Therefore Australia behind English speaking country. why High Court will not take over

  2. Farcically the people deciding the future of marriage equality at the coalition’s party meetings today could be those in parliament who most want it to be defeated. The postal plebiscite that they are proposing could be a dreadful result from the current round of coalition infighting over the issue: legal hurdles, potentially low voter turnout especially among the young leading to an impression that public support is less than it actually is, and the nasty pubic debate that the gay and lesbian community tried to avoid with it’s opposition to the original plebiscite.

    So the last few weeks of debate around the issue has been consequential but where has our community’s campaign been? The public side to the campaign for equality has been lacking and it is starting to show in comments made by coalition politicians, Turnbull included, about the lack of interest in change shown by Australians. The conservative pollies are saying that their inaction (and a plebiscite is a type of deferral) is justifiable due to it being a lower order issue for Australians. This would be hard to get away with if there were a stronger public campaign being put forward at this critical point. There is so much more that isn’t being done to present the case.
    Why is this so?

  3. I’m reading news reports that folks in the marriage services industry (bakers making wedding cakes, function centre owners etc) will also be given a degree of “religious freedom” in refusing gay couples as long as they can firmly link themselves back to their anti-marriage-equality churches.

    The inherent problem with this is now it seems that telling gay people to fuck off is the only religious freedom. I say it’s either all or nothing. Catholics bakers need the right to tell previously divorced Protestants going for their second marriage they are evil fornicators who are going to hell. Protestant wedding gown makers need the right to tell Catholics they are idolators who pray to statues and are going to hell. And everyone needs to fully express their views about the Muslims, straight out of the Pauline Hanson “it’s not a religion” playbook.

    Notice how no religious freedom is about being nice, sociable, decent or generous?

    If you want it, religious people, be prepared to suffer the religious freedoms of others and let us know how you’re getting on. Else, STFU.