Religious right fears marriage win

Changes to Labor policy have backed the religious right into a fighting corner as they escalate their campaign to deny same-sex relationship recognition.
As same-sex marriage advocates ramp up their push for submissions to the marriage inquiry, so too are the religious right, in a race to tip the scale of numbers before the August 28 deadline.
The Salt Shakers have admitted feeling a little shaken, following the inclusion of some allowances at the recent Labor Party conference.
Despite the spin of Labor and some Christian commentators to try and put a positive note on the conference outcome regarding marriage, things are not as good as one might think, the group’s website reads.  It laments the changes to Labor Party policy documents which removed statements about marriage being between a man and a woman and about forms of relationship recognition which mimic marriage. Policy documents also spoke of a national framework for relationship recognition.
Naturally the lie perpetuated by the Labor policy is that all discrimination is wrong, when it is not. It is right to discriminate against those things that are unnatural and immoral, the Salt Shakers responded.
All in all, this Labor conference has moved the nation closer to the day when unnatural same-sex marriage becomes a reality.
The Salt Shakers’ objection to marriage -” or any other form of same-sex relationship recognition -” is not simply a religious matter, according to co-founder Peter Stokes.
It’s much, much more than that. It’s a question of the relationships themselves -” whether society should be normalising and then accepting those relationships and legitimising them under any form of legal recognition, he told Sydney Star Observer.
I’m concerned that [the Labor Party] are normalising same-sex relationships. We believe the conference took another step towards the ALP inevitability of normalising same-sex relationships, even through marriage. Their justification for saying they don’t agree with marriage has been very weak and frankly, so have some religious groups’ reasons for accepting relationship registers.
You can’t have it both ways and say these relationships are normal and need equal rights or benefits but then say it can only go so far. Our position is that, if you’re going to give them relationship registers, why not give them marriage?

info: To write your submission visit Australian Marriage Equality’s website at
www.australianmarriageequality.com