ACL vs the ACT - marriage equality

The ghastly Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has entered the fray on the intent by the Australian Capitol Territory (ACT) to introduce legislation to pass marriage equality there. This is the extremist bunch who claim to represent all of Australian Christians, and sees fit to represent itself to the gov as a lobby group that does so.

(At this point I would like to point out that I've not heard anything in the media from all those Christian people who claim that the ACL doesn't represent them.......   *crickets*)

Never the less, this is what has been plastered in The Australian newspaper by the ACL, with as usual the only voice of protest coming from the LGBT community. Gee, it'd be really nice wouldn't it if just some of those Christians not represented by the ACL would fuckin stand up and say something about how and why they disagree with it. This is not even unrepresentative swill, this is unelected  unrepresentative swill.

Mr Shelton described the latest gay marriage bill to be put forward as "a bit of a nonsense by the ACT government just joining up with the advocates for the same sex marriage campaign and using the territory government in probably really a mischievous way because it really doesn't have the power here and it's not appropriate".

He conceded the ACT government had won an election promising to deliver this reform.

"Sure that's very true but that doesn't change the fact that the territory doesn't have constitutional jurisdiction over this area," he said. - See more

I'd forgotten about the last time when the ACT passed civil unions some years back. That was swiftly overturned by the Howard gov, but since then the laws have been changed. Abbott has no veto power anymore, and the only way he can overturn the decision is to either get it through both houses of federal parliament (good luck with that Abbott the way the senate is looking) or challenge it in the high court.

University of NSW law professor George Williams said the power of the governor-general to disallow territory laws was removed in the last federal parliament. That means the Abbott government no longer has a veto over such a law.

"It would be possible to override the ACT law, but only by passing a bill through both houses of federal parliament (which is what happened with the overriding of the Northern Territory euthanasia legislation in 1997)," Professor Williams said.

"That of course is a much more difficult course, especially given the current numbers in the Senate. All this means that an ACT same-sex marriage law would be much harder to override than was the case in 2006. - See more

Being as the ACL's views are in no way representative of the polling data that has shown constant and ever increasing support for marriage equality, and being as $millions are heading off to the New Zealand economy as we speak, I'd say both those propositions are going to look quite daunting for our great new conquering unrepresentative swill, Tony Abbott.

Ironically, Rodney Croome of Australian Marriage Equality would welcome a high court challenge.

Australian Marriage Equality national director Rodney Croome said he wanted the federal government to respect the spirit of the Constitution and allow any constitutional questions raised by the Territory marriage equality law to be resolved by Australia's independent umpire, the High Court. - See more

Indeed, he may feel confidence of a win in the High Court?

BTW, previous to this the ACL has been encouraging the ACT to at least delay the introduction of the bill. This from their website:

The Australian Christian Lobby is urging the ACT Government to delay its same-sex marriage bill until consultation with churches occurs. ACL Managing Director Lyle Shelton said church leaders he had spoken to had not been consulted by the Government. “Redefining marriage and enforcing this new definition of marriage by law has significant consequences for freedom of speech and freedom of belief,” Mr Shelton said. more

Consultation with churches? WTF? Are we supposed to get direction for our society by religion? Newsflash, this is a democracy and few democracy's last when the churches start dictating religious mumbo jumbo as the proper way forward for society. In that sense, WTF have churches to do with freedom of speech? If the churches ruled us all we'd not be able to even have a marriage equality debate in this country at all.