The ACL drafted the conservatives marriage discrimination bill

Shelton's worst nightmare gets ever closer :)

Yes you read that headline right. The Australian Christian Lobby (ie Lyle Shelton) drafted the conservatives marriage discrimination bill that Paterson was planning to bring before parliament for debate, opposing the consensus Dean Smith bill. Yes, this is how fuckin low the RWNJ's in the gov stooped. Desperate to produce their own bullshit for same sex marriage, they turned to the unrepresentative fringe dwellers of the ACL 

Said fringe dwelling extremist of the ACL don't even represent mainstream Christians let alone mainstream Australian's. Unless they've had a major hiring drive they'd still only have the same amount of full time employees as last year, being only eleven. I assume Shelton's influence over the gov stems from him once being a National party candidate in Queensland and a political advisor to Barnaby Joyce. 


In any case such a drafting of legislation by an extremist group such as the ACL says volumes about the far right nutters in the gov. Not to mention it being completely inappropriate and wrong in a secular state. You can't have a religious body of whatever ilk writing legislation in a country such as Australia. Un-fuckin-believable!

In the dying days of the campaign, when it became increasingly likely that “Yes” would triumph, one of Abbott’s mates from the Institute of Public Affairs, Senator James Paterson, gave flesh to the sort of political correctness they wanted to reject. And that is the political correctness that says it is unacceptable and illegal to discriminate against anyone on the basis of gender, race, religion or sexuality. 


MPs who worked with Paterson on the committee looking at section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act say he is a zealot in wanting to abolish all safeguards against discrimination. His libertarian world view sees it as nanny state intrusion. So while claiming he voted “Yes” in the survey, he came up with a bill, prepared for him by the Australian Christian Lobby, that would dramatically extend “freedom of religion” into a much broader “freedom to discriminate” against homosexuals. 


 The bill came up with a new concept of “relevant belief”. You don’t have to be even a minister of religion or an adherent of any religion, providing you have a conscientious belief that gays should not have the same rights as everybody else. It was that bad. Even for Paterson, the penny dropped – at least it did after a meeting with Turnbull. Late on Wednesday afternoon he gave up trying to introduce his bill. He will now attempt to heavily amend his colleague Dean Smith’s bill. Apart from time-wasting it will be a doomed undertaking. Turnbull and Bill Shorten won’t be alone in resisting any winding back of Australia’s anti-discrimination laws. The Saturday Paper