Article of faith

Faith is under siege from an increasingly virulent anti-Christian movement that seeks to drive religion away from the public square. By Nick Cater.

Two hundred years after governor Lachlan Macquarie sanctioned the arrival of the colony’s first Catholic priests, Australia faces a new wave of sectarian intolerance.

The arrival of Father John Terry and Father Philip Connolly in 1820 marked the birth of a secular state. Today the move is on to anoint the dreary godless philosophy of the intellectual left Australia’s only true religion, a group united in enmity towards supposed apostates like Margaret Court.

Five years ago, Court’s interpretation of marriage would have been unexceptional. Today she is vilified, her sporting achievements disrespected and honest convictions considered so unacceptable they cannot be uttered. Court has endured a spiteful campaign. Martina Navratilova, John McEnroe and Andy Murray have joined the guiltless gaggle of virtue signallers demanding that her name be removed from the Margaret Court Arena.

Lotterywest, a wholly owned subsidiary of the WA state government, has refused an application from Court’s church, Victory Life, for a grant to purchase a freezer truck to deliver food to the poor. “It is the sole reason it was knocked back, because the board didn’t like her personal views on same-sex marriage,” a former Lotterywest employer told 6PR last month.

The leaders of the same-sex marriage campaign vociferously denied that the 2017 plebiscite was a threat to religious freedom. And yet that is what it has become. The goal of same-sex marriage having been achieved, the object now appears to be to crush all opposition.

For activists such as Roz Ward, the marriage campaign was part of a larger strategy. “It will only be through a revitalised class struggle and revolutionary change that we can hope for the liberation of LGBTI people,” she said.

The dispute about the legal definition of marriage was settled in a relatively civilised manner. Accusations of homophobia and hate speech levelled against Christians should be seen for what they are, trumped-up charges designed to extinguish resistance in a wider sectarian battle.

Like the false allegation against Cardinal George Pell, the purpose of the charges is to heap humiliation and shame upon the conservative religions that form obstacles on the road to victory.

We should not be surprised that the war against religious conservatives, Catholics in particular, is waged most forcefully by the ABC, a bastion of the godless orthodoxy that has become the universal dogma of the intellectual left.

The response to Scott Morrison’s open declaration of faith on the national broadcaster has ranged from bewilderment to foul-mouthed mockery. That elitist hostility is not shared by most voters. Eight of the nine federal elections since 1996 have been won by leaders who have openly declared their faith.

Yet the campaign to exclude religion from the public square is intensifying. Katrina Tait’s hate crime was to sign an online petition promoted by the Australian Christian Lobby objecting to the staging of a children’s event called Drag Queen Story Time in local Brisbane public libraries.

For this, Tait was subjected to five months of hell under NSW Anti-Discrimination Law after a complaint was lodged by a serial applicant known for making trivial and vexatious accusations. After an unnecessarily long procedure, the case was dropped.

Wedding photographer Jason Tey made a point of telling same-sex couples that he disagreed with same-sex marriage on faith grounds but never refused service. His trouble began in 2018 when a same-sex couple complained to the Western Australian Equal Opportunity Commission. It was the beginning of seven months of anxiety and stress for Jason and his family before the complaint was withdrawn.

The number of complaints made against Christians for trivial actions is rising in every kangaroo court prepared to accept them.

A student was accused of creating an unsafe environment for offering to pray with a fellow student who was feeling stressed. He was told by the university that he would be physically removed from the campus if he set foot on it while his suspension was active. After months of torture, the university dropped the charges.

A Christian couple in Perth, Byron and Keira Hordyk, is appealing against a ban preventing them from fostering young children on the basis of their faith principles.

In March, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal confirmed the suspension of Dr Jereth Kok, a Victorian family doctor with more than 15 years of experience and an unblemished record of medical practice. Kok’s offence was the expression of conservative Christian views on transgenderism and abortion on social media.

The religious freedom reforms before parliament are long overdue. The reforms will offer protection and avenues of appeal for those who face discrimination on the basis of religious belief or activity in specified areas of public life.

As ever, the best protection against the mob is the courage of good people who refuse to be cowed into silence by the intimidatory tactics of the new theocrats and are willing to stand and be counted among the defenders of a pluralist society.