Judeo-Christian ethic is the basis

Lyle Shelton is the Australian Conservatives Senate candidate for Queensland

We asked five Christian politicians, former candidates and current contenders to make their pitch: why should you vote for their party this Federal Election? For responses from the other parties, click here.

The 2017 marriage plebiscite was a hammer blow to freedom of speech, religion and the truth about gender.

It is now bigotry, punishable by law, to uphold Jesus Christ’s definition of marriage.

Assert that boys are boys and girls are girls and risk being labelled a “transphobe,” liable to prosecution in an anti-discrimination commission.

To argue that children should, wherever possible, have the love of their mother and father is “homophobic” and again risks legal action. This is unjust.

Just look at the Julian Porteous case in Tasmania, something the Turnbull/Morrison government’s Ruddock review into religious freedom did not even address.

If your wedding magazine only portrays man-woman marriage, you will be hounded from  business, as happened to Luke and Carla Burrell of White Magazine.

If you are a photographer who believes in man-woman marriage and dare state this, you will be taken to court. Just ask West Australian Christian wedding photographer Jason Tey.

Despite Malcolm Turnbull famously declaring he believed in religious freedom more than same-sex marriage, it has been a conservative government with a Pentecostal Prime Minister that has been unable to secure freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

While we are not a Christian party, we are a party that unashamedly believes the Judeo-Christian ethic is the basis for our freedoms.

I don’t blame Scott Morrison for this. He is fighting green-rainbow-left forces in his own party which, backed by the media, are even more powerful than the PM.

Christian schools are now the canary in the coalmine with rainbow activists targeting their ability to employ staff who share their Christian view of marriage.

Amid much acrimony – witness Senator Penny Wong’s anti-Christian-school outburst in the Senate last December – the Morrison government has kicked the religious freedom can down the road until after the election.

Labor is now openly hostile to freedom of religion and at its December conference in Adelaide only grudgingly shelved a proposal to criminalise parents who dare to affirm their children’s biological gender.

This was thanks to a courageous campaign by Martyn Iles, my successor at the Australian Christian Lobby, who took on Labor’s so-called anti-gay-conversion therapy plan which would have also criminalised prayer.

Many Christians will pin their hopes on Scott Morrison being returned to finish the job on protecting freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

While Morrison is sincere in wanting to do this, the dynamics in his own party room are unlikely to allow him to put Humpty back together again.

Proof of this was more than half of his Liberal colleagues voting against the very sensible and reasonable freedom of speech and freedom of religion amendments.

Liberal politicians chose to vote on instructions from rainbow political activists who are intolerant of diverse views. To fight for the future of freedom of religion and speech is one of the key reasons I joined the Australian Conservatives under Senator Cory Bernardi.

While we are not a Christian party, we are a party that unashamedly believes the Judeo-Christian ethic is the basis for our freedoms.

Despite the heroic efforts of some of their number, the Coalition as a group unit is now no longer able to guarantee freedom of speech and religion.

Too many of their parliamentarians, while agreeing with freedom, don’t have the courage to take the fight to the Greens.

This must change.

Our message is simple. If freedom of religion matters to you, vote Australian Conservatives in the Senate.

Lyle Shelton is Federal Communications Director for the Australian Conservatives and its Senate candidate for Queensland.