Liberal Party theocrats to flex their ‘muscular Christianity’
During the 2008 state election, GLBTI advocates including GALE raised concerns about a looming threat to equality laws after the Liberal Party preselected a number of candidates with fundamentalist Christian backgrounds.
Many of those candidates now sit as MPs in the Legislative Assembly. Next month, even more new MPs will join the parliament when the term of the new Legislative Council commences.
Do these new politicians represent a real risk to gay and lesbian law reform?
Just after the election, former Australian Democrats Senator Brian Greig wrote about the challenge faced by Premier Colin Barnett in keeping the theocrats and homophobes on his party’s backbench at heel to maintain his fragile hold on government.
That challenge will become difficult over the next few years when Premier Barnett’s religious backbenchers flex their brand of so-called ‘muscular Christianity’.
An article by Amanda O’Brien in The Weekend Australian newspaper on 4 April 2009 – titled ‘Church and state reunited’ – heralds the coming balancing act Premier Barnett faces as moral issues like prostitution and drug laws return to parliament.
The article details the background of some of these new Liberal MPs: ordained minister Peter Abetz in the seat of Southern River, former pastor Ian Britza in Morley, former church volunteer Albert Jacob in Ocean Reef, and Tony Krsticevic in Carine.
Thirteen new lower house MPs were elected last year, and Ian Britza is quoted in Ms O’Brien’s article as saying virtually all of them hold similar views: “We do have a powerful bloc. We meet pretty regularly; we have a little debates among us so that when the time comes we are unified bloc or we know where we are at.”
The article also describes how these MPs were forced to support the recent passage of surrogacy laws, with Peter Abetz saying that they’ll be prepared to fight back the next time a moral issue comes up.
It is now clear that to protect equality in WA, our community must respond. Each and every one of us can start by writing to the Premier, and to these and other MPs, expressing our concerns and asking for a guarantee on gay rights.
For more ideas and help on how you can make a difference, or to read the article from The Weekend Australian, check out the GALE website. Also, a full list of MPs’ contact details is available at the WA Parliament website.
Rod Swift, GALE media spokesperson
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