Note the names of the Liberals who don't believe in freedom: Malcolm Turnbull is facing mounting hostility among conservative MPs after an overwhelming majority of Coalition senators last night voted for amendments to the same-sex marriage bill only to be shot down when six Coalition senators, including three cabinet ministers, sided with Labor and the Greens to scuttle them.
The move is likely to see Liberal senator Dean Smith’s bill rammed through the Senate unchanged as early as this morning, crushing attempts by 18 of 26 Coalition senators to secure significant amendments to broaden religious protections...
Cabinet ministers Simon Birmingham, Marise Payne and Nigel Scullion joined Senator Smith, Jane Hume and Linda Reynolds in voting against changes to the Smith bill, ensuring it will pass unamended. The remaining Fawcett/Paterson amendments, including parental rights, also failed.
Here is more evidence that the Liberals are headed for a split. How can the Liberals embrace people who won't fight for religious freedom?
To make this betrayal worse, these Liberals voted with Labor when Labor would not granted a similar freedom to its own MPs to vote the other way, guaranteeing that the minority could therefore win: Labor legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus ... said Labor MPs who were opposed to same-sex marriage would not get a conscience vote on enshrining further religious protections after the review of the freedoms ordered by Mr Turnbull and to be conducted by former Howard minister Philip Ruddock was completed next year.
Labor senator Helen Polley, who has strongly suggested to Coalition senators that she would vote with the amendments, last night said she would oppose them on the basis there were “legitimate concerns regarding religious freedom” that should be investigated in the Ruddock review.
And what has Malcolm Turnbull done to honor this promise: In September, Mr Turnbull had offered hope to Christian groups and conservative MPs when he pledged to protect religious protections following the same-sex marriage survey.
“I just want to reassure Australians that as strongly as I believe in the right of same-sex couples to marry, as strongly as I believe in that, even more strongly, if you like, do I believe in religious freedom,” Mr Turnbull said.
“Religious freedom is fundamental and it will be protected in any bill that emerges from this parliament.”
