A POWERFUL Christian group has fixed its cross-hairs on a group of anti-religious Liberal MPs aiming to have them ousted at the upcoming federal election.
The “moderate” Liberals that the Australian Christian Lobby wants removed from parliament includes Trent Zimmerman, David Sharma, Bridget Archer, Fiona Martin and Katie Allen.
- The Liberals have drifted too far to the Left and need a circuit breaker.
- Christian campaign could result in a Labor government.
- Short-term pain required for long-term gain in order to stop Liberal Party drift.
ACL Managing Director Martyn Iles said his organisation would actively campaign in marginal seats including Wentworth (Sharma on 1.3 per cent), Bass (Archer on 0.4 per cent) and Reid (Martin on 3.2 per cent).
The independent-held seat of Mayo (Rebekha Sharkie) will also be targeted.
MADNESS
Mr Iles said the MPs’ decision earlier this year to cross the floor to defeat the Morrison Government’s religious protection bill was “madness”.
“They refused to vote to protect people of faith from discrimination, which I thought was a fairly basic Liberal value,” he said.
“They also, some of them, tried to hijack the religious discrimination bill by adding amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act, which would have deleted laws that Christian schools rely on to employ staff and teach in accordance with their ethos.
“An ideological cancer is growing within the Liberal Party. It’s not shrinking, it’s growing and somebody needs to draw attention to it – to call it out and see that it doesn’t happen in the future.
“So we’re launching a campaign.”
ACL plans to deploy a “volunteer army” of more than 7000 Christians into the 2022 election campaign, to feature on billboards, flyers, robocalls and social media.
Since the 2019 federal election the organisation has developed a campaign infrastructure and has almost 25,000 financial donors and 259,000 members.
Mr Iles said MPs were being disingenuous when saying they were simply seeking to protect school kids.
“They would argue that – but it’s a disinformation campaign,” he told Sky News yesterday.
“There are no Christian schools out there who expel kids because of their gender identity or because of their sexual orientation.
“I’ve checked, I’ve talked to them, they have no interest.”
FAITH
Mr Isles said ACL was open to amending the Act to remove any perceived misunderstanding – “but that’s not what they were doing”.
“They want to delete the whole section. And that section has enormous implications for the way schools teach, the way they employ staff – in fact it enables them to operate in accordance with their faith.
“If a Christian school can’t have a view on what is good sexuality, if it can’t have a view on what is good gender identity, if it can’t have a view on creation and how human beings are made, then it can’t actually be a Christian school.
“They need to be able to teach in accordance with their ethos.”
He said the Liberal Party had drifted too far to the Left and needed a circuit breaker.
“The question for us is, can we allow the ‘moderates’ in the Liberal Party to continue to be an ideological cancer? To drift the Liberal Party to the Left; to not even vote to protect people of faith from discrimination – which is madness!”
“I’ve gone to the Liberal Party and they say to me ‘well who else are you going to vote for’.”
LABOR
Mr Iles admitted his campaign could result in a Labor government.
“It’s a big call, but it’s a long-term thing,” he said.
“When I was told by people in the Liberal Party, ‘who else are you going to vote for’, it just confirmed for me that we need to break the circuit.
“And if that means some short-term pain for long-term gain in order to stop this drift in the Liberal Party – and in the Labor Party, to be honest – no problem!
“Parents vote with their feet when they choose Christian schools, people of faith can’t understand why they wouldn’t vote for protecting them from discrimination. They’re pretty basic things.”
Mr Iles said anyone who didn’t believe religious persecution existed in Australia should “come live in our shoes”.
“We have an entire law firm dedicated to taking up legal cases where people have been in trouble with the law for living out their faith – and they’re busy, they get calls all the time.
“This is not the sort of thing that gets out there in the public eye. But people are being fired from jobs, they’re getting disciplined by professional bodies, they’re getting sacked from schools because of their faith.
PROBLEM
“There is a real discrimination problem, we are not making this up.
“I have no interest in laws that aren’t necessary, I have no interest in laws that don’t connect with any form of reality.
“But people of faith and faith communities know this, they know discrimination is real and that’s why they are concerned and why it could shift the marginals.” PC
The push to promote religious discrimination is real and abhorrent!
However, facilitating a win for the Labor/Greens is a decidedly insane step. They are much worse with their extremely hostile, anti-religion stance!
The fight against this cancer, these left-leaning Liberals must be fought internally and with unremitting strength.
Perhaps that may be at the moment but there are still more conservatives than those that align with the left. Besides all that can we afford a socialist/marxist government comprising Labor and the Greens. Albo is of the extreme left and as you are aware most of the leftist ideology has infiltrated universities and schools, which will become re-education camps for leftist agendas. Most of the extreme issues at this time emanate from the left. Can we afford that?
“[…] most of the leftist ideology has infiltrated universities and schools […]”
…and the “Liberals” have been in government for eight years – what have they done to address this situation in all that time?
Mr Morrison, I’m a conservative with a large family and for the first time we’ve decided to vote green.
At least they’re honest in their commitment to destroy our nation.
The Liberals have been doing it by stealth, which is unforgivable.