Think the religious discrimination fight is over? Not so fast

Conservative Christian lobbies have tried to claim the failure of the watered-down religious discrimination bill as a win for their lobbying efforts. And on the back of this “win”, they’re attempting to drum up further support for their cause.

Rallying the base

In an email circulated to supporters, Mark Spencer of the Christian Schools Alliance said there had been a “calculated attack against faith-based schools”. Late last night, Martyn Iles of the Australian Christian Lobby claimed that “today was nearly the end of Christian schooling […] but it’s been averted”.

They are of course implying that the right to discriminate against LGBTIQA+ kids and protection from LGBTIQA+ activist claims is central to Christian schooling, a ridiculous and disturbing notion. But no matter how they spin the events of the past week, it’s now a matter of what happens next. Iles is using the moment as a call to arms for the election, and is asking for funds to fight back against the “ongoing ideological division” amongst liberals, claiming they “need to do something” about the moderates.

“I’m asking you for help, help us build our war chest, donate to ACL,” he said in a video message.

Lyle Shelton of the Christian Democratic Party claimed that Christian schools had “dodged a bullet” with the scrapping of the amended bill. He then called for the base to speak out and make noise on this issue.  

“The biggest lesson for Christians and their leaders in all of this is that silence is no longer an option. Lies in the public square cannot continue to go unchallenged.”

Should the Coalition win the election, we shouldn’t be surprised if the Christian lobbies again use their influence to put a religious discrimination bill back on the agenda. The bill was first promised by the Turnbull government following the marriage equality plebiscite, and there’s no reason it couldn’t transcend another election cycle.

Morrison still a go

Despite the political bungling of the delivery of this election promise, the christian lobbies are still backing Scott Morrison. 

Iles gave him credit for stopping the bill: “A bunch of good guys rallied in order to block this bill and I will say they did this with the prime minister’s help.” He even tried to rationalise some of the bungling of the bill by giving Morrison the “benefit of the doubt” and suggesting he simply made an error in his negotiations with Labor. 

Despite Morrison’s failure on this issue, for Christians, you can’t do much better than a devout Pentecostal prime minister. And as long as Morrison’s around, this fight is far from over.