The fear of God

This opinion piece in The Australian ends thus: Jim Wallace is managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby. It is an expression of fear against any moves towards a charter of human rights. It is beyond my erudition to opinion on the merits pro or contra such a charter. I am simply looking at opponents' and proponents' rhetoric.

How then can the committee and the president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Catherine Branson, come to the conclusion that there is a genuine national cry for a charter or bill of rights?

The answer is simple. They were duped by activist campaigns by GetUp! and Amnesty

Some of the pillars of his argument are:

First, a high proportion of the consultations were held during the day, when people other than activists were unlikely to be able to attend. It meant the public sessions could not be said to be truly representative of the public and therefore national opinion.

Amnesty had 10,488 submissions and a good number of those were made on postcards provided by the organisation. […]Then there were the 14,604 GetUp! submissions. Add them and the total comes to 25,092, which could be taken to represent a high proportion of the 29,153 recorded in favour of a human rights act, or charter or bill of rights.

He goes on:

The Australian Christian Lobby is as concerned about human rights as anyone and, like large parts of the Christian church, spends a good part of its time championing the cause of the persecuted and disadvantaged, in Australia as well as overseas.

However,

we have been forced to spend nine months defending their right to employ people who share their faith and values. Although the vast majority of Australians would support the need for church organisations to protect their ethos in this way, the Australian Greens and homosexual activists used the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities to try to remove this UN-guaranteed right, with both groups clearly operating on the basis of an ideological objection to faith and churches.

In conclusion, he wants a referendum:

Hopefully the government will dismiss the recommendations for a charter or bill of rights. It can certainly not implement them without putting the question to the Australian public in a referendum.