The huge defeat this week for the same sex activist's campaign to modify the legal definition of marriage, represents a decisive win for freedom of speech in Australia, and represents a critical win for Children's human rights - of major import for countless future generations of children and parents.

Both freedom of speech on matters of sexual lifestyle and religious belief, and Children's human right to an upbringing by their biological mother and father, were under threat by changes proposed to the Marriage act by minority homosexual lobby groups.

To quote part of a message from Jim Wallace AM of the ACL, and Dr David van Gend of the AMF:

This week’s decisive votes in the Parliament of Australia defeating same-sex marriage are a huge win.

First the House of Representatives on Wednesday voted 98-42 followed by the Senate yesterday 41-26.

Of course the same-sex activists will continue to show a disregard for not only the processes and priorities of parliament, but now even the Constitution, by attempting to have this passed by a state, even though marriage is beyond their jurisdiction.

A feature of this long campaign has been the way the same sex activists have made the public square so toxic that their opinion, no matter how poorly founded, takes the preeminent place in the debate. More and more, good people have been forced out of the public square by deliberate vilifying of them.

This is a terrible comment on the state of our democracy which depends for useful public debate on diversity of views and competition of truth and fact. This will need to be restored before this topic is ever considered again.

Jim Wallace AM
Australian Christian Lobby Managing Director

Dr David van Gend
President, Australian Marriage Forum