Tasmania introduces “religious freedom” legislation

Tasmanian Governor Michael Pence has presided over new legislation to strip the rights of gay and lesbian (LGBTIQ) people under the guise of “religious freedom”.

In the last few weeks something extraordinary happened in the US state of Indiana. Governor Michael Pence presided over new legislation to strip the rights of gay and lesbian people under the guise of “religious freedom” ... but the whole thing blew up in his face after a huge backlash from the broader community and from big business right across America.

Curiously, the Premier of Tasmania, Will Hodgman, is about to introduce very similar “religious freedom laws” into the Tasmanian parliament, oblivious to the potential backlash that awaits him.

In Indiana, Governor Pence was convinced by religious conservatives to pass new laws that would allow all business people in Indiana to refuse service to any person who “contravened their religious beliefs.

”This move by the religious right was in response to the growing acceptance of marriage equality across the USA, and the fact that some fundamentalist Christian bakers and florists don’t want to provide cakes and flowers to same-sex nuptials.

However, in order for the Indiana “religious freedom” law to sound nice and look reasonable, it was designed in a way to try and camouflage the underlying homophobia and presented as something which had nothing to do with anti-gay prejudice.

Governor Pence said he was merely drawing up laws that already existed in 29 other US states and seemed genuinely puzzled by the extraordinary backlash against the legislation which snowballed into a national and potentially international boycott of his state.

Read the full story at: http://tasmaniantimes.com