Morrison correct to test Shorten over equality, by Paul Kelly.

Scott Morrison yesterday asked Bill Shorten a simple question: do you believe in equality for religion in Australia? …

And what was Shorten’s response? He dodged, played both sides of the fence and then dismissed the whole thing as unimportant. The reason is obvious: much of the progressive constituency and ALP rank and file that Shorten needs doesn’t believe in equality for religion in this country. It wants religion in an inferior place with an inferior legal status. This reality underpins much of the current debate about religion. …

Morrison, a conviction politician on this front, has drawn two new lines of argument. First, that religious protection is pivotal in a multicultural society where many religions thrive, where new arrivals tend to be more religious and where ethnic communities value their religious identity. The second is the equality argument advanced yesterday by both Morrison and Porter. The Attorney-General put it bluntly: you cannot stop a person entering a room on the basis of sex, race or disability but you can stop a person because of their religion. …

Discrimination on the basis of religion is quite legal in Australia. The left would prefer it stays that way.

Beware that Islam is much more than the other religions. It is a strong and totalitarian ideology with a supremacist tinge, out to conquer the world, and with a death penalty for leaving. It is more akin to Soviet communism than a religion, as the West normally thinks of religion.

hat-tip Stephen Neil