Positive principles can have ‘unintended consequences in the hands of activist lawyers and judges’

Sky News host Peta Credlin says unobjectionable principles can turn out to have "all sorts of unintended consequences in the hands of activist lawyers and activist judges". "By taking abstract rights and putting them into specific legislation, shields can readily become swords, that are then used against those that the law was intended to protect," she said. "Part of the problem is that much that was once taken for granted, is now subject to furious contention. Take the biblical statement, for instance, 'male and female He created them'. "No one would have objected to this until very recently but now it would have the gender fluidity warriors in an uproar." Ms Credlin said another problem was the "growing tendency to import America's litigious culture" into Australia. "Once, if you objected to something that a church taught, you didn't go near that church; you might even have loudly stated your dissent from that teaching," she said. "Now, new laws might protect your right to your religion, but what about your right to promote your religion to someone else of a different religion? That's where this all becomes impossibly complicated. "Today's announcement that the Morrison Government will finally proceed with the long-promised legislation to protect religious freedom seems innocuous enough, but as with any attempt to legislate something that we have always had as a common law right, it's actually fraught with difficulty. "Frankly, what's really needed here is not more law, but much more common sense."