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The tennis champion who recently said that there would be "no Easter" if marriage equality passed in her country, accused the government of wanting to "stifle" and "silence" Christians.Â
Tennis champion turned Pentecostal minister and virulent homophobe Margaret Court continues to rail against marriage equality, which the citizens of Australia overwhelming voted in favor of passing last December. Court wrote in a submission to the Religious Freedom Review under former Attorney General Philip Ruddock--which, among other things, is examining the right of businesses to discriminate against LGBT people based on religious views--that marriage equality is "alarming" for Australia and that Christians are being "silenced" and "stifled."
"I am deeply concerned that, as a nation, we are forsaking foundational truths and the blessings that have made Australia great," she said, according to The West Australian. She added, "Biblical principles of excellence, integrity, and creativity that influenced and shaped the Western world."
There were more than 16,000 submissions to the review that were released just prior to the holiday weekend, 500 of which were similar to Court's from conservative Christian groups concerned that marriage equality would ruin the fabric of their nation.
Meanwhile, Susan Ryan, a minister in the Australian government in the '80s and the architect of the country's sex discrimination law passed in 1984 wrote to the religious freedom review to oppose any license to discriminate.
"The 'right' of cake makers to refuse a cake sale on such a basis has been alleged loudly and repeatedly as an example of this desired new right to discriminate," Ryan wrote, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. "Such 'new rights' should not be given any positive consideration by the Expert Panel."
Court, who founded the Victory of Life Ministry in Perth, has a history of homophobia so long-standing that it served as a plot point in last fall's Battle of the Sexes (which recalls Billie Jean King's famous match with male chauvinist Bobby Riggs, while also depicting King's love affair with a woman).
When Australians voted in favor of marriage equality, which Parliament subsequently passed, and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull unequivocally threw his support behind, she threatened to abandon the Turnbull's Liberal Party although it's been her political affiliation for the better part of a century.
Court has famously called the existence of transgender children "the devil" and prior to the marriage vote, she threatened that right of same-sex couples to marry was a slippery slope to the undoing of all that Christians hold sacred.
They want marriage because they want to destroy it. There will be no Mother's Day, there will be no Father's Day, there will be no Easter, there will be no Christmas," Court said at the time.
