ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that, within a changing social context where homophobia is widely condemned, those seeking to limit the extension of legal protections to gay men and lesbians on religious grounds have developed new discursive strategies. The parliamentary debates shows religious opponents advancing this discourse in novel ways to limit the scope of law designed to protect sexual minorities from hate speech. The chapter illustrates key discursive strategies employed by religious opponents of the legislation: The deployment of particular logics of equality to represent religion and sexual orientation in a competitive and hierarchical relationship; The attribution of a special status to faith-based speech about homosexuality; The assertion that people of faith are at serious risk of police investigation; and, fourth, the representation of Christians and other people of faith as the victims of a more general state-led persecution. The chapter shows how religion continues to hold a privileged ontological status within the process of lawmaking.
