"For example, if the search for ultimate truth leads to an individual believing that same sex marriage is wrong, she or he may face accusations of hate speech and homophobia."

If the search for ultimate truth leads to an individual believing that same sex marriage is wrong, he or she is searching for ultimate truth in the wrong place. Any rational adult has a responsibility to form their beliefs on the basis of the best available evidence, and they are culpable if they fail to do so. If I drive with my eyes closed because I am confident that God will tell me how to avoid pedestrians, then it's still my fault when I hit one, because a bare minimum of research would have informed me that God doesn't do that -- or, indeed, anything.

If someone has an incorrect belief which is causing distress or harm to others -- or indeed to themselves -- and they want to be treated as a rational person, then they should correct that belief. Failure to do so indicates that they are abandoning any claim to be rational, and in that case society should treat them like a child or an intellectually disabled person, and remove their power to harm others.

Interesting article. The inference from the author's arguments is that religious freedom is separate from other human rights. Do atheists have the right to discriminate against believers on the grounds that their superstitions are offensive to unbelievers? Do Christians have the right to discriminate against Muslims because of their perceived theological errors?

Religious beliefs are personal and particular, there is no right for believers to impose their ethical beliefs on other people or to violate the laws of the secular state.

The author wrote: "Indeed, the issue of same sex marriage and the campaign to promote it by groups such as the Australian Greens is an example of the threat posed to religious liberty by aggressive secularism."

Aggressive secularism? Any change proposed to the marriage act would not affect a religious group deciding who they would and would not marry. It is nonsense that there is any threat to religious liberty. It is religious dominance not religious liberty for a religious sect to demand that civil law conform to their strictures. Many religionists resent the fact they cannot force others to conform to their ideas of what is right and proper. Liberty means to me that I cannot force my views on others, and others cannot force their views on me. The demand that civil law restrict freedom which does not harm others is tyranny not liberty. Allowing same sex marriage does not force Peter Kurti to approve of it or for his religious group to perform such ceremonies.

Too often language is used to obscure meaning. One example is a demand that there be religious education in the public schools. What is generally meant is that the schools allow religious indoctrination not education. Religious education would allow students to find about a religion without any attempt to make a value judgment on the validity of a religion. Allowing same-sex marriage in civil law would not force Peter Kurti to change any conviction that he has. It would deny him the ability to force civil law to conform to his convictions. That ability should be denied.

Have to again agree with Jon J.
Faith based belief has done nothing but harm!
It made our world flat and at the centre of a solar system sized universe!
It allowed hugely misguided devotees, to burn some very insightful people at the stake, or stone others to death, just and only for being accused of adultery.
Today the hurled stones seem to have been replaced by AK57's and a bullet to the back of the head!
It seems faith based belief also confers the right to murder or spill innocent blood, in so called honour killings/jihads etc!
And it seems on available evidence, stoned women always committed adultery absolutely alone and on their own!
Or were represented as the devil, who made me do it!
Incidentally, in the earliest esoteric teachings, Archangel Lucifer was only ever the bearer of bad tidings, greeted by we humans, who tended to shoot or bad mouth the messenger, who was and remains scapegoated, even in still unproven myth or legend!
Faith based conviction still allows some of us to force others, sometimes mere children, into forced unwanted marriages, or allow endless rape in marriage, as some sort of right, allegedly conferred by a mythical being!
Faith based belief has caused most wars, justified slavery, handed out land rights and heaped cumulative injustice on the already disadvantaged!
Tolerance must squeeze out conviction, but particularly where that conviction is based on seriously revised holy books, that now bear absolutely no resemblance to the Author's original publication; or, flies directly in the face of absolutely overwhelming evidence, or both!
Rhrosty.

Ah, projection! Just make rubbish up and pretend thats what your targeted opponents think or say, and therefore they are bad people so its OK to shut them up.

Moral narcissism at its finest. So the 'marriage' 'equality' debate goes.

'Marriage' 'equality', Chris? Is that the same as marriage equality? If not, how does it differ?