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Further implications
It would appear that conservative Christian views continue to exert a significant influence on the Coalition government. Malcolm Turnbull came to the prime ministership as an apparently more liberal alternative to the former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. Interestingly, Mr Turnbull has not been able to put a less conservative agenda in place.
Rather than immediately putting legislation before parliament to amend the Marriage Act to recognise same-sex marriages, Mr Turnbull has retained Tony Abbott's delaying process of holding a plebiscite after the election. Mr Turnbull has promised that if the Coalition is elected he will hold the plebiscite and direct his Party members to vote in accord with the results of the referendum. However, Mr Turnbull has not been prepared to commit himself to how soon after the election the plebiscite will be held.
Other members of his party have stated that for them abiding by the results of the plebiscite could mean voting in accord with the position their particular electorate supported in the referendum. For some this would allow a 'No' vote despite the fact that the country as a whole is likely to have voted 'Yes'.
What this indicates is that gay rights, especially marriage rights, are a divisive issue within the Coalition. Tony Abbott was removed by the Coalition and replaced by Malcolm Turnbull because the government believed that Mr Abbott was an electoral liability. Mr Abbott's conservatism was a significant part of what had made him damaging electorally.
The difficulty for Mr Turnbull is that much of his Party is socially more conservative than the majority of the electorate. For Mr Turnbull the challenge is to retain an impression of liberalism to keep favour with voters while not causing a schism within his party. Same-sex marriage is an issue that could cause such a split.
The Safe Schools Program is shaping up as a trial run for the same-sex marriage debate. The Safe Schools Program initially had bi-partisan support in the federal parliament. The program was funded by Labor before it left office in 2013 but was officially launched in 2014, after Mr Abbott had already become prime minister. Mr Abbott did not scrap the program when he was leader of the Liberal Party.
Now Mr Abbott has joined those conservative Liberals calling for the Safe Schools Program's abolition. In doing so, he and others like Cory Bernardi are putting Mr Turnbull on notice to declare his conservative credentials. As with same-sex marriage, Mr Turnbull appears to have taken a step to the side. Rather than either endorsing the Safe Schools Program or moving to scrap its funding, he has ordered a review. The review is expected to be completed in March, 2016. Whatever its findings, the review allows Mr Turnbull to use them to justify the decision that is finally taken and so avoid personal responsibility for it.
The regrettable consequence of this development is that the wellbeing of gay, lesbian and transgender children may well have become a secondary consideration to juggling for votes and forming political alignments.