Christian right puts its hand up Newman's neck

This is particularly true given that Newman, before the election, promised not to touch surrogacy laws. To break a promise in an apparently arbitrary manner demands some sort of explanation, and the argument that he did it to soothe concerns about civil unions is a convincing one. There is no telling what else he might do to appease the more extreme elements of his party in future.

We have always known that there are severe anti-gay sentiments within the Liberal National Party. Fiona Simpson, now the Speaker, is on the record as believing in "ex-gay therapy," going so far as to put their number on the public record for persons who might be interest. I can only hope that nobody was.

Mark Robinson, now the Deputy Speaker, promised before he was elected that the LNP would repeal civil unions. Others have expressed similar views, and it is typical of the former Qld Nationals Party, which is still the dominant influence on the LNP despite the merger, to hold views that could be characterised as homophobic. But that was supposed to change.

There was much hope that Campbell Newman, the first metropolitan Liberal leader the conservatives have had as leader in years, would moderate those views. "But he supports gay marriage!" cried many on the Right, hoping to diminish the Right's reputation in Qld as extreme. I doubted this but did not have much evidence, as it was true that Campbell Newman did once say that he supports same-sex marriage.

But the evidence is now in. Campbell Newman is clearly completely unable or unwilling to moderate the extreme elements of his own party to the detriment of minority groups within Qld. I fear that the worst is yet to come.