Look, yes, their “sincerely held beliefs” are just bigotry of the “God hates fags” school.
These players are largely of Pasifika origin, who were infected by a particularly purulent strain of it ages ago, one of the flag-wavers for the “Jesus loves everyone except for everyone on this very long list who are all going to hell” brand of Christianity is Israel Folau, who was fired from his team for posting a social media thing stating “everyone on this very long list, starting with gay people, are going to hell”. (Well, that, and all the other bigoted things he had been very loudly doing for years.)
It got to the point where the government wanted to add a whole new set of anti-discrimination laws making it legal for him to do that because it would make Religion a new protected category taking priority over all the other protected categories like sex, gender presentation, sexual orientation, or disability.
That would be the same MPs who were involved in starting a whole unnecessary “referendum” basically asking the question “should gays be treated like people” and when the answer came back a resounding “yes” despite their best efforts, went back on their word and voted “no” or abstained at the eventual parliamentary vote. (Ireland needed a referendum because it required changing the constitution. Australia did not, because it was just a matter of reversing a piece of legislation which removed the ability for gay marriage that some still in the house had had a part in passing in the first place.)
And, yes, a lot of Australians are looking at this and wondering “why are you apologising to those meatheads?” Including Pasifika rugby players. (Like Frank Puletua)
