Craig Stott, star of 'Hold the Man' blasts the Abbott government as 'out of touch' over its stance on gay marriage. Courtesy Sunrise/Channel 7

LIBERAL party members have had it with the hypocrisy.

Disgruntled with a party which talks the talk of revering individual rights and freedoms, but which doesn’t walk the walk, up to 20 rank-and-file party members have torn up their membership tickets in the last 24 hours and switched allegiances to rival party, the Liberal Democrats.

And more could follow.

The issue which has spawned the exodus is marriage equality. But it’s about more than that. It’s about the very core values that the Liberal Party of Australia purports to stand for — but apparently no longer does.

If you’ve ever wondered what those values are, they’re stated clearly in the “Our Beliefs” section on the official Liberal Party website.

Here’s how that section opens:

“We believe in the inalienable rights and freedoms of all peoples; and we work towards a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives.”

Here’s another line from the same mission statement:

“We believe in those most basic freedoms of parliamentary democracy — the freedom of thought, worship, speech and association.”

There’s also:

“We believe in equal opportunity for all Australians.”

And the statement concludes:

“In short, we simply believe in individual freedom ... and if you share this belief, then ours is the Party for you.”

Think about it. The self-proclaimed party of individual freedom won’t allow a conscience vote among its own elected members as to whether people can marry whomever they choose.

Freedom schmeedom, eh? It makes the party’s belief statement about as convincing as one of those fast food restaurant blurbs extolling the nutritional values of their fried gunk.

To extend the analogy, the Coalition’s failure to have a marriage equality conscience vote was the moment the belief statement about individual freedoms went out the window like burger wrappers from a teenager’s car.

“Irrespective of whether you approve or not, it is not the government's business to restrict people from a public commitment of love,” Senator David Leyonhjelm of the Liberal Democrats tells news.com.au.

Broadcaster and former Liberal Party speechwriter Alan Jones expressed similar sentiments earlier this year, when he said:

“My view is that when people find love they should be able to celebrate it. And they shouldn’t be discriminated against according to the nature of that love”.

Let’s go back a step in all of this. Liberalism, or libertarianism (the philosophy underpinning the Liberal Party) is a set of beliefs that goes all the way back to English philosopher John Stuart Mill. Tony Abbott and Australia’s previous Liberal Party Prime Minister John Howard have both expressed their admiration for Mill over the years.

Mill’s seminal work was entitled On Liberty. In it, he produced a famous, oft-quoted line which goes like this:

“The only purpose for which [government] power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”

So why should the Australian government intervene when no one stands to be harmed by marriage equality?

David Leyonhjelm believes the contradictory philosophical stance is a result of “religious conservatives who believe they own the institution of marriage and therefore have a right to protect that vision”.

That’s why he says the Liberal Party of Australia should in all honesty and openness rebrand itself as the “Conservative Party”.

It’s also, says the Senator, why people are leaving the Libs and joining the Lib Dems — a party which holds much truer to the principles of libertarianism than the Liberal Party. The Liberal Democrats are also pro-choice on the abortion debate.

There’s one further irony in all of this.

True to his non-intrusionist business philosophies, Tony Abbott is always promising to remove business red tape in the name of job creation and prosperity.

Imagine if he removed the rainbow tape preventing gay marriage. Imagine how many cake makers, tailors, dressmakers, celebrants, florists and reception centres would benefit.

More to the point, imagine how true the Prime Minister Abbott would be to his own philosophies.

As a 36-year-old delivering his maiden speech to Parliament in 1994, Mr Abbott lamented the fact that “Government tells us what we should think, whom we should like and how we should feel”.

There’s a pretty good argument that that’s exactly what the government has done this week, on an issue which clearly calls to question its commitment to individual freedoms.

Do you believe the government’s stance on marriage equality has violated the very principles which gave the Liberal Party its name — and its purpose? We’re keen to hear from you in the comments below.