Gay marriage campaigners bullying Australians who are against it, Anglican Archbishop says.

Same-sex marriage advocates are bullying people into accepting a legislative change, despite a majority of Australians being against it, Sydney’s Anglican Archbishop Glen Davies says.

Speaking to the ABC, Archbishop Davies said people who support marriage between a man and are woman are being shut out of the debate and coerced into silence.

“People have been sold a lie, their views are shutdown, marginalised, ostracised and pilloried in a bullying fashion,” he said.

“Even in Aboriginal culture marriage is valued as between a man and a woman.”

The Archbishop said he believed a national vote would reveal most Australians were against gay marriage.

“A plebiscite would identify there isn’t strong support for same-sex marriage as the proponents wish us to believe,” he said.

“It’s a monochrome view in the minority and it’s certainly not the view of the Australian Parliament.”

He said there would be widespread societal consequences particularly for children of same-sex parents if same-sex marriage was legalised.

The Archbishop also criticised big businesses that have recently added their support to the campaign for that change.

“I can’t see why same-sex marriage has anything to do with business for Pricewaterhouse or IBM or Google — why don’t they start talking about immigration, Aboriginal detention,” he questioned.

“They have been misled and bullied into taking a stance on the grounds of diversity.”

Archbishop’s views don’t reflect reality: advocacy groups

Equality Australia said the Archbishop’s position did not reflect the truth.

“Poll after poll has shown there’s a clear majority of Australians in favour of marriage equality, marriage equality has one of the highest approval ratings in the world,” The Equality Campaign’s director Tiernan Brady said.

The group says disrespectful language could be extremely harmful and the proposed changes for same-sex marriage did not pose any threat.

“Equality is not interfering with any religious sacrament, it’s about allowing all our brothers and sisters, friends and neighbours to have the same rights,” Mr Brady said.

“Nobody will become less married, nobody will become more gay.”

The Federal Government’s bid to hold a plebiscite on legalising same-sex marriage was voted down in the Upper House last November, 33 votes to 29.

This post originally appeared on ABC News.