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As the discourse surrounding religious freedom in Australia becomes increasingly contentious, especially in the context of schooling, we must address the growing perception that holding religious beliefs and values — and making choices based on them — is somehow discriminatory or at odds with modern society.
The National Autism Strategy is the first coordinated national approach designed to support autistic people at each stage of life. But the draft strategy’s lack of conclusions has provoked some frustration and unless more autistic people are truly heard we won’t arrive at the practical solutions they need.
As challenges to anti-discrimination exemptions are likely to persist within Catholic education, how can the government and religious institutions collaborate effectively to balance the freedom of expressing religious beliefs with safeguarding the rights and freedoms of everyone involved?
In recent days, if you were to listen to the media reports, you could be forgiven for thinking that religious educators want to retain a right to exclude children or teachers from their schools on the basis of their gender or sexual orientation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Or nothing should be further from the truth.
It’s four years since the Australian Parliament amended the Marriage Act 1961 to provide that marriage means ‘the union of two people to the exclusion of all others’. The legislation followed the plebiscite on same sex marriage. To address the concerns of some religious groups, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull set up an expert panel chaired by long time Liberal Party minister Philip Ruddock to report on whether Australian law adequately protected the human right to freedom of religion.
Church and state are confronting one another right now over the federal freedom of religion bill and the Victorian anti-discrimination bill. Whenever such confrontation occurs it reveals our priorities. We define our identity by what we choose to fight for hardest.
On Thursday, three Bills were introduced to the House of Representatives: the Religious Discrimination Bill 2021, the Religious Discrimination (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2021, and the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. Collectively, these bills constitute the Morrison Government’s response to the Ruddock Religious Freedom Review provided to government in May 2018.
Far-right extremists are savvy political actors. They know openly discussing their beliefs risks running afoul of anti-discrimination laws. Because of this, they have mastered how to speak in the negative and convey meaning through allusion.
Chris Puplick, a former senator and former president of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board, is one of a rising chorus expressing strong objections to the Australian Catholic bishops daring to evangelise and speak publicly about their views on same sex marriage. I too would be very upset if my bishops were saying, as Puplick claimed in an opinion piece in The Australian, that homosexuals are 'seriously depraved, intrinsically disordered, less than whole and messing with kids'. But they're not.
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