Labor was to limits religious schools and promote homosexual sin

LGBT TANKS WANT TO CRUSH CHURCHES AND CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS

The Labor Party’s proposed amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act, currently before the Senate, will severely limit the freedom of religious schools and religious adult education institutions which train chaplains, missionaries and in Australia.

Summary

Contrary to the recommendations of the Ruddock Panel on Religious Freedom, the ALP (Senator Wong) has introduced a Bill into the Senate to amend the Sex Discrimination Act to severely limit the freedoms of:

· religious schools and parents who send their children there

· religious adult colleges and training institutions for missionaries, chaplains and religious workers (including theological colleges); and

· all religious bodies like churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples to provide education services to their members and the public through sermons, religious education classes for children, youth or adults and courses on issues like marriage, family and relationships.

The Bill will be debated and decided in Parliament in the week starting 3 December 2018 and concerned persons should contact their federal MPs and Senators as a matter of urgency.

The ALP Bill is intended to stop religious schools from expelling gay and lesbian students because of their sexual orientation. Religious schools actually don’t do this. If that was all the Bill did there would be no issue – it would simply remove a hypothetical risk.

But the Bill goes much further. It restricts the freedom of religious schools, adult colleges and religious bodies to teach and model the values of the religion in any way that can be perceived to be discriminatory against people on the grounds of their gender, sexual orientation, relationship status or gender identity. There is the problem. Many (not all) religious schools, colleges, and religious bodies hold and teach and model views about the morality and wisdom of types of sexual behavior, family structures and the nature of gender which are very different to secular progressive activists.

For example, those religious schools, colleges, mosques, churches, and temples teach and set behavioral standards for students or congregations based on the view that human flourishing is promoted by a divine design that sexual relations should be limited to male-female marriage and that there are only two genders male and female. But that teaching and those behavioral policies can be treated as discriminating against gay and lesbian people, heterosexual people who have sex outside marriage and people who identify as gender-fluid. If the Bill is enacted, such teaching and policies will be subject to anti-discrimination complaints and lawsuits.

In a pluralist society, different groups hold and teach and live by different views on these issues. 4.8 million Australians (38.4%) voted against same-sex marriage. You may or may not agree with them but they have as much right to hold that view, live by it and have their children educated in it as those who voted for same-sex marriage. If we do not accommodate a diversity of worldviews and life choices based on them for individuals and voluntary associations of individuals, we are not a pluralist society.

We rightly have anti-discrimination laws to stop governments, supermarkets and insurance companies refusing to supply services to the public on the grounds of their gender or sexual orientation or gender identity. That is about equality of opportunity for all to participate in the economy and the public square.

But anti-discrimination law goes way beyond its proper boundaries when it dictates to voluntary associations of people what to think, what to teach and what behavioral standards to adopt. Religious bodies and religious schools and colleges are one type of voluntary association dedicated to promoting and modeling particular views of human flourishing. No parent is forced to send their child to a religious school or keep them there. No-one is compelled to join or remain in a religious body.

That is why anti-discrimination laws all contain exemptions or balancing provisions to allow religious bodies and religious schools to organize their teaching and behavioral standards in accordance with their religious beliefs and values on human flourishing.

But the proponents of the ALP Bill appear to believe the State knows better and should force its better ways onto religious people, religious schools and religious bodies. The Bill would remove or limit the current exemptions in the Sex Discrimination Act so that religious schools, colleges, and religious bodies will be subject to anti-discrimination complaints and lawsuits when they teach or set behavioral standards which are contrary to secular liberal views on sexual relations and gender identity.

Separation of religion and State works both ways. Religion should not interfere in the running of the State and the State should not interfere in the teaching of religious groups and the teaching and modeling of religious values in their schools. On disputed matters such as sexual morality and family structure, the State should not be telling religious bodies or religious schools whether their religious values and their policies to uphold them are “reasonable” in the eyes of the State through an anti-discrimination commission or a court.

The Coalition has proposed some amendments to the ALP Bill which will reduce Bill’s restrictions on freedoms but will still leave religious schools and colleges exposed.