Religious organization and believers subject to fines and jail - LGBTQ agenda
Australian parliaments regularly pass laws without sufficient protections for religious freedom. It is common for Australian courts and human rights officials, when having to decide between protecting religious freedom and any other claim, to decline to protect religious freedom.
By way of example, Archbishop Porteous of Hobart was subject to an anti-discrimination claim for distributing a booklet explaining traditional Catholic teaching on marriage. Although ultimately discontinued, the court action was not dismissed as trivial or lacking foundation at the outset.
And Christian Youth Camps (CYC), owned by the Christian Brethren, was successfully sued for discrimination in Victoria for politely declining a booking of its camping site by an organisation for rural gay and lesbian youth.
The CYC declined the booking because it did not wish its premises to be used in the promotion to young people of a view of sexual morality at odds with the Christian Brethren faith.
In 2013, a Victorian Catholic pro-life doctor was investigated and disciplined for refusing to refer a patient seeking a sex-selection abortion under a Victorian law requiring doctors with a conscientious objection to abortion to provide a referral to a doctor known not to share their objection. Similar laws apply in the Northern Territory and New South Wales.
And three Christians were successfully prosecuted in Tasmania for protesting too close to an abortion clinic.
In that state, the ACT, the Northern Territory, and Victoria – with other states considering similar laws – prayer, counselling and protest (no matter how quiet, respectful or caring) is not allowed within designated areas around abortion clinics.
Religion is not going away. Our laws can do a better job of accommodating people of faith. Our history demands no less.