A Cruel Australia: Religious Freedom
The Morrison Liberal National Government has released its second draft of a proposed Religious Freedom bill. It is important to contextualise this Bill. It is push-back by conservative forces aggrieved at the fact that Australians supported marriage equality and the Parliament voted it into law. The fury of conservative politicians and religionists was somewhat abated by Malcolm Turnbull giving them the consolation prize of an examination of so-called religious freedoms; an unnecessary and very divisive project. The implication was that homophobia itself was a religious freedom.
The first “friendless” draft of this Bill was universally condemned, by proponents of religious freedom and those opposed to such laws. Opponents called it out it for what it was; a law to legalise discrimination under the umbrella of religion. It permitted churches and church-run hospitals and schools to selectively discriminate their staff on the grounds of their so-called Christian ethos, as if hiring or promoting a gay person is contra to the Christian religion or to God.
However, the strongest proponents of the law, effectively, the high-profile Sydney Anglican and Catholic Archbishops as well as the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, fundamentalist Christians, their leaders and their para church groups like the Australian Christian Lobby and Christian Schools Australia, went into apoplexy at this first draft, indicating that it was not nearly strong enough, it didn’t give them sufficient authority to discriminate even further [my rendering], and that they would abandon the process altogether if the Government didn’t come back to the table with a better offer. It was pure tantrum. And to a Pentecostal Prime Minister, who has ears for such caterwauling, it worked.
The second draft has been released and it is, as we expected, worse than the first. It does not deal with the issues raised by non-Church bodies, but it does move significantly closer to the desires of the eminent list of Right-wing religionists above. It adds Church-run nursing homes, aged care facilities, retirement villages, camp-grounds and even Church affiliated organisations such as the St Vincent De Paul charity to the list of bodies who will be protected under the new law to discriminate. (The SVdP quickly distanced themselves from such a proposal). It impedes access to health care and allows certain clinicians the right to refuse treatment to individuals on the grounds of their religious belief, as long as they then refuse it to everyone. That’s supposed to make it alright.
I don’t want to parse the new draft here. Others have done this. But I do want to discuss what it will mean for Australia. There can be no doubt, if this Bill gets up, Australia will change for the worse. In a hugely retrograde step, the egalitarian, inclusive, tolerant society that many of us have grown up in will be no more. I hasten to add that Indigenous Australians have not benefited by such a society and would reasonably declare that it doesn’t exist for them. That aside as a much bigger issue for the scope of this essay, no longer will all Australians be treated equally. There will be two new classes of Australians. One class, of which I will be a member, will go on, and in fact will be required to go on, treating all Australians equally, not discriminating on the basis of anyone’s race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or disability. We will be required to go on navigating our lives in such an accepting and tolerant society, in effect, keeping up the social compact whereby we get treated the same as everybody else. We will have to obey the law.
Then there will be a second, superior class of citizens, of which our Pentecostal Prime Minister will be a member. These will be religious folk, who will, courtesy of the Morrison law, be exempted from Australia’s well-known and justly respected model of an equal society on the basis of their religion. It’s very simple: as long as they don’t overtly incite hatred or violence, they can discriminate against anyone simply by stating that such an action or statement is a belief of their religion.
It is, as anyone can see, a cruel, myopic, stingy worldview, that sees a certain type of Christianity, for that is what these laws are really all about, valorised and privileged above all other considerations. Religion trumps human rights. Religion trumps compassion. Religion trumps science. Religion trumps good sense. This is not just my opinion. Non-fundamentalist Christians are also rightly calling this out. The President of the Uniting Church, Australia’s third largest denomination, the Rev Dr Deidre Palmer said, “In our previous submissions, the Uniting Church has called for changes to ensure the legislation will not override other human rights or existing protections from discrimination. On our initial reading of the second draft of these Bills, we remain concerned that religious rights to discriminate will effectively be privileged over other rights.”
At this point, I would like to introduce you to a few people who have suffered under such a regime. Most of these instances happened in the United States, where some states have similar religious freedom laws. Where these laws operate, if an individual or organisation is inclined to discriminate against minorities like LGBTQ people, they have every right to do so and are protected by law. It is pretty ugly when you see people’s livelihoods upended and cast off in a dismissive manner and even worse, when it is done in the name of a religion whose founder associated with the marginalised of society and actively eschewed the power elites of his day, where he spoke of “the least of these” (Matthew 25: 31–46).
In America, churches have exemptions to civil rights anti-discrimination laws under a code called “ministerial exemption or exception” which, as the name suggests, allows ministers of religion to be exempt from civil rights laws. However, as you will see, the Catholic Church has argued before the courts that their school teachers should likewise be deemed ‘ministers’ and therefore, the Bishops argue, their diocesan schools have the right to discriminate. It’s been very messy and as you can imagine, extraordinarily hurtful.
Meet Colleen Simon of Kansas City, Missouri, married in 2012 to Lutheran minister, the Rev Donna Simon. In May 2013, Colleen applied and was employed at St Francis Xavier Catholic Church as their Manager of Food Operations, a parish pantry that fed local hungry and poor people of the area. However, in 2014 after a year in the job, she was outed by a magazine article and immediately asked to resign, which the Church described as an “involuntary separation” brought about by formalising “an act of marriage in Iowa — to a person of the same sex”. In other words, she was fired because she was lesbian. Religious freedom laws allow this kind of thing.
Meet Colin Collette of Inverness near Chicago. Colin is a gay man who worshiped and worked in the Holy Family Parish as its Music Director. Colin started playing the organ in the Parish at the age of 12 and in 2014 had been employed in the Parish in liturgy and music for seventeen years. He has a Masters degree in Divinity. In that year, on a trip to Rome, his partner William proposed and Colin accepted. A week later, and back home, the pastor called him in and said, “in the light of this, I will accept your resignation.” Feeling that he had done nothing wrong, Colin refused to resign. The next day, he was fired. Religious freedom laws allow this kind of thing.
Watch a short news broadcast about Colin.
Meet Tyler McCubbin, a young gay man who began teaching as a substitute or casual teacher at Dowling Catholic School in Des Moines, Iowa in 2015. Tyler loved teaching at the school and, full of hope, applied for a full-time teaching position. As the application progressed and an offer was made, he was then devastated to hear from the school authorities that the offer had been rescinded on the grounds that he was openly gay. Tyler was heart-broken. Students staged a walk-out in protest at his treatment and over 150 people including the students, parents, alumni and well-wishers stood in the rain to register their disapproval. They brandished signs inscribed with faith-based messages such as “W.W.J.D?,” an acronym for “what would Jesus do?”, and “We are not the gatekeepers to [God’s] kingdom.” Religious freedom laws allow this kind of thing.
Meet Jocelyn Morffi of Miami, Florida. Jocelyn worked at Sts Peter and Paul Catholic School as a 1st grade teacher. She had worked there for seven years. After marrying her partner Natasha Hass, she received a communication from the school asking her to resign. Jocelyn was not prepared to, so she was fired the next day. Religious freedom laws allow this kind of thing.
Meet Lynn Starkey. She worked at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis, a Catholic School, as a guidance counsellor for nearly 40 years. After finding out that she had married her partner in 2015, school authorities informed her that her contract for 2019–2020 would not be renewed. In other words, Lynn was fired for being lesbian, where her life was described as “contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church.” Religious freedom laws allow this kind of thing.
And in case you think it can only happen in the United States and could never ever happen here in Australia, here are two home-grown examples.
Meet Craig Campbell, a young gay man who had been relief teaching at a Baptist Christian school south of Perth for two years by 2017, and had actually been a student there himself in earlier years. Craig was told that he could no longer teach there after he told the school authorities that he was in a relationship. West Australia has laws that allow exemptions to faith-based schools to anti-discrimination laws. Religious freedom laws allow this kind of thing.
And finally, meet my friend Hugo. Hugo Walker was 52 in 2013 when he was teaching Science and Japanese at a Christian school in Canberra. He had been there almost 14 years and was well-respected with an impeccable record. After years of torment about his sexuality within the Church, just like me Hugo finally found peace when he accepted himself and his gay sexual orientation. He decided to come out to the authorities at his school, telling the Principal. It did not go well. “He was furious,” Hugo recalls. “It was probably the most stressful three months of my life.” Rather than getting fired, as he knew certainly that conservative elements within the school culture would demand, Hugo tendered his resignation in September and lost his livelihood and career. Had the school fired him, it would have been protected by exemptions to anti-discrimination laws. Religious freedom laws allow this kind of thing.
The passing of religious freedom laws in Australia would be for most of society a seriously retrograde step. Australia would lose its egalitarian sensibility and the extraordinary and wonderful steps made for LGBTQ people with marriage equality, would be wound back somewhat. Two classes of Australians is just unacceptable in the twenty first century. We know that this whole arrangement was nothing other than push-back by conservative elements in the Parliament and in the Church and a coterie of these people have the Prime Minister’s ear. Religious freedom law is a solution in search of a problem, for religious belief and praxis is not in trouble in this country. It is well-protected. Australia it seems, has moved on from believing that religious principles over-ride common decency and fairness. It is the conservative churches that are out of step with the country, not the LGBTQ community or other minority groups. Placing religion, especially that of exclusivist, puritanical, fundamentalist types, is not the Australian way. It is nothing but ugly discrimination wrapped up in churchy language. Religious bigotry is still bigotry. And bigotry does three things: it dehumanises, it marginalises, and it oppresses. These Bills should be resisted and opposed by all.
