Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697632250700.pdf (Australia)
Despite being cloaked in “anti-discrimination” terminology, this proposed legislation is itself highly discriminatory, because it attempts to selectively impose a burden on religious institutions, to go against their particular principles, that is not imposed on non-religious institutions driven by some other special purpose or mission.

It is malicious legislation apparently motivated more by animosity to religion than concern about discrimination of the unfair type.
It is an attempt to take the “religion” out of “religious education”.

This is in violation of religious freedom and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 18.

Furthermore, many religions, organisations, clubs, etc, have rules, beliefs and standards – whether these concern religion and morality or not - that their members or employees are required to affirm and abide by, and this is not unfair discrimination.

I would urge for this legislation to be rejected in its entirety.
It is an attack on both religious freedom and common sense.

It is an attempt to impose atheistic and homosexual ideology on religious institutions.

“Discrimination” has become a loaded word, with connotations of bigotry and injustice.

But the truth is, we all do and must discriminate in our daily lives.

Every time we make a choice, we discriminate against the non-chosen item(s).

Discrimination can be quite just, and morally neutral.
Employers discriminate against unsuitable job applicants (whatever the reasons), and they discriminate in favour of whoever they consider to be the most suitable applicant.

This is part of the normal hiring process.

This is business.

This is life.

Allowing faith-based educational institutions to reject students, and particularly teachers and staff, on the basis of sexual orientation and other unsuitable attributes is NOT unfair discrimination.
No organisation can perform optimally, or possibly even survive, staffed with people opposed to its mission, no matter how technically qualified such people may be.

It is the same reason that conservation organisations do not employ clear-fell logging proponents, and the ACTU does not employ anti-trade-union campaigners.

Staff opposed to their employers’ mission are at risk of accidentally or deliberately sabotaging their employer’s organisation.

However, it goes even further than that.


In these days of malicious homosexual activism, unless religious institutions have exemptions, such activists could target such institutions Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018Submission 74 with mass employment applications to try to destroy the organisation, or at least bog it down in expensive legal proceedings.
Furthermore, the issue goes deeper than just that such prospective staff do not share the same values as the institution, making them foreign to the environment.

Such a mismatch may also imply that they are unsuited to the specific role.
Can you really imagine a homosexual teacher willingly and effectively teaching the school’s policy against sodomy, and correctly teaching and answering questions on the Bible’s teaching against homosexuality (or indeed for that matter, correctly teaching and answering questions about many other Christian doctrines taught at Christian schools)?

And can a staff member who is an atheist properly participate in some of the required activities, such as staff and student prayer meetings?

I don’t think so.
I don’t think so.

As a comparison, as far as I am aware no one is suggesting that if religious tertiary institutions that train people for religious ministry reject people for training in religious ministry because the applicant does not believe in God, that this is unfair discrimination.

Such a suggestion would be ridiculous.


And, as far as I am aware, no one is suggesting that conservation organisations should be compelled to hire representatives of the logging companies, or that the ACTU or a particular trade union should be forced to hire representatives of an employers’ association who believe that trade unions should be abolished.

Why then, is it being proposed that religious schools should be compelled to hire people opposed to their beliefs?
Concerning students, the right of schools to reject openly homosexual students is not nearly as discriminatory as some make it out to be.

As indicated above, many organisations have rules of conduct that are a condition of membership or participation.

Why should homosexuals have the right to override religious organisations’ ethical standards when other groups do not?
I think that the right of faith-based educational institutions to reject openly homosexual students should remain, because it keeps a clear line of distinction open as to the values of the institution.

I understand that this right has rarely if ever been used, and if the student really wants to attend that institution, they have the option to declare that whatever internal feelings they may have, they are not going to live a homosexual lifestyle.
The very fact that an openly homosexual student would want to attend a religious institution, immediately raises a question about the student’s motive.

Is it to learn about faith, or is it to disrupt?

If they are openly homosexual, then one must wonder why they would want to attend a faith-based educational institution in the first place.
Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018Submission 74 Forcing faith-based institutions to accept openly homosexual students, could also imply that such students have the right to homosexual activism while at the institution, and even to approach other students to perform homosexual acts on or off campus.

Homosexual acts may no longer be illegal, and in society generally such individuals have a right to disseminate their views due to freedom of speech.
But to allow such activism on campus goes exactly against the values of the institution, and would be seen by the institution as leading other students astray, and it nullifies the very reason some parents may want to send their children to a religious school (that is, to avoid an environment tainted with homosexual activism).
Would taking away religious schools’ right to reject openly homosexual students mean that such students could no longer be expelled for homosexual behaviour at school, like they can be for other persistent bad behaviour?

Furthermore, activists could then use the non-exemption legislation as a foothold to take legal action against faith-based institutions, claiming that the very values and teaching of the institution is discriminatory, to try to force the institution to teach homosexual practice.
All this is contrary to the United Nations Declaration on Religious Intolerance, 1981, Article 5.1, that states, “The parents…of the child have the right to organize…the moral education in which they believe the child should be brought up.” ( http://www.religioustolerance.org/un dec.htm , http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/36/a36r055.htm ); and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, Article 18.3, which states that parents have the right “to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.” ( http://www.un-documents.net/iccpr.htm ).
Not allowing faith-based institutions to discriminate against homosexuals and other unsuitable groups, is really giving favouritism and special privileges to these unsuitable groups, but allowing such institutions to discriminate against such groups, is NOT giving favouritism to the institution.

Forcing faith-based institutions to accept homosexual and other unsuitable staff and students, has the potential to undermine the whole purpose of the institution.
Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018Submission 74 As both John Howard, and the director of the Australian Christian Lobby, Martyn Iles, have publicly pointed out, the real purpose of the proposed legislation is not to stamp out unfair discrimination, of which there is little or none.

The real purpose of the proposed legislation is to stamp out the influence of Christianity – particularly on the nation’s youth, who are the future of society.
The proposed legislation is part of a phenomenon currently occurring in a number of developed countries, manifesting as a wave of anti-religious sentiment in some sections of the community.

It has been described as “the West’s war on Christianity”.

And while it is mainly a legislative war, it can be as aggressive as a firearms war.
Because democracy and western civilisation is largely built on Christian and Biblical principles, nations where this phenomenon is occurring are in danger of “cutting off their nose to spite their face”.

The results of the rejection of Christian ethics is already apparent in the unethical practices, the reduction in liberties, and the polarised, vicious, vitriolic political climate now apparent in many formerly Christian countries.
Concerning Jesus Christ, whether you believe his gigantic claims of being God in human form, the Saviour of the World, rising from the dead, and the only way to God, or you don’t, one thing is for sure, as human beings he showed us a better way to relate to each other.

Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018Submission 74