A speaker at the Freedom for Faith (FFF) national conference this week reported that Christian School principals received death threats for signing a letter about same-sex marriage. “In 2018, Anglican school leaders across Sydney signed a letter relating to our right to employ people of the same faith,” recounted Peter Fowler, CEO of the Anglican Schools Corporation, which runs 18 schools in NSW. He described a media storm and naivety on the part of the school principals, including himself. He adds, “We paid for this with an impact on our families as we were viciously attached through social media. Some principals were even escorted in and out of their schools by police due to death threats. But the most damaging was the loss of trust from families and students, which means that the reach of the gospel message is compromised.”
The complexity of religious freedom was demonstrated during the day-long Freedom for Faith National Conference.
“If we allow a council to ban the building of a mosque, the next building they ban will be a church,” said Mike Southon, executive director opening the FFF conference this week. Freedom For Faith is a Christian legal think tank that has emerged as the most effective campaign group on this issue.
“In short, FFF exists to encourage our government to function so that we all enjoy our religious freedom. Now, religious freedom is far more than simply the right to believe what you believe in the quiet of your own mind and more even than the right to save what you believe. We need to live out our faith in the totality of our lives.
“That means simple things like wearing the clothes that your faith prescribes without harassment or discrimination.
“It means freedom of association, like forming churches and organisations of faith, churches, mosques, temples. And it means setting the standards of faith and conduct for membership and for employment.”
Advocates for religious freedom face a crowded agenda. Several speakers highlighted the future of Religious schools and tertiary institutions training ministers at the FFF conference.
Monica Doumit, Public Affairs director for the Sydney Catholic Archdiocese, outlined a formidable list of law changes and inquiries underway.
“As we look forward to the next six months in New South Wales actually and federally, this is what’s coming our way.
• We’ll have the finalisation of the Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry into religious schooling, and particularly whether or not religious exemptions to anti-discrimination law when it comes to religious education should be removed.
• The report on whether or not Australia should have a Federal Charter of Rights,
• the New South Wales Law Reform Commission inquiry into the overhaul of anti-discrimination laws,
• [Independent MP] Alex Greenwich’s Omnibus Equality bill that will seek to amend about 20 different pieces of state legislation in order to achieve the goal of equality,
• the commencement of the New South Wales euthanasia regime,
• legislation introduced to the New South Wales parliament around a ban on so-called conversion practices.
“I would say the Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry, the New South Wales Law Reform Commission inquiry and the Charter of Rights, to somewhat a lesser extent are the most dangerous, particularly for the nature of religious schooling.”
Peter Fowler outlined a prediction on when to expect a final report into the Australian Law Reform Commission’s inquiry which is looking at the employment of staff at religious schools among other religious discrimination issues. The ALRC draft report is seen as restricting a school’s right to employ staff of the institution’s faith.
“I was speaking with Mark Spencer from Christian Schools Australia a couple of weeks ago and his view was that the government will receive the report at the beginning of December following the final sitting week of parliament for this year. Then they have 14 sitting days to table the report that could delay the tabling of the report to the back end of March.”
He expects legislative changes will before parliament after the next budget in May.
“But it is important to note that it is a report to government, not a report of government and there are strong indications that there is not much support from government for the ALRC proposals. However, we can expect a strong media push for the government to support the ALRC proposals with legislation.”
The ALRC reasoning is that Christian schools supporting traditional Christian morality are out of line with community standards. Mark Fowler an adjunct Professor at UNE and Notre Dame law Schools, told FFF. In their January 2023 consultation paper “In that paper the Law Reform Commission stated that generally accepted moral standards within the Australian community now require that religious institutions, religious schools, be prevented from imposing limitations on persons who have a protected attribute under the Sex Discrimination Act. In effect, the law reform commission’s proposition was that religious schools that imposed such limitations are acting immorally.”
A threat to sermons
Promoting traditional Christian understanding of man-woman marriage as the place for sexual activity could be criminalised under the proposed NSW law banning “conversion therapy,” according to Monica Doumit and Peter Fowler.
Describing this possibility as a “problematic aspect of the consolation”‘” around the new bill, Doumit said, “So, if you define a suppression practice as encouraging someone to refrain from sexual activity, then if you are banning a suppression practice, you are not only banning or criminalising, telling somebody to reserve sexual activity for heterosexual marriage. So basically, you are banning or criminalising the Christian understanding of marriage and the proper place for sexual activity.”
A law against suppression would capture heterosexual activity as well as LGBT sex. “Somebody could come to you and say, I’m tempted to cheat on my spouse. I’ve got somebody at work; I’m really attracted to them. If you said no, actually you should live in accordance with your marriage vows because that’s what God wants of you. That’s what the church teaches. That’s what the faith teaches. That, in itself, could put you on the wrong side of the law.”
FFF held several candidate forums during the last NSW election campaigns. At a Parramatta FFF form, Chris Minns who became premier at the election, promised not to ban sermons or prayer. But in the consultation over the new law, this promise is being rendered moot. Mere expression of a Christian doctrine is unrestricted, but expecting people to follow it is not.
Doumit reported, “But how this is playing out at the moment is that the proposed laws, at least what we’re getting from the consultation paper, would only allow the expression of a religious teaching if adherents were not exhorted to follow that teaching and have any impact on their life, which renders religious teaching kind of meaningless, right?”
Action
FFF wants Christians to be involved in the political process. At present the priority is the discussions over the NSW Conversion Therapy bill, but the Federal response to the ALRC on the issue of religious schools will feature next year.
A site called Contact Your MP makes it easy to set up a meeting with an MP, call them or write them a letter with resources about the Conversion Therapy bill.
Image: Labor leader Chris Minns at the FFF candidates forum in Parramatta