The Rationalist Society of Australia has highlighted examples of discrimination against non-religious people in New South Wales as part of a submission that expressed support for new protections in the state’s anti-discrimination laws.
In a submission to the NSW Law Reform Commission, as part of a review of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW), the RSA said it would support the addition of a new attribute to protect people against discrimination on the grounds of religion and belief, or lack thereof, in equal manner.
However, RSA Executive Director Si Gladman stressed that such a provision should be a ‘shield’ against discrimination and not a ‘sword’ allowing discrimination.
The RSA also called for removal of broad exceptions to discrimination laws that allow religious bodies and religious educational institutions to discriminate for all kinds of reasons.
In the submission, Mr Gladman said the RSA was deeply concerned about discrimination against non-religious people on the basis of religion and belief in New South Wales.
He told the NSW Law Reform Commission that examples of such discrimination in government institutions and programs occurred in the scripture program in government schools, the employment practices for chaplains in government schools, the imposition of acts of religious worship in the state parliament and local governments, and the establishment of an exclusively religious advisory body.
He said that the RSA, joined by a coalition of non-religious, ex-religious and pro-secular organisations, had raised these issues, among others, in a submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review into Australia’s human rights in July this year.
Unlike most other Australian jurisdictions, New South Wales’ laws do not protect against discrimination on the grounds of religion and belief.
The Minns government has asked the NSW Law Reform Commission to review the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977, with the view to considering, among other things, “whether the Act could be modernised and simplified to better promote the equal enjoyment of rights and reflect contemporary community standards”, and “whether the range of attributes protected against discrimination requires reform”. The submissions period closed last month.
In the submission, Mr Gladman pointed to the former Morrison government’s extreme Religious Discrimination Bill as an example of providing a ‘sword’ that would have privileged the rights of religious people at the expense of others.
“There should be no expansion of the ability of religious organisations or individuals to engage in discrimination,” he said.
“The Religious Discrimination Bill would have unfairly privileged the rights of religious people over non-religious people and vulnerable sections of the community, including LGBTIQ people, women and disabled people.
“While conservative faith leaders and religious lobbyists supported these drafts of the Religious Discrimination Bill, the public widely condemned the proposals, viewing them as neither necessary nor reasonable.”
The RSA’s submission accepted the argument that faith-based institutions needed to appoint people to certain positions that have a genuine occupational requirement for adherence to the religious beliefs of the institution.
But Mr Gladman said the wider public had been outraged by stories of people being fired or facing disciplinary action for reasons including their sexual or gender status, having experienced a breakdown or divorce in their marriage, having accessed IVF treatment or having fallen pregnant outside marriage.
“We would support amendments to the [Act] to remove broad exceptions that allow religious bodies and religious educational institutions to discriminate for all kinds of reasons ‘to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities’,” wrote Mr Gladman.
“We believe that all bodies in receipt of public funding must be made to abide by public standards. The faith-based education sector, in particular, receives large amounts of taxpayer funding.”
Si Gladman is Executive Director of the Rationalist Society of Australia. He also hosts ‘The Secular Agenda’ podcast.
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