What started as a good idea to amalgamate and simplify an awful
lot of Anti-Discrimination has now turned into a farce.
Unfortunately a lot of people who don’t have friends or family in
the LGBT community may be unaware of just how wrong the
Institutionalised discrimination that will be allowed for
Religious groups will be for the population in general in
exemptions they will be allowed in the new Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination
Bill. It is imperative that ALL Australians be fully
informed of the ramifications of this bill and more importantly,
the 'exemptions'. It is just offensive on
so many levels!
Don’t get me wrong, I am stoked that the various Gay groups are
fighting this. What is concerning me is that often when it
is reported it we have titles like “Anti-gay rights to stay” (very good
article by the way). The media focussing on the fact that
Gays will be discriminated against, means that much of the public
(like my mother & others) automatically think it is a ‘Gay’
issue and therefore do not participate in any discussion or
outrage in regard to this Bill. A perfect example is a
friend of mine, when I mentioned it to her, she was aware, but
her comment was “Well the Gays have some pretty powerful
groups, they will try to stop it”... Translated to,
“not my problem”. When I tell her, that as a single mother
and a nurse, she can be summarily sacked from a Nursing Home if
it has religious affiliations she was a bit more
interested. Taking into account that her chosen area of
nursing is Palliative Care and the Church groups almost have a
monopoly on this area of the health sector, all of a sudden the
Bill is a serious concern for her that she was not really aware
of.
We have already seen this in the past, A Teacher being sacked over her
pregnancy last year on the Sunshine Coast is a very sad
example. The poor woman was a well-liked teacher and worse,
a member of the religious community, unfortunately she broke the
“lifestyle agreement” part of her contact by having a child out
of wedlock. People need to be aware that this new
Bill will not only affect the LGBT community, it will also affect
any atheist, single mother (so far have not found any issues with
single fathers, hypocritical much?), basically anyone who will
not subscribe to the narrow-minded view that a particular
faith-based organisation may have.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with exemptions for
‘Religious Roles’ as it would be ludicrous to expect the churches
to agree to employ someone outside of their religion in a role
that is of a religious nature, but that should be
theonly exemption, one that would not really
affect the population in general as obviously who the hell would
want to be a priest or nun if they were not fully signed up with
the faith?
Considering the amount of Religious based schools, hospitals,
nursing homes & aged care, and the massive increase in
Government out-sourcing of Community Services to these groups
which started under the Howard Government, this is a seriously
large sector of employment in this country which will have the
right to bar employment for a huge percentage of the
population. Considering the Government has now put single
mothers on Newstart to encourage them to get a job just adds
insult to injury, as they will allow this group to not employ
those mothers. That is a massive employment pool which will
be closed to 1000’s of people. The fact that taxpayers are
funding these faith-based organisations to actively discriminate
against ‘certain’ taxpayers is just wrong and obviously a whole
other issue which this nation seriously needs to have a
discussion about, though in relation to this bill, just makes the
kick in the guts to the people who will be hurt by it even more
offensive.
What peeves me even more is that the Gillard Government does not
need to do this. They do not need to pander to the powerful
Australian Christian Lobby who have worked so hard to keep their
so-called ‘religious freedom’, the fact is, that the people who
subscribe to this group and it’s ethos, will not vote for Julia
Gillard and her party anyhow? Unfortunately my husband’s
family are of the Harry Potter book burning style of Christians,
they will never ever vote for the ALP while Gillard is PM, not
because they don't like her policies, just because she is an
Athiest living in sin, yep, only reason... I am not
anti-religious, there are decent Christians out there who are
truly espousing the christian way of life that I am sure was
supposed to be Jesus's legacy (yes, I am a lapsed Catholic), and
they will make a voting decision based on policy not faith, it is
only the seriously narrow-minded and in many cases I would go so
far to say bigoted 'christians' that will never ever vote for our
'godless' PM, so why the hell is the Prime Minister allowing
these ‘stakeholders’ to dictate a policy which is just wrong in a
modern society?
I am sorry Ms Gillard but you are not going to win any votes with
this and worse, you are hurting a much larger ‘stakeholder’
group, that being the decent, tolerant citizens of this country
who seem to be more ‘Christian’ in the true sense of the word
(caring & accepting of all) than the actual
‘Christian’ lobby groups you have allowed to bully you. The
Australian Labor Party are supposed to be the
advocate for the 'battler', are not the LGBT Community that is
persecuted, the Struggling Single Mothers, and the Socially
disadvantaged who will be hurt by your new bill the 'battlers'
you are supposed to be protecting?
Again, I am just a punter living out there in the masses , not in
Canberra so what the hell would I know?
cheers,
Noely @YaThinkN
Stunning - Tasmania has not allowed Religious Institutions to
discriminate for quite a while, AND, even the UK enforces that if
Tax Payer money is used that the organisation must follow secular
law, so it can't be hard to change here too? Exemptions for religious groups keep
fears alive - Brian Greig, January 22, 2013 - 7:50AM,
National Times
20 Jan 2012 - Excellent piece on how religion is actually
becoming more irrlevant in our society so should not have the
standing it does with Govt: "The Future of the Christian faith in
Australia"
19 Jan 2012 - Excellent Tweet, the cartoon this person tweeted is
gold and perfectly illustrates the Hypocrisy, unfortunately I
can't find the page on the Sydney Morning Herald site so the
tweet itself is below:
cathy wilcox @cathywilcox1
oh, and yesterday's SMH editorial cartoon. I'm a bit
slow.pic.twitter.com/delDDuFO
