After Ruddock, we need a review of faith-based discrimination beyond the schoolyard
Image: A Sydney rally against LGBT discrimination in faith-based schools. Image: Ann-Marie Calilhanna. (File photo)
The Senate Legal Committee has tabled its report recommending that the Federal Government reject key parts of the Philip Ruddock-led religious freedom review, which would allow faith-based institutions to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or relationship status.
Advocates feared that the Ruddock review was a smokescreen to enshrine discrimination in law, an idea seemingly confirmed by the absence of any LGBTI people on the panel and by numerous reports of hostile questioning.
Members of the panel were reported to have dabbled in homophobic stereotypes, asking whether LGBT people ‘change their mind’ about their sexuality, and focusing on the ‘lifestyle’ of gay men and whether it could be ‘promoted’ to children.
The Ruddock review was additionally opaque by design: the hearings were closed to the public and unrecorded. The effect was that members of the panel could hide behind plausible deniability if advocates questioned their comments or competency.
If the purpose of the Ruddock review was to appease those hostile to same-sex marriage, then it has backfired spectacularly. The government’s efforts have alerted the broader community to the extraordinary extent of legal discrimination against LGBT people, particularly in education.
The government has since declined to publish the report because it was a lose-lose situation. Curbing existing religious privileges would offend volatile factions within the Coalition while advocating in favour of legal discrimination against LGBT people would go against the grain of public opinion.
The overwhelming majority of Australians do not support discriminating against gay students and teachers, and there is some appetite for winding back these exemptions. Additionally, as anti-LGBT campaigners learnt during the postal survey, it is deeply unpopular to harangue gender and sexually diverse people explicitly.
It seems likely, then, that the government will release the Ruddock report as close to Christmas as possible to play up a persecuted Christian narrative. Without a compelling argument as to why we should discriminate against queer kids, the second best option is to frame LGBT people as aggressors.
The government should immediately move to protect students from discrimination and should extend these protections to teachers. The health and wellbeing of young people cannot wait and, as the Senate report indicates, there is no reason not to extend such protections to teachers and other staff.
However, we need a broader approach to this issue. The terms of reference of the Senate investigation were too narrow given that religious institutions may additionally discriminate against gender and sexually diverse people in areas beyond the schoolyard.
For example, services run by religious institutions can turn away LGBT people. This includes adoption, aged care, disability, family violence, and housing services. These are not private religious observances but public services which should operate according to the same rules as other organisations.
After the Ruddock report, we need a comprehensive review of the extent and harms of faith-based discrimination against LGBTI people in 2019.
It is crucial that this new review move beyond educational settings and encompasses the issue of service provision. It is also essential that the government include members from the LGBT community on the panel, and that hearings are public and transparent.
Removing the legal right to discriminate against students and teachers is all but inevitable. The Morrison Government has realised that it cannot defend prejudice against students and teachers, and multiple controversies have compromised the credibility of the Ruddock review.
There is no reason why the government should not extend protections for students to employees and clients as well. An emergency housing provider or family violence shelter should not be allowed to turn someone away merely because of their sexuality or gender identity.
Pundits have tried to frame the debate as a zero-sum game between LGBT people and the faithful, but this is misleading. The people most likely to experience such discrimination are LGBT people in faith communities, so the dichotomy falls flat.
Perhaps more importantly, it is entirely possible to protect religious freedoms in Australia while balancing those freedoms with basic human rights. Support for LGBT rights has never been stronger and it is time that the government caught up.
Every person deserves to be treated fairly and with dignity.
Joshua Badge is a lecturer in philosophy at Deakin University and an LGBT activist. Twitter: @joshuabadge
My submission to the Ruddock inquiry was not published on their website. They stated at all times that they would’t publish potentially defamatory submissions and my submission named names and attributed motives, so I don’t have a particular problem with it not being published given they’d be sued, not me, and the tax dollars we all pay would potentially fund the likes of Senator James Paterson for what I said about him. (Actually this very website has published most of what I said about the Paterson amendment in my submission on its comments sections and obviously not been sued so that says a lot about the Ruddock Inquiry website.)
But it certainly contributes to an un-transparent process. At best opaque, arguably very muddy.
This article certainly nails one bizarre and interesting point: the Ruddock inquiry was demanded by the same people who are now burying it and it has backfired spectacularly on the reactionaries who thought they were helping religion by demanding it. The ALP has regretted for years that Turnbull knifed Abbott because they were set to win in 2016, now Abbott is the gift which keeps on giving, exhibit A the Ruddock report.
Why do I keep getting the feeling this Morrison government will do NOTHING to remove LGBT discrimination ?
We are screwed by a government which is more interested in the religious nonsense they all claim to be so concerned about to maintain equality ! They could care less !