Religious freedom review recommends no changes to the Marriage Act

Religious freedom review recommends no changes to the Marriage Act
Image: Image: Ann-Marie Calilhanna.

The federal review of religious freedom, led by Philip Ruddock, has today reported its recommendations to the government.

The review has recommended no changes to the Marriage Act, but has recommended tightening anti-discrimination laws to better protect religious beliefs, according to The Courier-Mail.

Under the review recommendations, religion would come under the same federal protection as race, age, disability and sexual orientation.

Some conservative MPs and religious leaders, who made submissions to the review calling for the right to discriminate against LGBTI people, are expected to criticise the report’s recommendations for not going far enough.

LGBTI advocates have called on the federal government to ensure that equality is upheld and that there are no negative impacts on the LGBTI community following the finalisation of the report.

The Equality Campaign worked with various organisations and individuals, including many LGBTI allied faith-based organisations, to ensure as many people as possible shared their support for the LGBTI community with the panel.

They urged the religious freedom review panel to ensure the LGBTI community is treated equally and fairly in all laws.

“The Australian community did not vote for more discrimination, they voted overwhelmingly for fairness and equality for LGBTI people,” said Anna Brown, co-chair of The Equality Campaign and director of legal advocacy for the Human Rights Law Centre.

“People should not be discriminated against because of their sexuality or faith.

“At the same time, the existing blanket exemptions that automatically privilege the rights of religious groups over other Australians must be abolished.”

Alex Greenwich, co-chair of Australian Marriage Equality, said that actions following from the review should seek to promote harmony.

“After a bruising year for the LGBTIQ community, any recommendations should promote harmony and healing, and not stoke division,” he said.

The full recommendations of the review are expected to be released publicly in coming weeks.

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3 responses to “Religious freedom review recommends no changes to the Marriage Act”

  1. I live in SA where religion is not currently protected under state anti-discrimination measures. There was an effort to include religion about 15 years ago but this was strongly opposed….by Christians. I worked for a state MP at that time and remember the letters and petitions we received from Christians who assured us that this protection was unnecessary. They didn’t exactly admit they opposed the change because they wanted to continue to bag out Jews, Muslims and Hindus but it was definitely the subtext.

    I’d be surprised if Christians support Ruddock’s position now, for exactly the reason they love bagging out Muslims and Jews and Ruddock’s proposal is threatening their existing rights.

    And for what? I’m still going to be able to freely state that the Christians told lots of lies during the marriage campaign. I’m still going to be able to freely state that Margaret Court’s threat that we’d never have Christmas again if the Yes vote got up was as stupid as it was embarrassing. I’m even going to be able to state that Israel Folau is a sinner for pretending to know who is going to hell or heaven when the bible clearly states that’s God’s business and the rest of us need to get out of judging the morality of others.

    These are the points I’ve made (including on comments on this website) ad nauseum for a year now, Ruddock’s law change won’t affect me a bit.

  2. We expected nothing less from Ruddock.
    Remember Amnesty International requested he ceased wearing their badge,
    The man ceased to have credibility many years ago.

  3. Fear #331 – NOT little flock with respects to any potential for people being “discriminated because of their sexuality or faith.”

    That if the federal review of religious freedom have sought my approval to publish submissions of mine on such egalitarian entitlement to “sexuality and faith” made on behalf of the GLBTI Community, then what grounds for discrimination can have any root cause?

    I have laboured for over 22 years for such formidability.

    – dol