Parents Take Citipointe Christian College To Human Rights Commission Over Anti-LGBT Contracts

Brisbane-based Citipointe Christian College, which had issued a controversial student enrolment contract earlier this year describing homosexuality as “sinful” and reserving the right to sack gay and trans students, has been dragged to the Queensland Human Rights commission. 

Parents and former students of the institution on Thursday filed discrimination complaints against the now withdrawn anti-LGBTQI student enrolment contracts, reported The Guardian. 

The updated enrolment contract had been issued on January 28, only days before former Prime Minister Scott Morrison attempted to push the Parliament to pass his anti-LGBTQI Religious Discrimination Bill. The Bill was indefinitely shelved after Labor, Independent and five Liberal MPs voted to add amendments to protect gay and trans students. 

Public Backlash Against Anti-LGBTQI Student Contracts

The Christian school’s student enrollment contract compared homosexuality to bestiality and paedophilia. “We believe that any form of sexual immorality (including but not limiting to adultery, fornication, homosexual acts, bisexual acts, bestiality, incest, paedophilia and pornography) is sinful and offensive to God and is destructive to human relationships and society,” the contract stated.

The updated contract asked parents to agree to enrolling the students only on the basis of their “biological sex” and allowed the school to expel students for coming out as gay or transgender. 

A public backlash forced the school to withdraw the contract and principal pastor Brian Mulheran resigned in the wake of the controversy.

In February the school had also asked teachers to sign a contract to work within the statement of faith of the International Network of Churches that runs the school and threatened to sack them for being openly LGBTQI. The employment contract was withdrawn as well.

Complaint Will Send A Strong Signal To Other Schools

According to solicitor Matilda Alexander and Queensland LGBTI+ Legal Service patron the enrolment contract violated Queensland’s anti-discrimination laws. Alexander told the ABC that one of the reasons for filing the complaint was to “send a strong signal to schools and the community that this kind of behaviour is not OK and it has consequences in the law”.

Parents who have filed the complaints said they wanted to make sure no school in Australia thought that introducing such contracts were ok.