Prime Minister Scott Morrison will bring in new laws to protect religious freedom, a move which has LGBTI rights advocates worried, as it may water-down the same-sex marriage laws and open new pathways for discrimination against LGBTI people in employment and everyday life.
“Just because things haven’t been a problem in the past doesn’t mean they won’t be a problem in the future,” the Prime Minister told Fairfax Media in an exclusive interview.
Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Prime Minister said he would be a defender of religious freedom.
“So I’ll be taking a proactive approach when it comes to ensuring that peoples’ religious freedoms are protected.
“At the end of the day, if you’re not free to believe in your own faith, well, you’re not free.”
While the government’s review into religious freedom conducted by former Attorney General Phillip Ruddock has not been released, the Prime Minister said unequivocally that he would be supporting calls for religious freedom to be enshrined in law.
The Prime Minister said there needed to be new laws to protect Christian traditions like Christmas and Easter, and ensure they were still celebrated with the education system.
“Like anyone else, they should be able to do Christmas plays, they should be able to talk about Easter. That’s our culture. There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said.
“The narcs can leave those things alone. If you want to send your child to a Christian school, you have the choice to do that and you can go and do it.” the Prime Minister said.
Rodney Croome from LGBTI rights organisation just.equal has called on the Australian senate to block any new laws that water down exisiting anti-discrimination protections.
“There is no threat to religious freedom so we fear the real purpose of any new law will be to take existing discrimination protections away from LGBTI Australians.” Croome said.
“We will lobby the Senate to oppose any new law that waters down existing discrimination protections.”
Croome said the Morrison Government has no mandate to weaken discrimination protections by “protecting religious freedom”.
“Last year Australians voted overwhelmingly for equality and any move to weaken LGBTI discrimination protections would run against that.”
just.equal highlighted polling that showed Australians were not in favour bringing in new laws that would allow discrimination against LGBTI people to occur.
Polling conducted by Galaxy/YouGov in October last year found that, in the event of a Yes vote, 78% of Australians wanted LGBTI people treated the same under the law as other people. This included 98% of Yes voters and 43% of No voters
A Galaxy/YouGov poll conducted in February last year found 65% opposition to laws allowing LGBTI people to be refused services based on the service-provider’s religious belief.
OIP Staff
