Opinion | Rodney Croome is a spokesperson for just.equal and Equality Tasmania
The Morrison Government lied to us.
It promised its Religious Discrimination Bill would provide people of faith with a shield against discrimination, not a sword against others.
In fact, the Bill is a sword that cuts a swath through Australia’s existing discrimination laws.
At a stroke it permits intimidating and humiliating speech against women, people with disability, ethnic minorities, older people and LGBTIQ people, if a holy text can be found to justify it.
It forbids businesses from fostering inclusive workplaces by allowing employees and employers to publicly say whatever nasty thought comes into their head so long as their particular God is on their side.
The Government also lied when it promised its bill would not override any state discrimination laws.
In fact, the bill directly and explicitly overrides Tasmania’s hate speech laws because these laws provide the strongest and most comprehensive protections in the nation against offensive and humiliating language.
This is a direct attack, not just on LGBTIQ Tasmanians but on all those Tasmanians, particularly people with disability, who are vulnerable to the kind of stigmatising behaviour the Tasmanian law prohibits.
What a sad irony that a quarter century after the Federal Government intervened to override Tasmania’s anti-gay laws because they were too regressive, it is now intervening to override our anti-discrimination laws because they are too progressive.
For some people, the Government’s greatest betrayal is that it lied when it promised its bill would do no harm.
In fact, the Bill allows health practitioners like doctors and nurses, to refuse to treat people if that treatment runs against their religious belief.
That doesn’t just mean abstaining from abortions or euthanasia.
It could mean refusing to vaccinate the child of two mums, treat a transgender person, or prescribe PrEP to a gay man.
This US-style provision will potentially do great and immediate harm to those most in need.
For months I have been warning LGBTIQ Australians and other minorities face an onslaught against our existing legal rights in the name of “religious freedom”.
Now it’s here and we have to act.
We must stop believing the Government. It lies.
We must put Labor under a blowtorch. It is deeply split on this issue, cannot be trusted, and would sell us out without compunction.
We must urge the Greens, the Human Rights Commission, and other defenders of anti-discrimination principles, to get their act together and speak out more strongly.
Their failure to call out the “religious freedom” movement for what it really is – the vanguard of a new homophobia, and a new theocratism – has allowed that movement to gain a foothold.
So far, most of the LGBTIQ community’s leading lobby groups have failed on all three counts.
They have believed the Government, let Labor off the hook, and not alerted our natural allies to the threat we face.
It’s time for a new path.
It’s time for grassroots LGBTIQ people to take to the streets, the airwaves and the meeting halls of the nation.
It’s time for us to form alliances with other Australians who fall foul of traditional religious doctrines – single parents, de facto partners, people with disability, religious minorities – to form an unstoppable coalition.
It’s time for us to unite in defence of that most fundamental of Australian values – a fair go for all.
Rodney Croome
