Private schools in Australia are allowed to discriminate against people of different sexual orientations. A law allows this.
A law in Australia allows religious schools to discriminate against teachers and students based solely on their sexual orientation, gender or marital status. All schools have to do is to demonstrate that the way of life criticized is, as they call it, inconsistent with their doctrine.
For example, if a Catholic school discovers that a teacher is living with a man, she can be fired. If the management of an Islamic madrassa finds out that a teacher is gay, they can threaten him with a blue letter. And a child attending an Anglican school can easily avoid coming out about being transgender.
Purana:
Critics are talking about a law in the interim, not 2024.
imago images/Westend61 (thumbnail)
There are no reliable statistics on how often religious organizations exercise this right. Many of the victims do not want to go public to avoid further jeopardizing their career prospects.
Discrimination with the full backing of the law
Polls suggest the law is at odds with the attitudes of the majority of the Australian public. Justice Minister Mark Dreyfus recently told Parliament: “No Australian should be discriminated against because of what he or she believes.”
However, even the highest legal representative cannot cancel it for the time being. Because Prime Minister Anthony Albanese does not want to introduce a legislative proposal for it. Despite an independent judicial commission recommending removal, it was Labour's election promise. First the Conservative opposition, under its leader Peter Dutton, must agree to the request.
In fact, it should go without saying. Former ultra-conservative prime minister Scott Morrison once proposed a related change in the law. But it was defeated by progressive voices in his party, who said the proposal did not go far enough.
Religious forces dominate
Today it seems the opposite. Observers believe strong conservative religious forces in the opposition are pressuring Dutton not to. In any case, he attacked Albanis violently. You can't trust this guy, his word is worthless. And everyone wants someone they can trust as PM.
Reason for reluctance: Albanians fear a new culture war, says Paul Bongiorno, a longtime journalist from the weekly Saturday Paper. When they voted last November for more rights for indigenous peoples, the Conservatives had already won any referendum with populist, and sometimes racist, slogans.
According to the journalist, a new culture war could make the proposal for this change in the law fail and cause massive damage to the people. Victims fear damage especially those that affect the weakest and most vulnerable.
As in the US, anti-transgender rhetoric is intensifying among conservatives in Australia, including among many young people. Verbal and sometimes physical attacks on such people are on the rise.
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