Obergefel v Hodges<\/em> 576 US __; 136 S.Ct 2584 (2015) (upholding the right to same-sex marriage).\u00c2\u00a0 Having lost out on those fronts, conservative politicians and religious groups in the United States have gone on the offensive with demands for new \u00e2\u20ac\u0153religious freedoms\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for members of so-called Faith communities, so that they can continue their nasty and hostile campaigns against LGBTIQ people, women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rights and others whom they dislike.<\/p>\nOnce the Australian Government made it plain they would not permit religious schools to expel or exclude young LGBTIQ citizens on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity, it became curious (and clearly inconsistent) to permit the dismissal or exclusion of LGBTIQ people, pregnant, unmarried mothers or unwed partners from school staff. \u00c2\u00a0Now we are seeing an assertion that such beliefs trump the hurt and humiliation towards women, LGBTIQ people and others because of the religious views of the perpetrators.<\/p>\n
Children and school pupils are not the only ones in society who deserve and need protection against hostile religious speech and actions targeted at vulnerable people.\u00c2\u00a0 I recently attended the funeral of a young gay lawyer in Sydney who took his own life.\u00c2\u00a0 Levels of suicide and attempted suicide amongst LGBTIQ Australians, especially males and particularly transgender people, are much higher than the population average.\u00c2\u00a0 Hostility, isolation and religious hatred contribute to low self-esteem and clinical depression. \u00c2\u00a0Providing legal protection to some religious adherents, without the counterpoise of protection for competing rights in a comprehensive Bill or Charter of Rights, is quite wrong in principle.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet those who now demand legal protections for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153religious freedoms\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are often the very people who oppose most vehemently the enactment of a more calibrated, comprehensive human rights charter that we have long needed in Australia.<\/p>\n
The push for legal protections for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153religious freedom\u00e2\u20ac\u009d came about in our Commonwealth as a direct consequence of the same-sex marriage survey of late 2017 and enactment of equality of access in respect of marriage by the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017 (Cth)<\/em>. The short title of the Act should be noted. \u00c2\u00a0It is a product of hostile religious assertions of a minority of conservative politicians.\u00c2\u00a0 If enacted, the new legislation will introduce into Australia an unbalanced law that will sustain nastiness and hostility that we can well do without. I am unconvinced that such newfound protections are really needed. And I see serious dangers in the present form of the proposed laws.<\/p>\nA philosopher once said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the right to swing my arm ends when I hit another\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chin\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 See Z. Cowen, The Right to Swing My Arm<\/em>; Tagore Lectures, University of Calcutta, 1959.\u00c2\u00a0 Intuitively, Australia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s secular community understood this and so enacted anti-discrimination laws, with the support of all major political parties, to uphold this principle.\u00c2\u00a0 Now they are being dismantled to give a free go to the religious arm swingers.\u00c2\u00a0 If this move goes ahead, I predict that the result will be a rise in religious intolerance and\u00c2\u00a0 also anti-religious hostility to replace the more relaxed (live and let live) tradition of modern Australia.\u00c2\u00a0 This will also damage the principle of secularism, which is one of the most valuable gifts the British tradition provided to us, which we should be vigilant to preserve.<\/p>\nThe new laws will support extreme assertions of religious rights by religious minorities who want to go around condemning others, often based on previously obscure passages\u00c2\u00a0in religious texts that Faith communities or their zealots invoke to defend their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153religious freedoms\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 Never forget \u00c2\u00a0that apartheid in South Africa was ultimately justified by reference to the supposed religious condemnation of miscegeny and that racial intolerance was based on the alleged inferiority of black people traced to contestable Biblical texts.\u00c2\u00a0 Passages of scripture can be found for just about every prejudice known to mankind. They have even been invoked against natural or innocent features of human nature or conduct such as left-handedness and masturbation. There is a need for considerable caution in elevating every religious opinion to an enshrined legal right to hurt and harm others.<\/p>\n
I wish that the September 2019 Part of the ALJ had contained more articles putting contrary points of view which I believe are held by most Australian citizens and lawyers.<\/p>\n
Regards<\/p>\n
The Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We have received the following letter from The Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG in response to the September issue of the Australian Law Journal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":11957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,39],"tags":[178,14206,13555,3298],"class_list":["post-12307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-australian-law-journal","category-update-summaries","tag-alj","tag-alj-93-9","tag-religious-freedom","tag-the-hon-michael-kirby-ac-cmg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}