CATHOLIC organisations in Victoria have scored a major win, being allowed to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality, parental or marital status and gender identity.
By Anthony Barich
Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart welcomed Victorian Attorney General Rob Hulls’ announcement of changes to the Religious Exemptions and Exceptions Clauses in the State’s Equal Opportunity Act 1995 that allows these exceptions.
Discrimination on the grounds of race, disability, age or physical features will not be permitted by reference to religious belief.
Such discrimination, Mr Hulls said, “is not something religious groups want or need in relation to practice of their beliefs”.
The decision follows months of lobbying by over 50 representatives of Christian denominations and the Jewish faith.
The Archdiocese of Melbourne had also been in discussions with the Victorian Government seeking to preserve a balance between competing rights consistent with the intent and spirit of Victoria’s Charter of Equal Rights and Responsibilities.
This is the same Charter, however, which failed to preserve Catholic medical practitioners from freedom of conscience with the passing in October last year of the Abortion Law Reform Act, which forces medics opposed to abortion to refer the client seeking one onto another medic with no opposition to the practice.
The Victorian Bishops issued a Pastoral Letter in July, Threat to Religious Freedoms, also alerted their faithful to the threat posed by the Victorian Parliamentary inquiry into the exemptions contained in the Equal Opportunity Act.
The exemptions subject to review under the inquiry enable the Church’s education, health, welfare and aged care agencies to conduct their activities in accordance with Church teaching.
Archbishop Hart said that it is especially urgent in this secular age that the Church’s views on the dignity and identity of the human person from the start to end of life, inspired by the life and teachings of Christ, be allowed to permeate its services.
He said parents have a fundamental right to choose a religious education for their children in an environment where the Faith and values of the Church are clearly evident in teaching, learning and pastoral service. “Staff in Catholic schools are expected to give positive witness and stand as role models to the Catholic Faith and its values,” he said.
The right to religious freedom is fundamental to the health and development of society, he said.