Religious Freedom in Schools
Religious schools play a significant part in Australian society and culture and in the lives of many people connected with our church. Parents send their children to religious schools for many reasons but one significant one is to ensure they are educated from a Christian worldview by Christian people who can answer their questions and help them explore and understand their faith. Well, this may not be possible for too much longer, because in the last fortnight, religious education has come under serious threat.
On Friday 27 January, the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) released its Consultation Paper on removing religious exemptions from the Sex Discrimination Act. While the paper formally notes the importance of religious freedom and parental rights, it proceeds to recommend severe restrictions of those rights. Specifically, the proposed reforms will:
Strip religious schools of the right to give preference, in good faith, to staff who share their religious ethos.
Restrict the ability for religious schools to require staff to model their religious beliefs in the area of gender and sexuality.
Restrict the ability for religious schools, on behalf of parents, to address student behaviour in the area of gender and sexuality, including where their behaviour would undermine the school’s religious ethos.
These proposals, if implemented, would deter Christian schools from operating in accordance with their faith, which in turn undermines their rights and responsibilities to provide children with a holistic Christian education.
It’s important to note that the ALRC’s proposals are inconsistent with the Terms of Reference issued by the Labor Federal government, which required the ALRC to ensure that religious schools “can continue to build a community of faith by giving preference, in good faith, to persons of the same religion as the educational institution in the selection of staff”.
Right now we have an opportunity to speak out to prevent this becoming law, by completing the ALRC survey. The ALRC needs to hear from a wide range of community members about the importance of religious institutions being able to support education in a holistic faith environment. The survey must be completed by 24 February.
Freedom for Faith, a Christian legal think tank, has produced a flyer that contains comments to some of the survey questions you might like to take into account in your response to the survey.
Please also pray for the government to uphold the right of schools and parents to educate their children according to their moral and theological convictions. Thank you in advance for your assistance in helping Christian schools remain authentically Christian.
