Victorian Religious Exceptions Amendment Bill introduced

Posted on October 29, 2021 
Filed under Australia, Culture wars

“As previously foreshadowed (see my analysis of the proposals when first announced here) the Victorian government has introduced a Bill into the Parliament of that State seriously limiting the religious freedom of religious bodies and individual Victorian citizens.

The Equal Opportunity (Religious Exceptions) Amendment Bill 2021 (Vic) was introduced into the Legislative Assembly on October 27 and the second reading was moved on October 28.

The Bill is a serious attack on the religious freedom of Victorians, especially to send their children to faith-based schools reflecting a religious world-view.

The Bill amends the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic) (“EOA”), which is of course Victoria’s main anti-discrimination legislation. One of the primary ways that Australian law provides protection for religious freedom at the moment is by way of “balancing clauses” that recognise that this right is an important internationally protected human right, which is not always simply subjected to other rights. But these clauses are regularly characterised as “exemptions” or “exceptions”, and when this is done they are painted as reluctant concessions to the most important claims (not to suffer discrimination). Hence the apparent plausibility of removing these “exceptions”.…”

– At Law and Religion Australia, Associate Professor Neil Foster takes a close look at this “serious attack on the religious freedom of Victorians”.

See also:

Victoria and the Gradual Reversal of Constantine – Murray Campbell

“It took almost 300 years for Christianity to be no longer deemed dangerous and criminal. In the space of 5 years, basic Christian ideas have been maligned and even made illegal in my State of Victoria.”