Bigotry Legal in Victoria, Australia

[Damen]

I was reading the Friendly Atheist and guess what I found, kids!

www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/02/3233202.htm
friendlyatheist.com/2011/06/05/australian-government-wants-to-make-discrimination-legal/

I don’t know the ins and outs of the Australian government, so this article was a bit confusing to an American like me, but reader Andrew was nice enough to explain a new bill passed by the country’s Parliament:

In Australia we have very good anti-discrimination laws which prevent establishments from discriminating against people for any number of reasons…

However, in the state of Victoria, faith based groups have been pushing for an exemption to these laws, as they feel that they should have the right to discriminate against people on the basis of religion, marital status and gender.

Last week there was a vote in our Lower House of Parliament, and the amendment was defeated.

However, the majority party [took] an unprecedented step and actually reintroduced the vote… because one of the members was missing for the vote, and subsequently it was passed.

So Australian lawmakers just overturned an anti-discrimination law. The Upper House will now have to vote on it, too, and it looks like the Victorian Government has the numbers to keep the law overturned.

If this new law passes, it would mean Christian groups (receiving, I presume, federal money from the state of Victoria) could now say they’re not going to hire someone who’s gay… or unmarried… or female… or a Jew… or black…

Wow...just...wow...

[Iosa the Invincible]

Discrimination is only okay if it's for religion, not against religion.

[ltfred]

Jun 6, 2011 17:21:25 GMT -5 Iosa the Invincible said:

Discrimination is only okay if it's for religion, not against religion.

And only when religion is defined as fundamentalist Christianity.

[largeham]

The churches do have quite some pull here, just not as overtly as they do in the States. Though, there was a bit of controversy over John Howard's friendship with a group called the Exclusive Brethren.

[VirtualStranger]

So Australia is more fundie than Canada and the UK, but less so than the United States? Is that assumption correct? This new policy is pretty much what happens in the US already. I'm sure that Aussies feel really good about stooping to our level.

[tolpuddlemartyr]

I don't know if Canada and the UK directly funds religious schools and chaplains, if not - then yeah!

Also we have no constitutional guarantee of human rights like the Americans do.

The fact that the bill got voted down once and then crammed through a second time by forcing a member who abstained to vote on it shows that Victoria's conservative premier Baillieu gives not one single fuck about the democratic process.

[sylvana]

You know something is screwed up when people vote to overturn and anti-discrimination law.
What kind of ass do you have to be to take blatant desire for discrimination to government and get it passed.

[anti-nonsense]

Jun 7, 2011 1:05:11 GMT -5 sylvana said:

You know something is screwed up when people vote to overturn and anti-discrimination law.
What kind of ass do you have to be to take blatant desire for discrimination to government and get it passed.

a conservative ass.

[lighthorseman]

Presumeably its a two way street... presumeably the VGLRL doesn't have to hire militant fundies either.

www.vglrl.org.au/

[canadian mojo]

Jun 6, 2011 19:13:21 GMT -5 VirtualStranger said:

So Australia is more fundie than Canada and the UK, but less so than the United States? Is that assumption correct?

Not entirely, the Catholic school boards in Ontario are allowed to openly discriminate and only hire Catholics. On the plus side, they do have to give equal consideration to black or gay Catholics.