Australian Christian Lobby's Hypocrisy On Schools And LGBT Issues

In the recent, renewed debate over marriage equality in Australia, Catholic archdioceses recently courted controversy after they put together a 15-page book in opposition to marriage equality. (When they put together a 15-page book about child sexual abuse, I might take it a bit more seriously). The controversy was the result of the archdiocese's request that Catholic schools distribute the book to their students.

Today, I saw a statement from advocacy group Australian Marriage Equality attempting to take legal action over the booklets.

Advocates have warned Tasmanian Catholic school principals and teachers that distribution of a booklet against marriage equality is likely to breach the Anti-Discrimination Act and have urged teachers and parents concerned about the booklet to make complaints to Commissioner, Robin Banks.

Archbishop of Hobart, Julian Porteous, has said Catholic 12,000 Tasmanian Catholic school children will be given copies of the booklet called “Don’t Mess with Marriage” to give to their parents.

Australian Marriage Equality national director, Rodney Croome, said,

“This booklet denigrates and demeans same-sex relationships and will do immense harm to gay students and students being raised by same-sex couples.”

“The booklet likely breaches the Anti-Discrimination Act and I urge everyone who finds it offensive and inappropriate, including teachers, parents and students, to complain to the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, Robin Banks.”

Mr Croome said he has received several complaints from teachers in Catholic schools who were horrified to learn at staff room meetings that the booklet will be distributed.

“The Catholic Church has every right to express its views from the pulpit but it is completely inappropriate to enlist young people as the couriers of its prejudice.”

“The booklet says to gay students in Catholic schools that their sexuality is wrong and that their aspiration to marry is a danger to marriage, religion and society.”

“Any principal or teacher who exposes vulnerable children to such damaging messages not only violates their duty of care, but is a danger to students.”

Mr Croome has written to the Catholic Education Office expressing his concerns.

Find below some of the claims made in the booklet “Don’t Mess with Marriage”, as well as the three sections of the Anti-Discrimination Act the booklet is likely to breach.

This is going to require a brief background of freedom of speech in Australia.

Our laws against freedom of speech are absurd, to say the least. A federal law, Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, makes it illegal to do anything, because of someone's race, that is "reasonably likely... to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate" them. (There are narrow free speech exceptions.) Tasmania, however, also has a law covering offensive speech, and it applies to sexual orientation as well. Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be an exemption to this offensive speech law. What's even more interesting, though, is that these laws have widespread support. Changing them has proven to be very difficult for the current government. I don't share that view, though. I generally oppose hate speech laws, and think they should only be applied in extreme and very specific circumstances. Otherwise, they always cross into what should not be illegal (which is almost everything). So I don't agree with this tactic from AME. I think it can also backfire. (Read on, and you'll see that I'm definitely not on the side of the schools, despite my disagreement here.)

Well, it already has. The Australian Christian Lobby has responded:

Rodney Croome’s ongoing attempt to censor children’s access to information about marriage is further evidence of the extreme intolerance of his political agenda to redefine marriage and the family.

“Anyone who values the freedom of Australians to believe and publicly speak about our current definition of marriage should be very concerned about attempts to redefine in it legislation,” Australian Christian Lobby Managing Director Lyle Shelton said today.

Mr Croome yesterday issued a media release claiming a Catholic booklet outlining Christian teaching on marriage was likely illegal. He urged people to complain to the human rights commission.

“Where have we come to as a society when the political activists for redefining marriage want to use the law to stop children in religious schools from being taught that religion’s teaching?

“Why does Mr Croome fear children being taught that it is their basic human right, wherever possible, to have and be allowed to know their mother and father? Maybe even a child’s heart resonates with this truth.

“If a family sends their child to a Christian or Islamic school they should not be surprised if their children are taught the faith and morals of the school’s religious identity.

“It is outrageous for Mr Croome to dictate what a private religious school can and cannot say about marriage,” Mr Shelton said.

“It is clear that redefining marriage and family in law is one of the biggest threats to freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and freedom of religion that this country faces.”

First, a response to their claim that this evidence of the intolerance of marriage equality. It's not. This view of offensive speech is widespread in, I would say most, Western countries outside America. I don't agree with it, but that's where it comes from. It comes from a different view of freedom of speech, not from an inextricable link between marriage equality. Also, the last cited by Rodney Croome was passed in 1998, before marriage equality was legal anywhere in the world. So while I don't agree with this tactic, I don't view it as the inherent result of support for marriage equality.

Secondly, while I don't agree with the tactic, I think he's right. I do think the book is illegal under Tasmanian law. I don't think it should be, though.

However, to use a legal term, while I don't join the opinion, I concur in the judgement. I don't think any school in Australia should be allowed to do this. Why? Because every school in Australia gets state funding. And if you get government funding, you can't be involved in discrimination, because the people you are discriminating against are paying for you to exist, and the government can't be sanctioning discrimination. In Canada, Ontario does this well. Its Accepting Schools Act requires all schools that receive public funding abide by anti-bullying laws, regardless of religious beliefs, and to allow gay-straight alliances to be set up.

So to the ACL, I would like to ask: If there was a pro-LGBT school, where you had to support LGBT equality to be admitted, and it received government funding, and it was distributing literature at the school that said that Christians shouldn't be allowed to marry, you'd be okay with that? I wouldn't.

In fact, you have already made it clear that you wouldn't be. Last December, I reported on their efforts to derail a program aimed at combatting anti-LGBT school bullying, the Safe Schools Coalition. In their blog post opposing the program, they said:

Our friends at AFA and NCC have put together an expose of these materials, below, that will shock many parents.

Your blog post about the anti-marriage equality booklets is entitled "Censoring kids’ access to information about marriage is not the mark of a free society". That can be turned back on you: "Censoring kids’ access to information about sexual orientation and gender identity is not the mark of a free society".

Additionally, in a letter that you distributed expressing more detailed opposition to the program, the letter, and therefore you, expressed this concern:

In New South Wales, the “Proud Schools” pilot program (similar to the Safe Schools Coalition program) resulted in reverse bullying in Burwood Girls High School. When students were pressured to support same-sex “marriage” by signing a mural, girls who wanted to uphold true marriage – as the union of a man and a woman – were abused and bullied.

This is what you ultimately wanted:

This year, $2 million has already been paid to the Safe Schools Coalition Australia for its dangerous program. Please cancel the remaining funding and instead support programs that address school bullying more generally.

So you wanted the program's funding cut for, in your judgement, discriminating against Christians. Now, I don't think that's what happened. (I would advise against a situation that could publicly single out opponents of marriage equality in a school. Wrong as they are, they shouldn't be harassed. But that doesn't mean there's a problem with the program, just what happened in one isolated incident.) But I agree that publicly funded institutions should not be allowed to discriminate.

You, however, only believe that in some instances.