Time to cool it

It’s time to cool off the rising heat about religious freedom.

It has been four months since the report of the Ruddock Expert panel of religious freedom was handed to the then Prime Minster. Given the new PM Scott Morrison’s recent remarks, its release and the government’s response are still a way off. However his stated guarantee to all Australians is that “their religious freedoms will be protected by law if necessary” has caused alarm in some circles; despite nothing being known about what — if anything — is proposed.

Morrison hasn’t helped by some off-the-cuff remarks about children in public schools being able to do Christmas plays, giving the quite misleading impression that this had something to do with religious freedom. As the recent CIS Policy Paper argued, protecting religious freedom is not about guaranteeing any particular religion’s place in our culture.

However, the lack of any actual proposals hasn’t stopped opinion writers weighing in, for example, with the claim that the whole exercise is nothing more than compensation to the hard right for losing the same sex marriage survey. Or that what is proposed is “legislated homophobia” which “only contemplates protection of narrowly defined Christian beliefs.”

Such claims trivialise and misrepresent the issue. Yes, religious freedoms are in general not under immediate threat in this country. But neither are they effectively protected. We need to be open to the possibly of increasing protection of existing rights to religious liberty without winding back any existing legal rights for others.

When a respectful email to your staff encouraging a no vote in the postal plebiscite can still get you an appearance before the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission it is clear all is not quite as fine as it should be in this country.