The Victorian Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021 (Vic) prohibits change and suppression practices that alter or fundamentally change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Whilst the intent of the Act is worthy, the devil is very much in the detail, especially in how the Act includes religious and psychiatric practices and services in its potential ambit. The other contentious issue is the range of powers provided to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, which some argue potentially blur the lines on separation of powers between the judiciary and the legislature. This paper argues some amendments to the Act may be required in order to address these issues.
《2021年维多利亚州改变或压制(转换)行为禁止法案》(Vic)禁止改变和压制改变或从根本上改变某人的性取向或性别认同的行为。虽然该法案的意图是值得的，但魔鬼在细节上非常重要，特别是在该法案如何将宗教和精神病学实践和服务纳入其潜在范围方面。另一个有争议的问题是赋予维多利亚平等机会和人权委员会(Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission)的权力范围，一些人认为这可能模糊了司法和立法机构之间权力分立的界限。本文认为，为了解决这些问题，可能需要对该法案进行一些修订。
{"title":"Conversion Practices Legislation in Victoria -- A Potential Crisis for Church Authority?","authors":"Rhett Martin","doi":"10.55803/f328n","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55803/f328n","url":null,"abstract":"The Victorian Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021 (Vic) prohibits change and suppression practices that alter or fundamentally change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Whilst the intent of the Act is worthy, the devil is very much in the detail, especially in how the Act includes religious and psychiatric practices and services in its potential ambit. The other contentious issue is the range of powers provided to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, which some argue potentially blur the lines on separation of powers between the judiciary and the legislature. This paper argues some amendments to the Act may be required in order to address these issues.","PeriodicalId":118952,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Law and Religion","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115242312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Proportionality in Australian Constitutional Law: Next Stop Section 116?","authors":"A. Gray","doi":"10.55803/f94t","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55803/f94t","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":118952,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Law and Religion","volume":"36 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114134380","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: \"Christians: The Urgent Case for Jesus in Our World\"","authors":"K. Murray","doi":"10.55803/p32m","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55803/p32m","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":118952,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Law and Religion","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114484582","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There is increased interest in legislation that shields some forms of expression not only from the legislature but also from sanctions by powerful private institutions such as social media companies, professional associations, and employers. The Religious Discrimination Bill 2022 (Cth), if passed, would have prohibited ‘qualifying bodies’ from implementing conduct rules that restrict ‘statements of belief’ in their effects. Other provisions of the Bill implicitly provided some protection for ‘religious speech’ within the broader ambit of ‘religious belief or activity’. Using the Religious Discrimination Bill as an example, this paper examines laws that restrict private censure of speech with respect to the implied freedom of political communication. It is argued that laws that limit private censorship of political speech may place a burden upon political communication if they are not constructed in a manner that is ‘viewpoint neutral’. Such laws can thus only be valid if the criteria of ‘compatibility’ and ‘proportionality’ are met (as established in Lange and its progeny). The power imbalance between individuals and large private institutions may warrant limits on private censorship. However, such limits are best framed so as not to discriminate between viewpoints. Laws that protect the expression of particular ideas, such as those based in religious doctrine, must demonstrate a legitimate reason for differential treatment compared to other foundational beliefs.
{"title":"Statements of Belief as Political Communication","authors":"Timothy Nugent","doi":"10.55803/z910u","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55803/z910u","url":null,"abstract":"There is increased interest in legislation that shields some forms of expression not only from the legislature but also from sanctions by powerful private institutions such as social media companies, professional associations, and employers. The Religious Discrimination Bill 2022 (Cth), if passed, would have prohibited ‘qualifying bodies’ from implementing conduct rules that restrict ‘statements of belief’ in their effects. Other provisions of the Bill implicitly provided some protection for ‘religious speech’ within the broader ambit of ‘religious belief or activity’. Using the Religious Discrimination Bill as an example, this paper examines laws that restrict private censure of speech with respect to the implied freedom of political communication. It is argued that laws that limit private censorship of political speech may place a burden upon political communication if they are not constructed in a manner that is ‘viewpoint neutral’. Such laws can thus only be valid if the criteria of ‘compatibility’ and ‘proportionality’ are met (as established in Lange and its progeny). The power imbalance between individuals and large private institutions may warrant limits on private censorship. However, such limits are best framed so as not to discriminate between viewpoints. Laws that protect the expression of particular ideas, such as those based in religious doctrine, must demonstrate a legitimate reason for differential treatment compared to other foundational beliefs.","PeriodicalId":118952,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Law and Religion","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133316620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article considers the application of international human rights law to the employment of persons by Australian religious schools. In particular, it considers the claim, increasingly made in support of Australian domestic legislative reform, that the application of ‘inherent requirements’ tests to employees within religious schools appropriately gives effect to the requirements of international law. Part One observes that that law is found in two primary protections: the protection provided to religious schools as the collective manifestations of the religious beliefs of individuals, including parents and guardians, and the protection against discrimination. Part Two illustrates the domestic implications of these regimes by considering the human rights rationales offered by the governmental proponents of the Victorian Equal Opportunity (Religious Exceptions) Amendment Bill 2021. It concludes that the Equal Opportunity (Religious Exceptions) Amendment Act 2021(Vic) is an inadequate implementation of relevant international human rights law and that similar legislation in development in other States and the Commonwealth should be scrutinised carefully.
{"title":"The Position of Religious Schools Under International Human Rights Law","authors":"M. Fowler","doi":"10.55803/i270m","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55803/i270m","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers the application of international human rights law to the employment of persons by Australian religious schools. In particular, it considers the claim, increasingly made in support of Australian domestic legislative reform, that the application of ‘inherent requirements’ tests to employees within religious schools appropriately gives effect to the requirements of international law. Part One observes that that law is found in two primary protections: the protection provided to religious schools as the collective manifestations of the religious beliefs of individuals, including parents and guardians, and the protection against discrimination. Part Two illustrates the domestic implications of these regimes by considering the human rights rationales offered by the governmental proponents of the Victorian Equal Opportunity (Religious Exceptions) Amendment Bill 2021. It concludes that the Equal Opportunity (Religious Exceptions) Amendment Act 2021(Vic) is an inadequate implementation of relevant international human rights law and that similar legislation in development in other States and the Commonwealth should be scrutinised carefully.","PeriodicalId":118952,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Law and Religion","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123412147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper explores the intersection of religion, gender identity, and gender prejudice within the American context of religious conservatism and the overturning of Roe v Wade. Discussion considers the overturning as a dangerous move that negates the rights and religious liberties of women, with adverse implications also for the rainbow community. Notably, this legislative context depicts the power of conservative Christian ideology to sustain hierarchical gender norms anchored in a binary consciousness, which privileges and empowers men (typically white, elite, heterosexual men), while diminishing and disempowering women and gender-diverse persons as non-normative and subsidiary. Discussion further conveys that this male-centred/androcentric ideology continues the oppressive legacy of male-dominant, fundamentalist biblical interpretation — a mode of interpretation heavily criticised within contemporary mainstream biblical scholarship as flawed and grievous in its promotion of gender prejudice. Accordingly, the overturning of Roe v Wade is relevant to the Australian context, for the same androcentricity and legacy of biblically-justified gender prejudice underpins all Western cultures. That is, manifold people, knowingly or reflexively, religious or otherwise, adhere to this biased interpretation and prejudicial gender consciousness through entrenched psychosocial Western norms. Not least, much scholarship has stressed that the issue of gender bias deeply pervades the structures of Australia’s justice system. Ultimately, this paper emphasises that understanding androcentricity and the legacy of injurious androcentric biblical interpretation is necessary to the tasks of negotiating religious freedom for all persons and cultivating non-sexist social and legal structures that uphold the rights of multiple gender identities and subjectivities.
{"title":"Legislating Gender Prejudice: Religion and the Overturning of Roe v Wade","authors":"R. Macleod","doi":"10.55803/l364u","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55803/l364u","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores the intersection of religion, gender identity, and gender prejudice within the American context of religious conservatism and the overturning of Roe v Wade. Discussion considers the overturning as a dangerous move that negates the rights and religious liberties of women, with adverse implications also for the rainbow community. Notably, this legislative context depicts the power of conservative Christian ideology to sustain hierarchical gender norms anchored in a binary consciousness, which privileges and empowers men (typically white, elite, heterosexual men), while diminishing and disempowering women and gender-diverse persons as non-normative and subsidiary. Discussion further conveys that this male-centred/androcentric ideology continues the oppressive legacy of male-dominant, fundamentalist biblical interpretation — a mode of interpretation heavily criticised within contemporary mainstream biblical scholarship as flawed and grievous in its promotion of gender prejudice. Accordingly, the overturning of Roe v Wade is relevant to the Australian context, for the same androcentricity and legacy of biblically-justified gender prejudice underpins all Western cultures. That is, manifold people, knowingly or reflexively, religious or otherwise, adhere to this biased interpretation and prejudicial gender consciousness through entrenched psychosocial Western norms. Not least, much scholarship has stressed that the issue of gender bias deeply pervades the structures of Australia’s justice system. Ultimately, this paper emphasises that understanding androcentricity and the legacy of injurious androcentric biblical interpretation is necessary to the tasks of negotiating religious freedom for all persons and cultivating non-sexist social and legal structures that uphold the rights of multiple gender identities and subjectivities.","PeriodicalId":118952,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Law and Religion","volume":"68 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123421278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cherry Picking Human Rights","authors":"N. Aroney","doi":"10.55803/h406f","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55803/h406f","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":118952,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Law and Religion","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128387321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Politics of Indonesia's New Criminal Code","authors":"R. Hefner","doi":"10.55803/h161a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55803/h161a","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":118952,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Law and Religion","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130491445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Many Australian anti-discrimination statutes contain special provisions to balance equality with religious freedom. However, if these religious freedom provisions in state anti-discrimination laws are narrowed too much, the laws may become inoperative by virtue of s 109 of the Australian Constitution, which says that an inconsistency between State and Commonwealth law shall be resolved in favour of the latter. This article explores the relationship between religious freedom, s 109 of the Australian Constitution, and anti-discrimination laws. It concludes that, to avoid constitutional difficulty, states should ensure religious freedom provisions in their anti-discrimination statutes are at least as wide in scope and effect as that provided by the Commonwealth in its antidiscrimination statutes.
{"title":"Religious Freedom, Section 109 of the Constitution, and Anti-discrimination Laws","authors":"N. Foster","doi":"10.55803/c59x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55803/c59x","url":null,"abstract":"Many Australian anti-discrimination statutes contain special provisions to balance equality with religious freedom. However, if these religious freedom provisions in state anti-discrimination laws are narrowed too much, the laws may become inoperative by virtue of s 109 of the Australian Constitution, which says that an inconsistency between State and Commonwealth law shall be resolved in favour of the latter. This article explores the relationship between religious freedom, s 109 of the Australian Constitution, and anti-discrimination laws. It concludes that, to avoid constitutional difficulty, states should ensure religious freedom provisions in their anti-discrimination statutes are at least as wide in scope and effect as that provided by the Commonwealth in its antidiscrimination statutes.","PeriodicalId":118952,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Law and Religion","volume":"223 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123871561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review of Law and Religion in the Commonwealth: The Evolution of Case Law","authors":"B. Bussey","doi":"10.55803/y742z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.55803/y742z","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":118952,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Law and Religion","volume":"101 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124805802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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