Folau’s Religious Freedom

Running Head: Folau’s Religious Freedom
Folau’s Religious Freedom
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

FOLAU’S RELIGIOUS FREEDOM1
The Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in Australia have gained its
advancement since the late twentieth to the early twenty first century. LGBT people have been
granted equal rights with that of the other people of Australian jurisdiction. These rights include
protection from discrimination and equal treatment with the similar rights and responsibilities as
the rest of Australians. According to Carbery 2010, it has been explained that since the British
empire and colonial days, the idea of LGBT and same sex marriages have been progressively
repealed until the recent times when it led to the huge revolution among people and the same sex
marriage was recognized and legalized in Australia on 9th December 2017. Post this order, all the
people have an equal right to consent for all sexual activities and all the people who were
convicted since 2003 for such consensual sexual activities have been discharged of all their
criminal records with the retrospective effect (Brewer 2014). The thesis aims to bring out the
critical analysis of the freedom of religion and code of conduct of Folau’s comment referring
Bible with LGBT group stating that they were all destined for hell. He was dismissed on ground
of violation of his freedom of religion.
According to Sheldrick 2016, the same sex marriages have been recognized as de facto
relationships and the same has been recognized by the states and territories by ways of civil
unions, domestic partnerships, registered or unregistered relationships. In March 2018, an order
was passed stating that the joint and step child of such relationships shall hold legal status
throughout the nation with respect to its legitimacy, succession and other rights and
responsibilities. Thus, discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation or gender identity is a
statutory offence and the same has been granted in states and territories with concurrent federal
regimes to protect such people.

FOLAU’S RELIGIOUS FREEDOM2
Folau’s comment has initiated the debate between the viability of two core democratic
principles. Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that
every person shall have the right to hold their opinion and express them without any interference.
However, the opinion should not disrespect the reputation of others and that such opinion should
be in favor of protection of national security or public order or morality. Further, section 26 of
the Covenant imparts equal protection to the people from discrimination on any ground of caste,
color, creed, sex, political opinion and so on.
It has been argued that the false antagonism between the groups of Church and LGBT
Australians has led to the coalition of Freedom of Faith (Encarnacion 2014). It has been
explained that the idea of religious institutions pleading for exemptions on grounds of anti-
discrimination laws should not be entertained because such exemptions lead to the downfall of
positive rights of the people, which forms the foundation of cultural diversity and competence
(Walhof 2013). An outstanding example of such endorsement is the employment and other
requirements in public enterprises and schools, where every teacher has to model a particular
religious life (Topsfield 2018). Such activities narrowed down the scope of Equal opportunity
Laws to the right of the religious schools to employ people from their preferred belief (ABC
News 2018). However, such endorsements are not only common in schools and enterprises but
also to the parents and people who would not join an enterprise or would not send the children to
school with a different belief. Similarly, in spite of anti-discriminatory laws, the LGBT and same
sex married people face such risks with continued exemptions to more and more agencies from
such protection laws. According to Koppelman 2014, it can be explained that the resistance of
the religion and stakes of the gay rights are inherently dependent upon the purposes of the anti-
discrimination law. Therefore, it can be said that, to ensure that the equal rights are imparted to