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- Please email us with relevant news articles or petitions
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Dear “Australian Christian Lobby” We Think You’re Wrong!
SECOA | 23 November 2014
Sometimes it’s the right thing to put “religious freedom” behind the need for
empathy, “loving your neighbour”, and human rights. For instance, in Australia, we
don’t allow stoning people, no matter what you think your religion says about it, and
likewise we don’t allow unreasonable discrimination.
VICTORIAN ELECTION CANDIDATES DISCUSS ANTI-DISCRIMINATION
STAFF WRITERS — OCTOBER 30, 2014
In our second Meet the Candidates video for the upcoming Victorian State Election, the politicians discuss anti-discrimination law, religious exemptions and LGBTI Victorians.
CANDIDATES for next month’s Victorian election discuss the state’s anti-discrimination laws in the latest Meet the Candidates video from the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, Pride TV and Star Observer.
VGLRL co-convener Corey Irlam put questions around Victoria’s religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws to the Sex Party’s Fiona Patten, Labor’s Neil Pharaoh, the Liberals’ Clem Newton-Brown, and the Greens’ Sean Mulcahy.
Abbott’s 18C puzzle: linking terror and free speech raises interesting political questions
August 8, 2014 | Waleed Aly
The truth, of course, is that Muslims are largely peripheral to both issues. I don’t think I’ve met a single Muslim – or indeed a member of any other religious minority – who could care less about public Christmassy-ness. And whilst I have met Muslims who were unimpressed by the government’s plans for the Racial Discrimination Act, it seems an unusual red line for them to draw given that Muslims aren’t even protected by it. The law doesn’t regard Muslims as a racial group. So, whatever it is section 18C prevents you from saying about Aborigines or Asians or Jews, you can go right ahead and say it about Muslims. That’s exactly why Victoria introduced laws specifically targeting religious vilification: because the Racial Discrimination Act has nothing to say about it.
Will you champion the anti-discrimination bill?
Petition: All Out – equality everywhere, February 2013
TO: ATTORNEY-GENERAL MARK DREYFUS
The proposed Anti-Discrimination Bill must be passed, with the recommended amendments of the Senate inquiry, before the 2013 federal election.
We, the undersigned, are committed to stand with Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus in sponsoring this bill to bring it through parliament.
See petition
What’s God got to do with it? Remove religions’ right to discriminate
To: The Hon Julia Gillard MP, Senator the Hon Penny Wong, the Hon Nicola Roxson MP, the Hon Tanya Plibersek MP
Campaign created by Kimberley Ivory – January 2013
Dear Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers
You are to be commended for consolidating and expanding the breadth of Australia’s Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination legislation. Without doubt this is an important step in making Australia a fairer place for all.
However, in order to do real justice to this progressive legislative, we believe the Government must also take this opportunity to remove the ‘right’ of religious groups to discriminate without justification against those they deem to ‘offend their religious sensibilities’. This ‘right’ is afforded to no other group and the grounds on which this ‘right’ is demanded by and provided to such groups are unclear.
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