As Evangelicals Now went to press, political manoeuvring in Australia’s lower house has meant that the passage of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s contentious legislation to outlaw religious discrimination was looking increasingly uncertain, with elections looming this May.
Morrison’s government claims that ‘The Religious Discrimination Bill, and associated legislation, will ensure Australians are protected from discrimination on the basis of religious belief or activity – just as they are protected from discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race and disability’. Mounting opposition from some of his own Liberal MPs, and uncertainty as to whether the Labor opposition and some senior senators will back the Bill – with or without a number of amendments – have led to intense debate on the issue, both inside and outside Australia’s Parliament.
In response, Morrison – a devout Pentecostal Christian – has now proposed that the right of church schools to expel gay and transgender students, a permitted exemption to the Bill, should be scrapped with immediate effect. This represents a significant climbdown by the government, which originally wanted to address the potential repeal of those exemptions through a 12-month review process by the Australian Law Reform Commission – after the Bill becomes law.
