3 votes

Religious freedom review enshrines right of schools to turn away gay children and teachers

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  1. Algernon_Asimov
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    This is contradictory. A religious business can't turn away customers for religious reasons, but a religious school can turn away students for religious reasons. Those students (or their parents)...

    The report calls for the federal Sex Discrimination Act to be amended to allow religious schools to discriminate against students on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or relationship status - something some but not all states already allow.

    The panel did not accept that businesses should be allowed to refuse services on religious grounds

    This is contradictory. A religious business can't turn away customers for religious reasons, but a religious school can turn away students for religious reasons. Those students (or their parents) are paying customers, just as much as people ordering wedding cakes. If you can't turn away customers asking for cakes, you can't turn away customers asking for education.

    In fact, the students' fees are being greatly subsidised by the federal and state governments, using taxpayers' funds. Anything funded by the government should be available to all citizens equally. If the religious schools truly want freedom and independence to be discriminatory, they should stop taking taxpayers' money.

    While the panel accepted the right of religious school to discriminate against students on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation, it could see no justification for a school to discriminate on the basis of race, disability, pregnancy or intersex status.

    So, it's okay to discriminate against some in-born traits (gender identity and sexual orientation) but not against other in-born traits (intersex status)? That's just stupid.

    As for not discriminating against pregnant people, this is hypocrisy of the highest order. Religious orders (especially Christian ones) keep preaching that sex outside of marriage is sinful. If a student is pregnant, it's highly unlikely that she's married, as she's probably still underage. Therefore, she has had sex before marriage. She has deliberately broken the religion's rules. And, unlike sexual orientation or gender identity, this was as a result of a choice she made of her own free will (almost certainly).

    This hypocrisy reveals that the goal of this report is not "religious freedom", it's "freedom to discriminate against those gay and transgender freaks". This is disgusting.

    1 vote