Butchered to make a Roman Holiday
September 28th 2009 00:44
Trust me, I'm a priest . .
Bizarre things happen in the lead-up to an election. Like Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls deciding to pre-empt the parliamentary review into anti-discrimination law.
He’s announced that regardless of the committee’s findings, religious organisations will still be able to discriminate against people on the grounds of religious belief, sex, gender identity, sexuality, and parental or marital status under the revised law.
But they will have to stop discriminating on the basis of age, race, disability, physical features, political beliefs – and breastfeeding.
As is clear from the Ministers statement, and the immediate response from Archbishop Denis Hart, this has been hammered out with Ratburgers Roman legions, acting as lead negotiators for an unholy alliance of priests, mullahs, rabbis and ministers. We’re being butchered to make a Roman holiday.
The ‘agreement’ of the religious not to discriminate on certain grounds has been presented as a concession on their part, but since when were the churches interested in discriminating against the old, ethnic minorities, the disabled, or in imposing standards of physical appearance, except perhaps to occasionally favour the prettier boys for service in church choirs and sacristies?
The test of religious belief will catch anyone whose political beliefs run counter to their own. That leaves breastfeeding.
“Excuse me Father, but would you mind if I got my yah-yahs out during the ‘Ave Maria’, only Breanna’s getting terribly hungry?”
“Not at all my dear, it’ll take my mind off young Brendan in the front row of the choir and that enticing lump in his surplice.”
This is a total victory for clerical prejudices, and talk of balance is just political spin.
Not being religious myself, I couldn’t give a holy wafer, yarmulke or prayer mat whether the myth-peddlers want us around or not. But I do object to government subsidised businesses and charities banning us as potential employees and clients.
Take Sanitarium, owned by the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and ‘donating’ 100% of company profits to them (on which it therefore pays no tax – effectively a government subsidy). Under these proposals they could refuse to employ a single mum to pack Weetbix, or a gay man to stack pallets.
Adoption agencies, schools, clinics, hospitals, job placement services and so forth run by ‘religious bodies’, who receive my taxes in subsidies and payments for services, could refuse to find a job for a transsexual, treat an infertile lesbian, or employ a gay man.
I can choose to withhold donations if I disagree with their attitudes – I never give to the Salvos or Vinnies, for example – but they continue to get money from me via the government, despite continuing to discriminate. This is wrong.
Where’s the sense in a hospital, for example, requiring all its doctors to be heterosexuals?
“Oh no Doctor Sarah, I know you have a Nobel Prize in Urology but we can’t have a homosexual on the staff. It would be a temptation for the Sisters.”
There is a little ray of sunshine: once new law comes in (in about 18 months) the exemptions are no longer automatic. They will have to prove, for example, your sexuality makes you unfit to be a pallet stacker – which might be a little difficult.
If in the meantime, if we want to make a little mischief, then let’s merge, say, the ALSO Foundation with the Metropolitan Community Church, and refuse to employ heterosexuals.
The test cases could get very interesting.
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In a previous column I blasted beyondblue for spending nothing on our community, and wasting money on fridge magnets. They have now sent a shopping bag, a poster, several booklets, a rubber wristband – and another fridge magnet. Plus a plea for free airtime. Consider me bribed – not
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