Have You Faced Discrimination At A Religious School Or Organisation? Equality Australia Wants To Know

• Out lesbian school teacher Stephen Lentz was sacked in 2021. The Anglican church said she was dismissed not on account of her sexual orientation, but because she said Christians should be allowed to be in same-sex relationships.

• In July 2022, a Catholic school teacher in Perth was forced to quit his job after he was outed by his students as gay via a viral TikTok game of ‘Guess Who’.

• Earlier this year, Brisbane-based Citipointe Christian school courted controversy over its anti-LGBTQI student enrolment contracts and staff employment contracts. 

These were just a few of the recent examples of students and teachers facing discrimination in religious schools and institutions in Australia. National LGBTQI advocacy organisation Equality Australia on Friday launched an online survey to hear from Australians about their personal experiences of discrimination at religious schools and organisations. 

“We know that discrimination is happening in faith-based schools and other religious institutions around the country,” Equality Australia CEO Anna Brown said in a statement.

“It is essential that the real-world experiences of people in our community are understood and acknowledged, and their concerns addressed.”

Anonymous Online Survey

The online survey has an option of submitting responses anonymously. “We know this can be difficult for people to talk about and we will treat everyone’s responses with care, kindness and respect,” said Brown.

According to Equality Australia, the survey hopes to capture the “community’s sentiments” on a future religious discrimination law. 

The previous government led by Scott Morrison had tried to push through a religious discrimination law with anti-LGBTQI clauses, just months before the federal elections in May 2022. 

The Anthony Albanese Labor government had in their election manifesto promised to enact a religious discriminaton law, but said that it would not be at the cost of other communities.

Labor said that its law  would “prevent discrimination against people of faith, including anti-vilification protections; act to protect all students from discrimination on any grounds; and protect teachers from discrimination at work, whilst maintaining the right of religious schools to preference people of their faith in the selection of staff.”

Fixing Unfair Laws

Equality Australia pointed out that Labor’s pre-election policy was silent on discrimination by religious organisations in services that they provided to the general community. 

“Our community now has the best chance in a generation to make the case for fixing unfair laws that allow religious schools and organisations to discriminate against us,” Brown said.

“Every student should be able to go to school and feel free to be who they are, supported to learn and safe from discrimination, and no teacher should feel they might lose their job because of their sexuality or gender, or because they support a student who is gay or trans,” said Brown, adding, “The door should always be open to LGBTIQ+ people who need services, like healthcare, homelessness or disability support – no matter who is delivering that service.”

Take Equality Australia’s Religious Discrimination Survey here.