Labor wants to keep law allowing gay teachers to be fired
Image: Tanya Plibersek
Labor has “no plans” to address the law allowing religious schools to fire teachers for being LGBTI, Tanya Plibersek has said.
Religious schools are exempt from federal and state discrimination laws, allowing them to discriminate based on their beliefs, The Guardian has reported.
While not ruling out changes in the future, the Labor deputy leader indicated her party will defend the current exemptions in the Ruddock inquiry into religious freedom.
The National Catholic Education Commission this week released its pre-budget submission, saying that in light of marriage equality religious freedom must be upheld so Catholic schools could “teach and foster a school environment that reflects the mission and identity of the Catholic church”.
Plibersek said she did not foresee an increase in homophobic firings.
“What I would say is that most Catholic schools are very thoughtful about keeping the very best staff,” she said.
“I don’t expect to see a spate of people sacked because of their sexuality.”
Last year, a Perth teacher was fired from his job at a religious school after coming out as gay.
The Greens promised in 2016 to remove religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws for schools.
The panel behind the religious freedom inquiry will meet for the first time next week, following controversy over whether submissions made to it will be kept secret.
The inquiry is due to report to parliament in March.
This is the true colour of Labor!
Remember that Labor became a massive supporter of SAM only because Liberals committed to a public vote. As such those who open the way to real change is unfortunatelly the Liberals; only then Labor grows some balls to make a change!
If religion is homophobic, so be it. But this ought to stay completely inside the four walls of their Church or their Home. They can teach homophobia, all they wish, and again, so be it. Their antiquated religion will succeed or fail on the basis of their very own teachings.. Should they wish to indoctrinate children through religious “schools” then this is clearly NOT permitted if they wish to accept monies from the taxpayer, in return for their “education”. . Homosexuals are permitted to exist under our laws, and are permitted to marry each other under our laws. Any discrimination is therefore unlawful. Being a “privately run school, they have the right to employ those whom they wish – if they don’t wish to employ homosexuals, then they need not do so, but to then come back to the taxpayer and ask for taxpayer-monies to run their school is a little bit rich. They can ‘t “have their cake and eat it”. Parents who disagree with the school stance against homosexual teachers need not enrol their children In that particular school, Parent who WANT their children taught thbose principals (including homophobia) then must put up the money to all9ow that to happen, without recourse to the taxpayer dollar. Fair enough ?
It just goes to prove that underneath all that posturing by Shorten, Plibersek, Wong and others within the ALP – remember they had the numbers in Canberra from 2007-2013 to make Same Sex Marriage Legal and amend the Secular Australian Marriage Act to do so but they did NOTHING – with Shorten & Wong both trying to make out that the Postal Survey, the Result and subsequent changing of the Act was all their idea in the first place was nothing more than hypocritical political opportunism.
Scratch the surface of the ALP and underneath you will find the talons of the Roman Catholic Church in Australia are still deeply imbedded in it so of course Plibersek & Co want to continue to allow schools – and in particular Religious Schools – to retain the Right to sack teachers based upon their sexuality – instead of on whether or not they can actually teach!
How hypocritical can any lot get? Those running those schools turned a blind eye, deaf era and dead heart to the boys and girls who were being Sexually, Physically and Mentally Abused by Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, Nuns, Brothers and self-styled Christian Lay Teachers and Counsellors but as soon as any of them heard about the sexuality of some Decent, Talented Teacher they moved against them and sacked them for being just a normal human being.
So much for those misguided souls telling us how bad the Liberals are and how wonderful Labor is when it concerns equal rights. The fact remains – Labor and Liberal are as bad as each other!
A difficult area. But in any event, a base-line should be that if the body receives tax payer funds, then it must also be obliged to observe Federal anti-discrimination laws. If it does not intend to do so, then simple: no money.
“I don’t expect to see a spate of people sacked because of their sexuality.” Really, Tanya Plibersek?
Having been arbitrarily sacked from a job some thirty years ago simply because of someone else’s religious beliefs, I ask Plibersek to clarify how many LGBTQ Australians have ever been sacked on religious grounds (or not employed in the first place)?
I daresay that she doesn’t know because she has never looked.
Australian LGBTQ voters deserve a better aspirant to government than someone who so flippantly dismisses inequality under the law.
Disappointing stuff from Plibersek, why not just handball the issue back to the WA (Labor) government, it’s a state law after all. And the WA Premier has said he disagrees with the law and is investigating changing it anyway.
It’s not news or even an issue that federal Labor isn’t going to use federal laws to override state laws (there are constitutional difficulties for a start) but the way Plibersek has explained this seems to be a bit of a dog-whistle to homophobes when a simple handball pass to her WA counterparts was all that was required.