Over the last few months, we have heard, and will continue to hear, a great deal about religious freedom and how it is supposedly threatened by marriage equality.
In fact, the NO campaign would have us believe that our very way of life is under threat should we allow same-sex couples to marry, which seems to assume that our way of life is dictated by religious beliefs.
As a fallback for when their case inevitably loses, as it must, they want to wind back anti-discrimination laws that have been in place for over three decades to allow them to refuse service to gay couples. They also want to be able to foist their idea of what marriage is – some sort of stud arrangement that reduces women’s role to being brood mares – onto children at school.
A strident message throughout the NO campaign has been that children are greatly disadvantaged, perhaps even in danger, if they are not raised by their two biological parents. Which makes one question why the Church was so complicit in taking so many Aboriginal children from their parents.
According to the ABS, of the 5.2 million children aged 0 to 17 years in 2012-13, 1.1 million (21%) had a natural parent living elsewhere. That’s a lot of kids who are being told that their family is inadequate. The church implies that sharing genes is more important than sharing love and assumes that a biological (white) parent will automatically be a good parent.
In the 2016 census, 30% of respondents reported they had no religion – this represented an extra 2.2 million people since the 2011 census. That figure rose to 39% in adults aged 18-34. Yet it is their future that is being determined.
Our children should not be compelled to attend religious instruction at school. We should not be paying for untrained people to come into our schools proselytising their beliefs. Teachers keep personal beliefs out of the classroom and encourage children to research, analyse, question, and form their own opinions. Indoctrination has no place in schools.
Our parliament should not begin by chanting worship to a deity and we should stop swearing on the bible or any other religious text.
This is, for me, one of the real problems with religion – the amount of time and money wasted on worship. I appreciate the sense of community that a church can bring. I appreciate the charitable works they do. The golden rule is a maxim common to many religions that encapsulates how we should live in one simple phrase.
But chanting and incense and ceremonial robes and bowing to statues, not to mention communion, all repel me.
Having said that, people I love dearly and respect greatly find enormous solace in their religion and I would fight for their right to do as they see fit.
There was a time in history where the church was all-powerful. It made the laws, it kept the wisdom, it was the judge, punisher and absolver of sins, and the teacher of children. It relegated women to a subservient role. That is no longer the case.
Our laws are (or should be) made by our elected representatives and enforced by our police and our judicial system. Our children are taught by trained professionals. Knowledge and learning are available to all (in our lucky country at least). Women now have a voice and some independence.
Freedom of religion is a human right in Australia, but so should freedom from religion be a right as fiercely protected.
