Under the Morrison Government’s proposed Religious Freedom bills, what happens when there’s a clash of religious belief? Of all the religions and faiths subscribed to in this vast nation, which freedom will take priority when head to head at the service desk of a hotel, the pharmacist’s counter, or proselytizing on social media? Whose beliefs will take precedent above all others in the fight of the rights? How will the correct order of religious freedom be determined? Will there be a duel at dawn? A water walking competition? A zealous race to see whose dead prophet will rise the fastest?
What if the faith holders both attempt to pull rank when refusing the other service? Will they quote chapter after verse after testament until the glorious reigning mighty religious bigwigmen intervene to give the supposedly correct doctrine?
Will secular courts be required to determine the true interpretation of the holy books and scribes and scrolls, when even religious scholars can’t agree, or will they defer to the religious overlords, thus enshrining religious tenets into the common law?
What if a nasty pasty says something vile and unconscionable to a random stranger on the street and asserts their legal right to do so because ‘religious belief’? Will they have to prove they’re religious, or will their word simply do? Is there a waiting period before a person can make a defense of ‘religious freedom’ to a claim of discrimination against them? Or can they claim to have found their faith and converted to religion a mere three minutes before flinging an unprovoked slur at a person for simply being?
Is there an assumption of religiosity whenever someone speaks the words of a bigot? Will the onus of proof fall on the defendant to a claim of discrimination that they, in fact, have ‘faith’ and their faith, by its very nature, requires them to treat others as lesser people because of who they are?
What if the atheists chime in & heckle from the sidelines, asserting their protected right to call the warring factions religiloons and faithofarts? Will there be a three-way claim of discrimination and counter-discrimination and third party claimants and respondents and additional parties from each particular school of religious thought, all claiming to be the religiously righteous superior and thus the absolute protected by the law?
Will the entire farce collapse into a cringe-worthy public slag fest, transcribed carefully by the court, of “you are”, “your mum is”, and “that’s what she said” between the religious and believers and atheists and anyone who is otherwise not one of the protected species under any respective religious code?
How will Morrison manage the fallout from the proposed bill on social inclusion and community cohesion and assimilation and mental health and general feelings of happiness, fulfillment and the enjoyment of people to participate fully in public life, while also exercising their personal freedoms to bodily autonomy and accessing appropriate medical care?
Will Morrison demand tolerance and respect and fairness, while women, people of colour, racial minorities, people with a disability and LGBTIQA+ Australians are actively being denied services and publicly shamed, slandered and humiliated?
What further laws will Morrison rush through parliament when atheists, joined by any empathetic, loving and open-hearted religious folk, protest on the streets to denounce the positive rights of the religious to discriminate against them, their friends and families? Will he call in the military? Will he pray? Will he command the nation join him in prayer while the military confiscates padlocks, gaffa tape and glue?
What if? What if? What if?
What if Morrison and his merry band of religious zealots actually recognised and respected human rights, and instead of a knee-jerk reaction to appease the haters who think it’s their god-given right to impose their fundamentalist, extremist beliefs on the rest of the population, he proposed a bill to protect everyone from harm?
Ha!
Morrison and his government are more concerned about the hurt feelings of a bunch of rotten losers than the real, demonstrated harm even the debate on ‘religious freedom’ is causing in the community.
But bets on who will be the first to cry foul when it’s religion up against religion, up against yet another religion, and maybe another religion (because who knew, even the religious types can’t agree on if there is one almighty supernatural creator or many) and then add in the atheists who will surely exercise their newly reinforced right to fiercely criticize religion and religious belief …
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