Tag Archives: Tasmania

The Religious Discrimination Debate is a Test for the States and Territories

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The Religious Discrimination Bill, released in late August by Attorney-General Christian Porter, would be the biggest reform to anti-discrimination law in Australia in at least 15 years, since the passage of the Age Discrimination Act 2004.

 

In fact, it is potentially the most radical change to our federal anti-discrimination system since, well, the beginnings of anti-discrimination law in this country.

 

That’s because it fundamentally undermines one of the key concepts of this framework: concurrent Commonwealth, and State/Territory, jurisdictions.

 

Since the passage of the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act 1975, NSW Anti-Discrimination Act 1977, and similar laws elsewhere, these laws have operated effectively alongside each other, without directly interfering with each other.

 

Where conduct was prohibited under laws at both levels, the victims of such discrimination were able to choose where to lodge their complaint. Successive Commonwealth Governments haven’t sought to cover the field, or explicitly override the provisions of State and Territory anti-discrimination laws.

 

But this is no longer the case. The Religious Discrimination Bill dramatically, and unprecedentedly, upsets Australia’s anti-discrimination applecart.

 

Section 41 provides that ‘statements of belief’ do not constitute discrimination for the purposes of any anti-discrimination law – including each of the Racial, Sex, Disability and Age Discrimination Acts at Commonwealth level, and all equivalent state and territory laws.

 

The Apple Isle has even more to lose than the others – with section 17(1) of their Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 singled out by name as being specifically overruled.

 

This is undoubtedly because it offers the most effective form of protection against conduct that ‘offends, humiliates, intimidates, insults or ridicules’ a wide range of groups, including LGBTI people, women, single parents, people in de facto relationships, divorced people and people with disability, among others.

 

But all State and Territory Governments should be alert and alarmed at this unwanted and unwarranted intrusion, not least because of the proposal that the Commonwealth Attorney-General be allowed to override even more laws by future regulation, without needing the approval of federal Parliament (and with Senate numbers making it extremely difficult for these regulations to be disallowed).

 

It is not just the principle of federalism that is offended by this hostile takeover. It is the fact the Religious Discrimination Bill makes it easier to offend the rights of vulnerable groups in each and every Australian jurisdiction that makes its contents so disturbing.

 

This makes the current religious discrimination debate a major test for State and Territory Governments around the country. Will they stand up to the Commonwealth Government’s decision to undermine their anti-discrimination laws?

 

More importantly, will they stand up for the communities in their respective states and territories – LGBTI people, women, single parents, people in de facto relationships, divorced people and people with disability – who stand to lose the most as a consequence of the Religious Discrimination Bill?

 

There is another, related challenge for State and Territory Governments from these developments. At the same time as the Attorney-General was releasing his exposure draft Bill, the reporting date for the Australian Law Reform Commission’s review of ‘religious exceptions’ was pushed back to December 2020.

 

This is the inquiry that was established earlier this year to examine whether provisions which allow religious schools to discriminate against LGBT students, and teachers, should be amended, or repealed entirely.

 

The delay means any legislation arising from this inquiry will likely not be passed until the second half of 2021 – and therefore won’t be in place until the 2022 school year at the earliest.

 

This is incredibly disappointing given Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s broken promise, in October 2018, that he would ensure LGBT students were protected before the end of last year. Effectively, this will now be delayed by more than three years.

 

The contrast with the Religious Discrimination Bill is also revealing. On one hand, the Morrison Government wants to pass a stand-alone Religious Discrimination Bill before the end of this year – a substantial, and radical, change to our federal anti-discrimination regime, with just one month of public consultation.

 

On the other, it refuses to make what are modest, straight-forward changes to protect LGBT students and teachers in religious schools for several years. It has decided to vacate that field, and consequently to vacate their responsibilities to vulnerable kids.

 

In the meantime, LGBT students and teachers will continue to be subject to abuse and mistreatment, simply on the basis of who they are, in schoolyards, classrooms and staff-rooms around the country.

 

And so it is now up to State and Territory Governments to show the leadership that the Commonwealth Government won’t. For NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia to pass urgent changes to protect LGBT students. And for all jurisdictions other than Tasmania and the ACT to cover LGBT teachers.

 

Because all kids deserve to grow and learn in a safe environment. And they don’t deserve to wait until 2022 to know what that feels like.

 

Berejiklian Andrews RD Bill

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian at Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews at Midsumma. Will they stand up against the Religious Discrimination Bill which will make it easier to discriminate against LGBTI people in their respective states?

 

If you have enjoyed reading this article, please consider subscribing to receive future posts, via the right-hand scroll bar on the desktop version of this blog or near the bottom of the page on mobile. You can also follow me on twitter @alawriedejesus

Submission to Tasmanian Law Reform Institute Inquiry into Legal Recognition of Sex and Gender

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Update: In June 2020, the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute published its final report from this inquiry. You can find a copy here.

In terms of its review of the Tasmanian Parliament’s ground-breaking 2019 birth certificate reforms, it found that:

“The Final Report concludes that the changes made by the Justice and Related Legislation (Marriage and Gender Amendments) Act 2019 (Tas) achieve the objective of reducing discrimination and trauma experienced by intersex and gender diverse Tasmanians by making it easier to obtain identification documents that accords with their gender identity… The Final Report further concludes that the new laws are generally consistent with best practice international human rights approaches and approaches being considered in other Australian jurisdictions.”

That is both a welcome finding by itself, and confirmation other states and territories should be looking to the Tasmanian legislation as a ‘best practice’ approach on which to base their own laws.

In terms of medical interventions on children born with intersex variations of sex characteristics, the “Report makes a number of recommendations intended to eliminate the practice of non- consensual surgical interventions and to enshrine existing legal principles regarding the capacity of children to consent, or not consent, to medical treatment.”

Recommendation 7 in particular stated that:

The Criminal Code should be reformed to criminalise non- consensual medical interventions in the following terms:

178F Unnecessary medical intervention to change the sex characteristics of children.

(1) Any person who performs a surgical, hormonal, or other medical intervention to alter or modify the sex characteristics of a child is guilty of a crime, unless:

(a)  it is performed to address a clear danger to the life or health of the child and it cannot be deferred until the child is able to give informed consent; or

(b)  it takes place with the informed consent of the child.

(2) Nothing in this Section is intended to apply to interventions involving a consenting transgender child seeking treatment to delay puberty or secondary sexual differentiation.

Charge: Performing unnecessary medical intervention to change the sex characteristics of a non-consenting child.

Once again this is a welcome development. It is now up to the Tasmanian Government to implement these reforms as quickly as possible (although obviously in consultation with intersex advocates and organisations like Intersex Human Rights Australia) and hopefully start the process of ending this significant human rights abuse.

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Original post: The Tasmanian Law Reform Institute is currently conducting an inquiry into matters arising from the passage of trans and gender diverse birth certificate reforms earlier this year, as well as issues relating to coercive surgeries and other medical treatments on children born with variations of sex characteristics.

The following is my personal submission, focusing on the latter topic. Submissions are due Tuesday 20 August, and you can find more details here.

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Submission to Tasmanian Law Reform Institute Inquiry into Legal Recognition of Sex and Gender

Tasmanian law Reform Institute

Private Bag 89

Hobart, TAS 7001

via Law.Reform@utas.edu.au

Wednesday 14 August 2019

To whom it may concern

Submission re Inquiry into Legal Recognition of Sex and Gender

Thank you for the opportunity to provide a submission to this important inquiry.

I make this submission as a long-term advocate for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community and, particularly for the purposes of this inquiry, as an ally to intersex Australians.

In this submission I will respond, generally, to those questions (5 through 9) that are focussed on the question of coercive surgeries and other medical treatments on children born with variations of sex characteristics.
These invasive and involuntary medical interventions, which continue in Australia today, are one of the biggest human rights violations against any members of the LGBTI community.

Indeed, given the serious, lifelong consequences of these human rights violations, I believe addressing coercive surgeries and medical treatments on intersex children is one of the most important human rights issues in Australia. Period.

Which is why it is so disappointing that so little action has been taken since the ground-breaking 2013 Senate Inquiry into Involuntary or Coerced Sterilisation of Intersex People in Australia.[i]

Specifically, in the past six years, the Commonwealth Liberal-National Government has failed to make any progress whatsoever in ending these unjustified and unacceptable practices.

In this context, I obviously welcome the additional focus on this issue by the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute.

This includes asking relevant questions in terms of what should be done to address this problem, especially in question 5 (which includes consideration of court approvals, legislative prohibitions with possible criminal penalties, independent advocates, independent counselling and advice, and specialist tribunals).

However, I also note that the same issues are being considered, at the moment, by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) as part of its own investigation of this topic. [ii]

This has included a public consultation process from July to September 2018,[iii] and ongoing involvement of and consultation with intersex people.

I understand that this investigation is expected to conclude by the end of 2019, with a report and recommendations for how these human rights violations should be addressed nation-wide.

The AHRC is relevant to this submission in three main ways.

First, I reiterate the five recommendations made to that investigation, including:

Recommendation 1. Australian Governments must introduce legislation to prohibit deferrable medical interventions, including surgical and medical interventions, that alter the sex characteristics of infants and children without personal consent, including penalties for breaching such laws.

Recommendation 2. Individuals who are asked to provide consent to necessary, non-deferrable medical interventions must have access to counselling and peer support, including from intersex people and intersex-led community organisations.

Recommendation 3. Australian governments must explicitly prohibit the ability of parents and guardians to provide consent to modifications to the sex characteristics of children born with variations of sex characteristics on the basis of social or cultural rationales.

Recommendation 4. That a new independent oversight body be created to review necessary, non-deferrable, therapeutic medical interventions on children born with variations of sex characteristics, comprising clinicians, human rights experts, child advocates and intersex-led community organisations.

Recommendation 5. That Commonwealth, state and territory governments provide ongoing funding to intersex-led community organisations, for the purposes of:

  • Peer support of individuals and families to inform decision-making about medical interventions
  • Serving on the new independent oversight body that reviews medical interventions
  • Broader peer support for all members of the intersex community, and
  • Systemic advocacy for all people with variations of sex characteristics.

Second, I express my support for the submission made by Intersex Human Rights Australia (IHRA) to the AHRC investigation[iv] (a submission that was also endorsed by the AIS Support Group Australia, Disabled People’s Organisations Australia, LGBTI Legal Service, and People with Disability Australia).

I note in particular that on page 66 of their submission, in response to the question ‘Should all non-emergency and/or deferrable medical interventions that alter a child’s sex characteristics, where the child does not have legal capacity to consent, be prohibited by law? If so, should this prohibition be civil or criminal?’ IHRA responded that:

We support the Darlington Statement’s call for criminal prohibitions of all non-deferrable medical interventions that alter a child’s sex characteristics [emphasis added].

I encourage the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute to adopt the IHRA submission as the primary foundation of its approach to these issues (and, wherever there are conflicts between my own recommendations and the position of IHRA, I defer to them on the basis that intersex people should have the right to self-determination as well as the right to bodily autonomy).

Third, given the ongoing AHRC investigation – covering largely the same issues as those featured in questions 5 through 9 of this inquiry – I encourage the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute to consider how it can work together with the Australian Human Rights Commission, and contribute to its efforts. This would potentially avoid any duplication in work (including duplication in the calls on intersex people to make multiple submissions on the same subject matter).

As indicated earlier, I welcome the focus provided by the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute to the issue of ongoing human rights violations against children born with variations of sex characteristics.

It is my sincere hope that the AHRC process, possibly with input from the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute, can make a series of practical recommendations to end coercive surgeries and other involuntary medical treatments on intersex children.

And that ultimately, the Commonwealth Government, and all State and Territory Governments, work together to implement these recommendations as quickly as possible so that these human rights violations end once and for all.

Thank you for taking this submission into consideration. Please do not hesitate to contact me, at the details below, should you require further information.

Sincerely

Alastair Lawrie

Footnotes:

[i] See the Final Report of that Senate Inquiry here and my personal submission to that inquiry here.

[ii] See the Australian Human Rights Commission website.

[iii] See my submission to that consultation here.

[iv] The IHRA submission to the AHRC investigation can be found here, and is attached with this submission.

1200px-Intersex_flag.svg

What’s Wrong With Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Act 1998?

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This is part of a series of posts looking at Australia’s anti-discrimination laws and discussing how well, or how poorly, they protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people. The articles on other jurisdictions can be found here.

In these posts, I have analysed Commonwealth, state and territory legislation with respect to three main issues:

  • Protected Attributes
  • Religious Exceptions, and
  • Anti-Vilification Coverage

This post will be the shortest of the nine, because in all three areas Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 is either best practice, or close to best practice.

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Protected Attributes

 Unlike some other schemes, Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 protects all parts of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community against discrimination.

Section 16 sets out the protected attributes of the Act, and they include sexual orientation (sub-section c), gender identity (ea) and intersex variations of sex characteristics (eb) [noting that Intersex Human Rights Australia’s position is that this last attribute should simply be ‘sex characteristics’ rather than intersex variations of sex characteristics, in line with the Yogyakarta Principles plus 10].

The definitions of these terms in section 3 are also inclusive:

“sexual orientation includes-

(a) heterosexuality; and

(b) homosexuality; and

(c) bisexuality”

“gender identity means the gender-related identity, appearance or mannerisms of other gender-related characteristics of an individual including gender expression (whether by way of medical intervention or not), with or without regard to the individual’s designated sex at birth, and may include being transgender or transsexual”

“gender expression means any personal physical expression, appearance (whether by way of medical intervention or not), speech, mannerisms, behavioural patterns, names and personal references that manifest or express gender or gender identity”

“sex characteristics means a person’s physical, hormonal or genetic features relating to sex, including genitalia and other sexual and reproductive anatomy, chromosomes, genes, hormones, and secondary sex characteristics”.

Overall, the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 adopts close to best practice in terms of the protected attributes it includes, covering all LGBTI Tasmanians.

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Religious Exceptions

The Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 is best practice when it comes to religious exceptions – in fact, Tasmania is better, far better, than any other Australian jurisdiction in this area.

There are three provisions outlining relevant religious exceptions in the Act:

Section 51 “Employment based on religion

(1) A person may discriminate against another person on the ground of religious belief or affiliation or religious activity in relation to employment if the participation of the person in the observance or practice of a particular religion is a genuine occupational qualification or requirement in relation to the employment.

(2) A person may discriminate against another person on the ground of religious belief or affiliation or religious activity in relation to employment in an educational institution that is or is to be conducted in accordance with the tenets, beliefs, teachings, principles or practices of a particular religion if the discrimination is in order to enable, or better enable, the educational institution to be conducted in accordance with those tenets, beliefs, principles or practices.”

Section 51A “Admission of person as student based on religion

(1) A person may discriminate against another person on the ground of religious belief or affiliation or religious activity in relation to admission of that other person as a student to an educational institution that is or is to be conducted in accordance with the tenets, beliefs, teachings, principles or practices of a particular religion.

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to a person who is enrolled as a student at the educational institution referred to in that subsection.

(3) Subsection (1) does not permit discrimination on any grounds referred to in section 16 other than those specified in that subsection.

(4) A person may, on a ground specified in subsection (1), discriminate against another person in relation to the admission of the other person as a student to an educational institution, if the educational institution’s policy for the admission of students demonstrates that the criteria for admission relates to the religious belief or affiliation, or religious activity, of the other person, the other person’s parents or the other person’s grandparents.”

Section 52. “Participation in religious observance

A person may discriminate against another person on the ground of religious belief or religious activity in relation to-

(a) the ordination or appointment of a priest; or

(b) the training and education of any person seeking ordination or appointment as a priest; or

(c) the selection or appointment of a person to participate in any religious observance or practice; or

(d) any other act that-

(i) is carried out in accordance with the doctrine of a particular religion; and

(ii) is necessary to avoid offending the religious sensitivities of any person of that religion.”

At first glance these exceptions appear extensive in their application. However, the most important point to observe is that discrimination by religious bodies, including religious schools, is only allowed on the basis of the person being discriminated against’s religion – for example, a christian school offering preferential enrolment to students that are christian.

It specifically does not allow discrimination on the basis of other attributes, such as the person being discriminated against’s sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex variations of sex characteristics.

In this way, the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 is clearly superior to other state and territory LGBTI discrimination laws, as well as the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (which not only provides a general religious exception allowing discrimination against LGBT people in a wide range of circumstances, but also a specific one with respect to religious schools that permits discrimination against LGBT students and teachers). It is therefore pleasing that the ACT Government embraced the Tasmanian approach in its recent reforms to protect LGBT students and teachers at religious schools – although it retains exceptions for health and other community services at this stage.

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Anti-Vilification Coverage

The anti-vilification protections afforded LGBTI Tasmanians under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 are also strong. There are actually two provisions that prohibit vilification under the Act:

Section 17 “Prohibition of certain conduct and sexual harassment

(1) A person must not engage in any conduct which offends, humiliates, insults or ridicules another person on the basis of an attribute referred to in section 16(e), (a), (b), (c), (d), (ea), (eb) and (k), (fa), (g), (h), (i) or (j) in circumstances in which a reasonable person, having regard to all the circumstances, would have anticipated that the other person would be offended, humiliated, intimidated, insulted or ridiculed…”

Section 19 “Inciting hatred

A person, by a public act, must not incite hatred towards, serious contempt for, or severe ridicule of, a person or a group of persons on the ground of-

(a) the race of the person or any member of the group; or

(b) any disability of the person or any member of the group; or

(c) the sexual orientation or lawful sexual activity of the person or any member of the group; or

(d) the religious belief or activity of the person or any member of the group; or

(e) the gender identity or intersex variations of sex characteristics of the person or any member of the group.”

The effect of these two provisions mean that LGBTI Tasmanians are protected both against conduct that offends, humiliates, insults or ridicules, as well as conduct that incites hatred, serious contempt or serious ridicule. This means Tasmania’s LGBTI anti-vilification provisions are the equal best in the country, alongside the ACT.

[Although it should be noted that, in its previous term, the Tasmanian Liberal Government attempted to undermine these anti-vilification protections. It sought to introduce amendments that would have permitted vilification for public acts done in good faith for ‘religious purposes’ (where “religious purpose includes, but is not limited to, conveying, teaching or proselytising a religious belief”). This would have inevitably resulted in increased vilification of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Tasmanians. Thankfully, while the Bill was passed by the Liberal-majority Legislative Assembly, it was rejected by the Independent-majority Legislative Council in August 2017.]

will-hodgman

Former Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman sought to undermine LGBTI anti-vilification protections.

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Overall, it is clear that Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 is the best LGBTI anti-discrimination law in Australia. It has set the standard to which all other jurisdictions should aspire.

If you have enjoyed reading this article, please consider subscribing to receive future posts, via the right-hand scroll bar on the desktop version of this blog or near the bottom of the page on mobile. You can also follow me on twitter @alawriedejesus

Submission re Tasmania’s Proposed Anti-Discrimination Amendment Bill 2016

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Update 19 January 2017:

Unfortunately, the Tasmanian Government has pushed ahead with its flawed legislation to allow greater rights to vilify LGBTI people, and especially vilification by religious organisations.

The Anti-Discrimination Amendment Bill 2016 – full text here – was passed by the Legislative Assembly on 25 October 2016.

This includes an expansion of the ‘public purpose’ defence for vilification, to cover “a public act done in good faith for… religious purposes” where religious purpose is defined as “includes, but is not limited to, conveying, teaching or proselytising a religious belief.”

Disappointingly, the Legislative Council failed to refer the Bill to an inquiry, although the Government ran out of time for the Bill to be passed in 2016 – the Attorney-General, Vanessa Goodwin, stated that:

“Due to our heavy legislative agenda and given the proximity to the end of the parliamentary year, the Government does not intend to bring the bill on for debate until next year. This will allow further time for community debate and stakeholder feedback to MLCs on this important issue.”

With Tasmanian Parliament resuming on March 7, that means there’s now less than 7 weeks left to convince upper house MPs not to undermine what has been, until now, Australia’s best anti-discrimination scheme.

Original Post:

Department of Justice

Office of Strategic Legislation and Policy

GPO Box 825

Hobart TAS 7001

c/ legislation.development@justice.tas.gov.au

Friday 9 September 2016

To whom it may concern

Submission re Proposed Anti-Discrimination Amendment Bill 2016

Thank you for the opportunity to provide a submission in relation to the Government’s proposed amendments to Tasmanian anti-vilification laws, which are included in the Anti-Discrimination Amendment Bill 2016 (‘the Bill’).

I make this submission as an advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) equality, and as someone who takes a keen interest in anti-discrimination and anti-vilification laws, both at the Commonwealth level, and in Australia’s states and territories.

My first comment in response to the proposed Bill is to observe that it appears to be a ‘solution’ in search of a problem.

As far as I can ascertain, there seem to be two main motivations for these reforms. The first is to satisfy the demands of the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), who have repeatedly requested that state and territory LGBTI anti-vilification laws (where they exist) be suspended, or even abolished, in the lead-up to the potential national plebiscite on marriage equality.

The obvious response to such a demand is that, if their arguments against the equal treatment of LGBTI people under secular law require them to breach anti-vilification laws, perhaps they need better arguments rather than worse laws.

The second motivation appears to be a recent case, involving Mr Julian Porteous, following the distribution of the Don’t Mess with Marriage booklet by the Tasmanian Catholic Church that stated same-sex parents “mess with kids”, and that same-sex partners are not “whole people”. Possibly the most salient point to note is that the complaint was subject to attempted conciliation, which did not result in it being resolved, but then did not even proceed to the Tribunal.

I would argue that these two motivations – to allow the ACL to contravene vilification standards during any forthcoming plebiscite debate, and to respond to a single case that did not even make it to the Tribunal – are not sufficient justification to propose reforms that would ‘water down’ the anti-vilification protections that are currently offered to LGBTI Tasmanians.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what this Bill attempts to do. By replacing the wording of section 55, and expanding the exceptions to the vilification protections offered under sections 17(1) and 19 of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 (‘the Act’), the Bill would effectively allow greater vilification of people on the grounds of sexual orientation, lawful sexual activity, gender identity and intersex (among other grounds).

In doing so, it would wind back hard-fought, and hard-won, protections introduced after the long-running decriminalisation campaign of the 1980s and 1990s. It is very hard to see, 18 years since its original passage, why there is a need to make anti-LGBTI hate speech easier in the contemporary environment.

I have two more-specific concerns about the proposed changes to section 55.

The first is to question why the exception, which would be expanded to include ‘public acts done reasonably and in good faith’ for a ‘religious’ purpose (where ‘religious purpose includes, but is not limited to, conveying, teaching or proselytising a religious belief’), should apply with respect to section 19[i], which establishes the more serious offence of ‘inciting hatred’ (whereas sub-section 17(1)[ii] regulates ‘conduct which offends, humiliates, intimidates, insults or ridicules’).

It is difficult to comprehend why the Act should be amended to make lawful the incitement of ‘hatred towards, serious contempt for, or severe ridicule of’ people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual (noting that section 19 currently does not offer protection to transgender or intersex people) merely because it is done for a ‘religious purpose’.

According to advocate Rodney Croome “Worst of all is the Government’s decision to erode hate speech protections even more than people like Julian Porteous want. He has called for the law against denigrating statements to be watered down, but has said the law against the more severe crime of incitement to hatred [ie section 19] should be kept intact.”[iii]

It seems this particular ‘solution’ isn’t just in search of a problem, it is lacking beneficiaries too (although it is clear who the losers will be from such an amendment: lesbian, gay and bisexual Tasmanians).

My second concern is to question the limits of the proposed exception for vilification for ‘religious purposes’, with respect to both sections 17(1) and 19. In particular, and noting it will be challenging for the Tribunal, or courts more broadly, to determine when a public act for a ‘religious purpose’ is ‘done reasonably and in good faith’ or not, how far will religious individuals or groups be allowed to go in ‘proselytising’ a religious belief that itself incites hatred?

An example of such a belief would be for an extremist christian organisation to promote a ‘literal’ reading of Leviticus 20:13, which has been interpreted as “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them”[iv].

And, before it is suggested that this example is implausible, we should recall that it is only four years since a senior figure within the Salvation Army publicly defended this belief – that gay people should be put to death – live on radio[v].

Given this, how would the proposed amended law deal with a situation where, instead of distributing the booklet Don’t Mess with Marriage, a religious school sent children home with a pamphlet entitled Gay Men Should Die (or perhaps slightly more generously, Gay Men Should Die Unless they are Celibate) conveying the ‘religious belief’ that men who have same-sex sexual intercourse ‘shall surely be put to death’?

It is reasonably clear such a pamphlet would ‘offend, humiliate, intimidate, insult or ridicule’, as well as likely inciting ‘hatred, serious contempt for or severe ridicule’ of, people on the basis of both sexual orientation and lawful sexual activity, and in doing so contravene both sections 17(1) and 19 of the Act.

But it is also possible the proposed new section 55 would ‘excuse’ these actions because it would be a public act done in ‘good faith for a religious purpose’, as it was ‘conveying, teaching or proselytising a religious belief’, no matter how offensive it is, to young people at a school operated by that organisation[vi].

I would argue that this would be an unacceptable outcome, and hope that the legislative sponsors of these amendments, and indeed anyone pushing for changes to Tasmania’s vilification laws, would agree.

It is particularly concerning that such an undesirable result could be achieved given we have seen above that there doesn’t actually appear to be any justification for the introduction of this Bill.

More generally, as someone from outside the State I would argue that the undermining of Tasmania’s anti-vilification regime, which is currently among the best, if not the best, law in the country, in this way would be a negative precedent for other jurisdictions.

This is especially important given only four states and territories currently have any anti-vilification protections for any sections of the LGBTI community (Tasmania, Queensland, NSW and the ACT). Nor do such laws exist federally. Even where they do exist, such as in NSW, they have significant flaws (for example, only protecting lesbians, gay men and some transgender people from vilification, and not protecting bisexuals or intersex people at all).

In my view, the Tasmanian Government should be concentrating on ensuring its anti-vilification laws are comprehensive (such as by amending section 19 to prohibit the incitement of hatred, serious contempt for or severe ridicule of transgender and intersex people) and effective, instead of making it easier for people to vilify others because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status.

Thank you again for the opportunity to make this submission and for taking it into consideration. Should you require clarification, or additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me at the details provided below.

Sincerely,

Alastair Lawrie

Footnotes:

[i] “19. Inciting hatred

A person, by a public act, must not incite hatred towards, serious contempt for, or severe ridicule of, a person or a group of persons on the ground of –

  • the race of the person or any member of the group; or
  • any disability of the person or any member of the group; or
  • the sexual orientation or lawful sexual activity of the person or any member of the group; or
  • the religious belief or affiliation or religious activity of the person or any ember of the group.”

[ii] “17. Prohibition of certain conduct and sexual harassment

(1) A person must not engage in any conduct which offends, humiliates, intimidates, insults or ridicules abother person on the basis of an attribute referred to in section 16(e), (a), (b), (c), (d), (ea), (eb) and (k), (f), (fa), (g), (h), (i) or (j) in circumstances in which a reasonable person, having regard to all the circumstances would have anticipated that the other person would be offended, humiliated, intimidated, insulted or ridiculed.”

NB This covers sexual orientation (16(c)), lawful sexual activity (d), gender identity (ea) and intersex (eb).

[iii] The Mercury, Talking Point: Green light being given to homophobia and any bigot with a bible’, 31 August 2016. http://www.themercury.com.au/news/opinion/talking-point-green-light-being-given-to-homophobia/news-story/00ffb213c903540b1febfdb94dbef243

[iv] Of course, such a position would overlook the inherent contradictions of adopting a ‘literal’ interpretation of some sections of the bible, while rejecting literal readings of others, a double standard which has been perfectly encapsulated by the now famous ‘Letter to Dr Laura’ (responding to a US radio host’s bible-based description of homosexuality as an ‘abomination’):

dear-dr-laura

[v] Huffington Post, Andrew Craibe, Salvation Army Official, Implies Gays Should be Put to Death in Interview, 26 June 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/26/andrew-craibe-salvation-army-official-gays-put-to-death_n_1628135.html

Joy 94.9FM presenter Serena Ryan: According to the Salvation Army, [gay people] deserve death. How do you respond to that, as part of your doctrine?

Craibe: Well, that’s a part of our belief system.

Ryan: So we should die.

Craibe: You know, we have an alignment to the Scriptures, but that’s our belief.

[vi] The only question is whether the public act was ‘done reasonably’, although I would suggest there is a risk at least some Tribunal members or judges may view the promotion of any religious belief, no matter how offensive, to be reasonable provided that belief was sincerely held.