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COVID restrictions on NSW churches

There are a number of restrictions on church activities in NSW at the moment under rules introduced to manage the current outbreak of cases in Sydney. In this post I will try to briefly summarise what I think is the best interpretation of the rules. These rules are generally in place until midnight Friday 9 July. Keeping up with the various version of the Public Health Orders is not easy. The two main ones at the moment are the Public Health (COVID-19 Temporary Movement and Gathering Restrictions) Order 2021 (No 282 of 2021) (“the TMGR Order”) and the Public Health (COVID-19 Mandatory Face Coverings) Order (No 3) 2021 (No 279 of 2021) (“the Face Coverings Order”).

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Fined for declining to make a “transgender cake”

A Colorado District Court has handed down a decision imposing a penalty on a cake-maker for declining to provide a cake designed to celebrate a “gender transition”, in Scardina v Masterpiece Cakeshop Inc (Denver District Ct, Co; 19CV32214, 15 June 2021). If the name of the shop sounds familiar, it will be to those interested in “law and religion” issues in recent years. Jack Phillips and his Masterpiece Cakes business were previously sued, all the way to the US Supreme Court, because he had declined to make a cake designed to celebrate a same-sex wedding (for my comment on the Supreme Court decision, see “Colorado Wedding Cake Baker wins before US Supreme Court” (June 5, 2018). Sadly it seems that Mr Phillips will need to appeal this latest decision as well.

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Belief that sex is immutable can be a protected belief

The view that biological sex is immutable and that a man cannot become a woman is, of course, controversial today. But in a very welcome decision, the UK Employment Appeal Tribunal in Forstater v CGD Europe [2021] UKEAT 0105_20_1006 (10 June 2021) has now overturned a previous single judge decision, and ruled that such a belief is “worthy of protection” as a “philosophical belief” under UK discrimination law. The decision, while not based on religious belief, will have important implications for protection of religious freedom in the UK, and hopefully in other parts of the world as well.

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Can employees be ordered to support controversial views in email signatures?

This question has been raised by a report that a Victorian council has required its employees to add a graphic to their email addresses featuring a “rainbow flag”. One employee is reported as saying:

the rainbow flag can look like moral support for identity politics or sexualities prohibited by many religions in this multicultural area

This is an important issue which will present challenges to employees of organisations which are determined to make political statements on various causes. To what extent can an employee in such an organisation decline to provide their own support for the stance taken by their employer, where the “core business” of the organisation is not involved? In this post I want to consider religious freedom protections that might apply in the reported circumstances.

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Religious freedom and knives in school

A debate over the extent of religious freedom laws has arisen in NSW after an incident at a school where one student was stabbed by another, who was wielding a “kirpan”, a religious symbol in the form of a dagger worn by Sikhs. Politicians have expressed surprise that knives are allowed at schools at all, and there has been an announcement on Tuesday 18 May that from Wednesday 19 May there will be a ban implemented. It seems worthwhile to discuss the legal issues.

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Religious Freedom Weekend June 11-13, 2021

Let me commend this event, the “Religious Freedom weekend” to be celebrated over June 11-13, 2021; details available at this website: https://www.religiousfreedomweekend.com.au . The weekend is being sponsored by Freedom for Faith, a legal think-tank supporting religious freedom in Australia which I am proud to be associated with. This is not a conference, but simply a weekend where we are encouraging believers all over Australia, and those who just support the important human right of religious freedom, to celebrate religious freedom and consider what they can do to support this right.

There is a Resource Pack outlining some current challenges, with some suggestions for prayer for churches and other religious groups. There is a call which can be sent to Members of Parliament to support proposals to protect religious freedom, especially through laws prohibiting religious discrimination. Church leaders can also email for further resources.

I think this is a great resource and encourage all those who read this blog to support it and share it with others!

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NSW Parliamentary report supports religious discrimination law

The recently released NSW Parliamentary Report of the Joint Select Committee on the Anti-Discrimination Amendment (Religious Freedoms and Equality) Bill 2020 (handed down on 31 March 2021) has recommended that the NSW government introduce amendments to make it unlawful in NSW to discriminate on irrelevant grounds relating to religious belief or activity. The proposals supported by the Committee are a good idea and I think their recommendations (with a couple of minor reservations noted below) should be implemented.

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Updated NSW rules for churches

A new Public Health Order will apply from the beginning of Monday 29 March 2021 to churches in NSW: the Public Health (COVID-19 Gathering Restrictions) Order 2021. One of the biggest changes is that there will no longer be restrictions on singing in services (hooray!) There was actually a temporary exemption in place over the weekend of 27-28 March to allow this to happen a bit early. But this new CGR Order will now operate on a long-term basis. In this post I will just summarise the provisions affecting churches, and where they can be found in the new Order.

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Collision of laws: the impact of Commonwealth law on the Victorian CSP law

The Victorian  Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Bill 2020 (Vic) (which I will call the “CSP” law for short) passed the Upper House on 4 Feb, 2021. As I write it seems not to have yet received the Royal Assent and become an “Act” but that will no doubt happen soon. The government has signalled that the legislation will not come into operation for another 12 months (see the final sentence in this article.)

My previous posts (see here for the most recent) have expressed grave concerns about the effect of the law on religious freedom and specifically on the freedom of parents and others to encourage children to live in accordance with Biblical standards of sexual behaviour. It is astonishing that the Bill was rushed through Parliament in the face of concerns also being expressed by the Law Institute of Victoria, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP). (See this excellent post from Murray Campbell noting these issues.) 

There are, it seems, very few legal avenues available to challenge the many problems created by this law. But in this post I want to suggest one which may be available- where the CSP Law purports to take away rights of religious freedom granted by the Commonwealth Parliament.

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Child Safety and Religious Freedom

The NSW Government is currently inviting comment on draft legislation entitled the Children’s Guardian Amendment (Child Safe Scheme) Bill 2020. The legislation has been drawn up in response to the work of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and as well as governing “secular” agencies caring for children, it will mandate a new scheme for child protection covering “religious bodies” (see cl 8AA definition of “child safe organisation”, para (c)). The Bill is generally a good idea, but I want to suggest one amendment which will be needed for it to properly protect religious freedom.

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