Religion’s right to offend? ‘The language of hate has no place in schools’
When trans student Emmey Leo asked to wear an evening gown instead of a suit to a school formal last year, the request lit a fuse that’s blown up debate over the religious discrimination bill.
When transgender student Emmey Leo asked to wear an evening gown instead of a suit to a school formal last year, the request lit the fuse that ignited debate over the Morrison government’s planned religious discrimination bill this week.
The newly graduated senior student from Citipointe Christian College, a Pentecostal college in suburban Brisbane, had hoped to wear a long red satin dress to the end-of-year formal.
“They told me that I would be ruining everyone else’s night by showing up in a dress,’’ Leo told The Project on the Ten Network this week.
After the school formal showdown, Citipointe Christian College sought legal advice and changed its 2022 enrolment contract, requiring students to “identify as their birth gender” and threatening to expel “sinful” transgender children.
“I do believe that I may have been a catalyst in pushing that forward, just because I spoke out against the school,” Leo said. “They wanted to prevent anyone like me from doing anything like that ever again.”
As Scott Morrison tries to push his religious discrimination bill through federal parliament next week, the outcry over Citipointe’s enrolment contract has shone a public spotlight on the rights of church-run schools to teach traditional religious dogma that some Australians might find hateful, hurtful or discriminatory.
One in three Australian children attends a religious school, often because the parents prefer the well-funded facilities, peer groups, teaching standards and academic achievements rather than for religious reasons.
Citipointe’s contentious contract – withdrawn after three days of public backlash including a petition signed by 150,000 objectors – warned parents that children could be expelled if they were lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex. In a statement that shocked the Prime Minister, the 16-page document likens homosexuality to pedophilia, incest and bestiality.
“God created human beings as male and female … we believe any form of sexual immorality (including but not limited to adultery, fornication, homosexual acts, bisexual acts, bestiality, incest, paedophilia and pornography) is sinful and offensive to God and is destructive to human relationships and society,” the contract states.
“… I/we agree that, where distinctions are made between male and female … such distinctions will be applied on the basis of the individual’s biological sex.
“The Parents acknowledge and accept that, should I/we not share the college’s commitment to fostering these fundamental doctrinal precepts, this will constitute a serious departure from the religious precepts upon which Citipointe Christian College is based and will afford (it) the right to exclude a student from the College who no longer adheres to the College’s doctrinal precepts including those as to biological sex.”
The wording of the contract brought Queensland Education Minister Grace Grace, whose only child is intersex, close to tears in a press conference. “As a parent of a non-binary child, that situation is very distressing,” she said. “The ‘values’ laid out in this document don’t seem very Christian to me.”
Grace referred the matter to the Non-State Schools Accreditation Board, prompting the college to withdraw the contract on Thursday, before the board met to consider the minister’s concerns that it might have discriminated and failed to provide a safe and supportive environment to all students.
As the public outcry escalated, Morrison pledged to abolish an exemption in the federal Sex Discrimination Act that lets schools legally discriminate against gay or transgender staff and students.
“My kids go to a Christian school here in Sydney, and I wouldn’t want my school doing that either,” he said of the Citipointe contract. “The bill that we’re going to be taking through the parliament, we will have an amendment which will deal with that to ensure kids cannot be discriminated against on that basis.”
The legality of discriminating against transgender school students is confusing because the federal Sex Discrimination Act contains an exemption to let “religious bodies” discriminate against people in certain circumstances on the basis of sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. This legal loophole lets schools make it a condition of employment that teachers practise their faith and follow their teachings. But church groups want the government to give them even greater safeguards to preach religious dogma without fear of legal retribution.
The Anglican Church Diocese of Sydney, in a submission to a Senate inquiry into the bill last month, defended a list of eye-opening statements proffered by Equality Australia as examples of “offensive and harmful” religious beliefs.
“Menstruating women are unclean. Homosexuality is a sin. Disability is caused by the devil. Every child should have a mother and a father who are married. God made only men and women. HIV is punishment from God. People who don’t believe in Jesus can’t get into heaven,” the church said in its submission.
“While certainly not endorsing every statement on this list as a statement of Anglican or Christian beliefs, the point remains that for some religious faiths, these are or could be genuinely held religious beliefs.
“As a nation, will we embrace the religious diversity that comes with our multicultural diversity, and allow people of faith to express genuinely held beliefs such as these, provided (they) do so in a moderate and respectful way, or will we shut down religious speech on the basis that some declare it to be offensive?”
Morrison had hoped to introduce his bill into federal parliament next week and then give the Australian Law Reform Commission another year to consider changes to the federal Sex Discrimination Act to protect LGBTI+ children.
On Friday federal Assistant Minister to the Attorney-General Amanda Stoker refused to commit to closing the sex discrimination loophole before the looming federal election.
“I know the Prime Minister is keen to do this quickly,” she told ABC radio. “We’re looking at the mechanics … we’re not going to compromise to get the policy right.”
Stoker said the government was “prepared to legislate to ensure that no gay child faces expulsion on the basis of their sexuality”.
“We’ve got to do the right thing by these kids but we also acknowledge the fact that religious schools are the education choice for thousands of Australian families,” she said. “They have the right to exercise their genuinely held religious beliefs, even if it might offend some others in our community.”
Provocatively, Stoker questioned why parents with transgender children would choose to send them to a religious school. “I agree that a trans kid is facing a whole lot of social and personal challenges and they need support,” she said. “I also think … there are lots of schools that will support and encourage and give that child what they need. The real question is do you really want to as a parent send your trans kids to a school that has really very traditional, and disclosed upfront, beliefs on this subject? This is a matter for parental choice and it’s a matter of parents doing the right thing by their kids.”
Indeed, several Citipointe parents were so horrified by the enrolment contract that they cancelled their kids’ enrolments – including English teacher Helen Clapham Burns, who also quit her teaching job at the college on Monday in protest. “As an educator, my priority is to make sure that each child that I interact with feels safe, but when a child tells us, with tears in their eyes, that they don’t feel safe, what are we doing?” she said. “It’s tough enough being a teenager as it is without thinking you are going to hell.”
Rainbow Families co-chair Kylie Gwyne says all students should feel safe and accepted no matter what school they attend. “The bigoted statements in that contract – children take it personally, it’s incredibly damaging,” she says. “It’s the language of hate that has no place in our schools. While ever these schools accept public money to educate children, the language and behaviour of exclusion and hate is unacceptable.”
Australian Christian Lobby spokeswoman Wendy Francis wants the bill to safeguard religious schools’ right to teach their beliefs. “People have a right to freedom of speech and to say what they want, and that is religious people’s right as well,” she says.
The government’s draft bill makes it unlawful for a school to discriminate against staff or students on the grounds of their religious belief or activity. This includes refusing enrolment, setting discriminatory terms of enrolment or expelling a student.
However, a clause in the draft bill states “it is not discrimination for a religious primary school to require all of its staff and students to practise that religion, if such a requirement is necessary to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of people of that religion”.
“A religious body does not discriminate against a person under this act by engaging, in good faith, in conduct that a person of the same religion as the religious body could reasonably consider to be in accordance with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teachings of that religion,” it states.
A Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry into the bill on Friday concluded it was essential for religious schools to “maintain the religious ethos of their school”, and for parents to ensure the “religious and moral education of their children”. It stated that the draft bill would override state and territory discrimination laws, but not the federal Sex Discrimination Act.
The Australian Human Rights Commission refused to comment on the legalities of the contract under federal legislation. But Queensland’s Human Rights Commission warned that, under state legislation, schools could not discriminate against currently enrolled students on the grounds of sexuality or gender identity. “A school policy that requires a trans or gender-diverse young person to be treated as their sex assigned at birth, or that requires a young person to hide or deny their sexuality, is likely to amount to unlawful discrimination,” it stated.
Citipointe College principal Brian Mulheran apologised on Thursday, telling parents “we deeply regret that some students feel that they would be discriminated against because of their sexuality or gender identity, and I apologise to them and their families on behalf of the college”.
Pastor Mulheran stood aside on Friday to give the school “time to heal”, as reports emerged that teachers had been told to pray for the passage of the Religious Discrimination Bill.
He told parents that he was “heartbroken and devastated” by the public furore, which had caused students and staff “a great deal of hurt and distress”.
“Our intention was only to offer families a choice about how their children were educated, and to be open and transparent about our religious ethos that guides the way we teach and care for students,’’ he stated in a letter sent to parents on Friday.
“I have been devastated talking to our students who have suffered hurtful and hate-filled verbal assaults simply because of their beliefs or for attending the college.
“I feel it is right for me to stand aside and take extended leave in order to reflect on what has transpired and provide the college community time to heal,’’ he said.
The apology came 15 years too late for former student Jared Mifsud, who recalls how the school made him feel ashamed of his homosexuality in the 2000s. “When you’re 14 or 15 and starting to understand your sexuality and gender, religious institutions are literally putting the fear of God into you, so you feel like you can’t talk to anyone about it, not even your parents,’’ he says. “I’ve been contacted by people who are 50 or 60 years old who went to religious schools and have such deep-seated trauma they’ve repressed and held onto. But this young generation has such a fire in its belly to see change.’’
Pastor Mulheran stood aside on Friday to give the school “time to heal”, as reports emerged that teachers had been told to pray for the passage of the Religious Discrimination Bill.
He told parents that he was “heartbroken and devastated” by the public furore, which had caused students and staff :a great deal of hurt and distress”.
“Our intention was only to offer families a choice about how their children were educated, and to be open and transparent about our religious ethos that guides the way we teach and care for students,’’ he stated in a letter sent to parents on Friday.
“I have been devastated talking to our students who have suffered hurtful and hate-filled verbal assaults simply because of their beliefs or for attending the college.
“I feel it is right for me to stand aside and take extended leave in order to reflect on what has transpired and provide the college community time to heal’’.
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