Anti-discrimination laws would ‘stop religious schools sacking staff for adultery’

Church groups blast the Queensland draft bill, which would ban religious schools from sacking a teacher or expelling a student who converts to Islam.

Religious schools are concerned about changes to Queensland’s anti-discrimination laws.

An “Orwellian’’ law to stop religious schools sacking gay or adulterous teachers or expelling transgender students has been attacked by church groups.

The Australian Christian Lobby blasted the Queensland government’s “draconian’’ draft anti-discrimination bill, which would ban Jewish or Christian schools from sacking any teacher or expelling any student who converts to Islam.

“This bill reads like an addendum to Orwell’s novel, 1984,’’ ACL Queensland director Rob Norman said on Monday.

“If tabled and passed, religious schools will be required to surrender some of their deepest-held theological views and values and be subjected to the invasive oversight of the Department of Justice and the Attorney-General.

“State-controlled religion has, until now, been the domain of the old Soviet Union or China.’’

Anti-discrimination lawyer Mark Fowler warned Queensland’s proposal would “legislate the most restrictive regime for religious institutions in Australia”.

“It would prevent a church from disciplining a bishop or imam who engaged in extramarital affairs, whether heterosexual or homosexual, or even where they engaged in prostitution,” he said.

Dr Fowler, an adjunct associate professor at the universities of Notre Dame and New England, said the bill would “vastly increase complexity and uncertainty for religious institutions’’.

Adjunct Associate Professor Mark Fowler, of the Notre Dame Law School, says a religious school would not be able to sack a staff member for adultery. Photo: Supplied

The draft bill, based Queensland Human Rights Commission recommendations, would close some loopholes that let religious schools discriminate against students and staff on the grounds of religion, sex or marital status.

It singles out science teachers as a group who could not be discriminated against on religious grounds, given religious instruction is not part of that job.

Schools will still be allowed to discriminate on the grounds of religion, but only when hiring staff “if the teaching, observance or practice of a religion is a genuine occupational requirement’’.

“However, discrimination based on other protected attributes such as sexual orientation or relationship status will not be permitted in any employment decisions,’’ the Department of Justice and Attorney-General states in its consultation paper.

“The QHRC concluded that it is necessary to limit religious freedom in this way to uphold the privacy and non-discrimination rights of staff in religious bodies.’’

The bill spells out that schools can discriminate against students on the grounds of religion and sex when they enrol. But if a student changes sex or religion, a school would not be able to expel them.

Under the proposed changes, it would be illegal for a Jewish school to expel a student who converts to Islam, for a Muslim school to expel an existing student who is homosexual, or for a Catholic girls school to expel a transgender student who transitions to a boy.

The consultation paper states a religious school will still be allowed to refuse to enrol a student who has a different religion.

It says single-sex schools “will be able to discriminate on the basis of a person’s sex when a student seeks to enrol at that school’’.

Schools would still be able to discriminate on any grounds to hire and fire priests, ministers of religion and lay people whose role is to “propagate the doctrines, tenets or beliefs of the religion’’ – such as religious instruction teachers.

Queensland’s Labor government drafted the bill in the wake of a public furore in 2022 when Citipointe Christian College in Brisbane tried to force parents to sign an enrolment contract accepting their children must behave “on the basis of the individual’s biological sex’’, and describing homosexuality as “immoral and offensive to God’’.