No gay sex, drink or divorce or you’ll be sacked, teachers told

Teachers in some Christian schools risk the sack if they get drunk, have sex outside marriage, are gay, or get a divorce, under ‘lifestyle clauses’ registered with the Fair Work Commission.

Sacked Christian school lecturer Karen Pack, at Parliament House in Canberra, says that ‘as a gay Christian woman, I can’t keep setting my faith and my sexuality against each other’. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Teachers in some Christian schools risk the sack if they get drunk, have sex outside marriage, are gay, or get a divorce, under “lifestyle clauses” registered with the Fair Work Commission.

As parliamentarians debate whether to close an anti-discrimination loophole allowing faith-based schools to hire and fire teachers based on gender, sexuality, marital status or pregnancy, The Australian can reveal that strict religious rules are cemented in workplace agreements for several Pentecostal schools.

Glasshouse Christian College, a Baptist Church school on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, has a “staff lifestyle requirement’’ stating that teachers must avoid sexual immorality, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, jealousy, fits of anger, drunkenness and orgies.

“Nothing in their deliberate conduct and/or lifestyle should be incompatible with the intrinsic character of their position as role models, especially but not only in the expression of human sexuality as defined in the Bible, namely through heterosexual, mono­gamous relationships intimately expressed through marriage,’’ it states. “Where any staff member acts contrary to these … requirements, the principal may attempt restoration, counsel, discipline or dismiss the staff member.’’

The college enterprise agreement states that “contemporary issues’’ that are not specifically ­addressed in the Bible, such as gender reassignment, “shall be interpreted using a conservative Christian framework’’.

Southern Vales Christian College in South Australia – which is run by the Harvest Australia Church – has terms and conditions of employment requiring staff to be “fervent in prayer’’ and “faith-filled’’.

“Our beliefs are such that we do not accept that homosexuality is appropriate,’’ it states.

“People who engage in homosexual practice will not be employed by this college.’’

Bethany Christian School, a Pentecostal primary school in Adelaide, has an enterprise agreement requiring teachers to “abstain from greed, lust, pornography, gluttony, drunkenness and banned substances’’.

It requires staff to “respect the sanctity of marriage and lifelong commitment rejecting divorce as an option to solving marriage difficulties except as allowed by the Bible, and ensure that sex occurs only within a monogamous marriage, and that we abstain from premarital sex, de facto marriage and homosexual relationships’’.

The Australian asked all three schools if any teachers had been dismissed or disciplined for breaching the workplace rules, but did not receive a response.

Independent Education Union federal secretary Brad Hayes said the Fair Work Commission had “waved through’’ the agreements despite objections from the union and school staff.

Former High Court judge ­Michael Kirby on Monday launched an Equality Australia report that states discrimination is rife in ­religious schools – despite the organisations being given millions of dollars in public funding.

Karen Pack, who was sacked as a lecturer after coming out as gay, said she had been told by her college to take six months leave to pray, break up with her partner and live a life of celibacy.

“When I didn’t break up with Bronte, I was fired,’’ she said.