Israel Folau saga heading for Shakespearean ending

There have been a lot of comments around the rugby fraternity of late condemning Israel Folau.

Israel Folau plans to fight for his career.

They still speak about it at old boys’ gatherings, of the time a student at my old school was almost expelled because he refused to accept the religion prize he had won.

Everyone put it down to the fact that it was not “cool” to win the religion prize — and I still believe that was the case — but over time I’ve come to see there could have been other explanations. Perhaps the boy was coming to terms with what significance religion had or didn’t have in his life and, while he might have written an insightful essay on the subject, maybe he felt a hypocrite for being honoured for something he didn’t believe in.

That was my first experience with how tricky and personal the subject of religion can be and how each person saw it through his or her own eyes. That’s not to say we don’t congregate to celebrate our beliefs but, ultimately in my mind, this is a journey everyone must make on their own.

Israel Folau has a slightly different philosophy. As he has put it in the past, if he saw someone walking towards an open manhole cover, isn’t it the right thing to yell a warning to them? Some people are grateful for the alert, some are resentful and some curiously insist they had seen it all along and enjoyed the thrill of avoiding it at the last second.

There have been a lot of comments around the rugby fraternity of late condemning Folau. Even his former teammates have turned on him. Will Genia has described him as a “lovely, humble guy” but then was scathing of the fact that he has been “spreading hate”. Drew Mitchell has taken a more forensic approach, pointing out the inconsistencies in Folau’s behaviour. Folau, in his own words, had told the media after he spoke with Rugby Australia’s Raelene Castle that if his position in rugby became untenable, he would walk away from his contract immediately. “I hate to think that Izzy is a liar because we know what happens to them,” said Mitchell, in a pointed reference to the various sinners who were bound for Hell unless they repented.

It may well be that it is all much simpler than that. When Folau sat down with Castle, when he sat down with Wallabies coach Michael Cheika and told them he would never embarrass the game again by posting his religious views on social media, I believe he was totally genuine. It may well be that Folau is such a “lovely, humble guy” that he is swayed by whoever is sitting across the table from him. In April last year, there were rugby officials. In April this year, who knows?

Now this has all entered the realm of lawyers, which means anything could happen. As airtight as Rugby Australia’s apparent case might be, it was fascinating to see how easily former NSW Supreme Court judge and ICAC assistant commissioner Anthony Whealy was able to prise the lid off it in a newspaper commentary earlier this week.

Was Folau in breach of his employment contract? Whealy’s response: “It seems likely there is no specific provision in his contract prohibiting him from expressing publicly his religious convictions.” This has been my argument all along and, following The Daily Telegraph’s discovery that Rugby Australia attempted to have it inserted retrospectively in his contract, it looms as doubly important. Ask yourself this: why, if a standard players’ contract was sufficient to ensure Folau did not post anything offensive on social media, did Rugby Australia make a last-minute attempt to change the contract?

Whealy poses the question of whether the comments Folau made about homosexuals were in fact homophobic. Did he make the comments not out of hate, as Genia maintains, but out of love for them? He doesn’t want them burning in Hell. This implies, of course, that Folau assumes homosexuals are capable of changing their sexuality, just the way black people can convert to white whenever it suits them.

It’s for this reason, incidentally, that the media targeted “homosexuals” in his list, rather than all the fornicators, adulterers, liars and thieves. All those other categories of sinners would, presumably, have exercised free will. But can the same be said of homosexuals?

Reading Whealy also raises another question. It is understood and appreciated why Rugby Australia was convinced that Folau needed to be stopped, primarily for the damage his comments have caused to the gays and lesbians they have on staff. But part of their reasoning surely had to be the need to shore up the support of their sponsors.

The board of Rugby Australia would have been derelict in its duty to protect the code if it did not take into account what harm would flow from the loss of support from the like of Qantas and, even more, an international firm like HSBC. Yet as countless commentators have noted, there is also a fair degree of hypocrisy in Qantas’ own business dealings where homosexuality is concerned.

Like a Shakespearean tragedy, this is winding its way its way towards a gruesome and inevitable end. Who will be left standing to deliver the epilogue, one wonders.

One never displays weakness before a battle but it concerns me that Rugby Australia is pumping itself up, convinced that this issue has galvanised the rugby community behind them.

That might be true in the circles in which the directors move, where employment contract disputes are almost a weekly occurrence. But there is now an entirely different section of society from which rugby draws much of its strength and vitality — the Polynesian community. In the Victorian community, for example, six players out of 10 come directly from the Pacific Islands or are one generation removed. They are a God-fearing people and, make no mistake, Folau is their hero.

Given that the Waratahs had the bye last weekend, this will be the first week in which Folau is actually missing on the rugby pitch, the first week of the rest of our lives — and his. He won’t be coming back to rugby, not in Australia at least. All the courts will determine is whether Rugby Australia has the right to terminate him and deny him the remainder of his $4 million contract.

Rugby Australia officials are mystified and angry, much like the teachers did at my old school, when that student walked away from what was his. Perhaps that is understandable. But in Folau’s mind, maybe he has just found another prize he considers more valuable.