LGBTI Australians must prepare for a long battle against the erosion of our rights
It seems increasingly likely is that LGBTI legal rights will be rolled back or capped under proposed religious freedom laws, writes advocate Rodney Croome.
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I understand why LGBTI people say they鈥檙e tired of the Israel Folau controversy.
But we have to face the stark reality that the movement to weaken Australia鈥檚 LGBTI legal rights under cover of religious freedom is not going away.
After Folau, there will be many more martyrs of the month complaining that their 鈥渇reedom鈥� to treat LGBTI people badly is being curtailed.
Worse still, there will be many laws, proposed and possibly passed, to protect that 鈥渇reedom鈥�.
In response, the LGBTI community and our allies must prepare for a long campaign to protect and enhance our legal rights in the face of attacks from the 鈥渞eligious freedom鈥� movement.
I believe we鈥檙e in for a long battle because conservative Christians are becoming more fearful that LGBTI people want to take their rights away, not less.
They are being whipped into a moral panic by religious and political leaders whose cultural, political and financial power depends on fear.
In neither the US nor Australia has the moral panic created by the 鈥渞eligious freedom鈥� movement reached its peak.
Right-wing religious and political leaders believe there is still much for them to gain from directing panic and fear at LGBTI people and our rights.
There is nothing LGBTI people can do to avoid, sate or appease this ravenous monster. We can only challenge it.
Under the current federal government there is an immediate threat we must rise to.
Many of its members are committed to rolling back LGBTI discrimination and hate speech protections, as well as laws recognising and protecting transgender and gender diverse folk.
Just as bad, Labor is inching away from its support for the LGBTI community, and towards support for 鈥渞eligious freedom鈥�.
What seems increasingly likely is that LGBTI legal rights will be rolled back, and/or capped, with the enactment of some kind of loosely-worded 鈥渞ight to religious freedom鈥� law.
It feels to me like a repeat of the 2004 Howard same-sex marriage ban where an aggressive Liberal Government entrenched the second-class status of LGBTI people and a weak, ill-prepared Labor opposition fell into line.
And like 2004, the ramifications for the LGBTI community won鈥檛 be limited to one bad statute.
A positive right to 鈥渞eligious freedom鈥� will give every would-be religious 鈥渕artyr鈥� a stepping stone to the High Court, allowing them to slice away at our protections for years to come.
Amending a 鈥渞eligious freedom鈥� law so it is no longer a sword against us would also take many years.
In the meantime, an empowered religious right will stamp on the LGBTI community ever more brutally.
The worst news of all is that, even if the current push for some kind of 鈥渞eligious freedom鈥� law fails this time around, the movement behind it will try again and again, at a state and federal level.
So what must we be doing?
In the short term, we must contact our local MPs asking them not to support any law that weakens the legal rights of LGBTI people.
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At the very least we need Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, and the Senate cross-bench to publicly commit that LGBTI legal rights will not be weakened.
But in the long-term there is much more to do.
There must be a national community campaign dedicated to enhancing LGBTI discrimination protections and challenging the 鈥渞eligious freedom鈥� movement.
This campaign must be willing to do just that: campaign.
It must put a priority on community education; large, visible actions; personal story-telling; informing and empowering people of faith; community lobbying of politicians; and reaching out to other groups disadvantaged by 鈥渞eligious freedom鈥�.
It must engage in the same campaign activity that successfully disarmed the movement against same-sex marriage from 2004 to 2011, and then went on to win majority support for marriage equality in the general population and in parliament.
It must be a new Australian Marriage Equality with all the skill, flexibility, creativity and community spirit of the early marriage equality campaign.
I鈥檓 not saying we should abandon all the other important reforms facing the LGBTI community.
I鈥檓 saying we need to focus on and overcome this new, great threat, just as we focused on and overcame the great threat that was the movement against marriage equality, or before that, the movement against decriminalising homosexuality.
I know all this is hard to hear. After so many trials and sacrifices, after so much educating and rallying, surely we鈥檙e almost there?
Yes, there have been great gains. But the backlash against those gains is growing every day.
If we ignore the backlash, we will bequeath a more prejudiced and discriminatory nation to those who come after us.
What all people seeking religious exemption tend to forget is that their faith precludes their right to judge. And worse, it does so above anything else. This should be pointed out to them at every turn. They cannot change a law or post a homophobic comment or kick a gay when he鈥檚 down without passing such judgement. That then immediately disentitled them to freedom of faith, for they breech it themselves.
This is a good argument and I don’t disagree with Rodney Croome at all. However, despite being a campaigner for LGBTQI rights for over 40 years (I designed the “Outrageous Gay Mardi Gras” poster in 1980) I do not intend to waste much time campaigning on this or any other cause except for Climate Emergency Mobilisation and to support the kids in School Strike 4 Climate and a general Extinction Rebellion.
Why? Not because I have stopped supporting equality, but because it won’t be a very long battle at all. If you study climate science and stats, you probably already agree with me that we will not avoid a level of extinction that will destroy most if not all, complex life on Earth in the very near term. On the way out, of course, large sections of our “civilisation” will target all minorities.
We need to focus, together with our friends of every age, gender, origin, ability and race for the envioronmental battle of our lives. The environmental protest movement already shines as a ground of equality, so lets move forward together. Simply leave the prating sycophants and haters behind as we storm the ramparts of the fossil fuel industry and its corrupted governments. We really have nothing to lose but the continuation of life on Earth.
Annette – with respect you are completely wrong. Protest all you like about Climate change in the appropriate forums – but as an old gay rights activist myself this is no time to abandon our ongoing cause. Once again, some people try to hijack or confuse the argument by hiving off into other realms. This kind of thing did our cause enormous damage in the eighties when some people tried to put add ons onto our cause for decriminalisation. Not all gay people are of the left, nor are they tree huggers or vego’s or anti nuclear! We are gay and that is where our argument and our demands for equality end and stop. Our cause is just and it is relevant and it is vitally important. Chase other rainbows if you wish – but be assured most of us will still be focussed on gay rights!
We are a democracy, we voted, we have the law passed to treat all people as equal.
That鈥檚 progress.
Religious & political fear mongers are so archaic.. let鈥檚 stick to the positive outcomes & move forward rather than backwards.
We are not dumb.
We all know 鈥楩olau鈥檚 Law鈥� would be most likely all about serving up the LGBTIQ community on a platter for religious abuse and hate 鈥� punishhment for Australia voting for marriage equality.
The Coalition is driving the bus towards us, but we don鈥檛 expect anything better from them.
However, Labor could be the ones throwing us under that bus if they end up supporting this absolute travesty, and while that is not entirely unexpected, if it does happen, it should put all illusions the LGBTIQ community ever had about Labor behind us …
And given the controversy involved in this proposal, shouldn鈥檛 we first have about two decades of debate about the appropriateness of these changes to the law, followed by a postal survey?!
I say, if your “religious freedom” includes the right to be a homophobic bigot, then you’ve got a problem. Whatever happened to “Love Thy Neighbour” (and no, I don’t mean the UK Comedy)? Bigotry is not an expression of freedom.