In Australia, issues such as same-sex marriage and enhanced laws against gay discrimination have thrown into the spotlight the special exemptions from such legislation given to religious schools, and that has ensured that freedom of religion will dominate the headlines for a long time to come
Freedom of religion and education is currently front-page news in Australia. This is somewhat unusual. Australians have tended to shy away from debating religion in public; as noted historian Manning Clark once put it, for most Australians, religion is a “whisper in the mind and a shy hope in the heart”. Despite this, Australians are now grappling with the place and role of religious schools – and, in particular, the extent to which religious schools can discriminate against LGBTQIA+ staff and students.
The catalyst for this debate was the same-sex marriage postal survey and then the legalisation of same-sex marriage. Two key components of the public debate surrounding same-sex marriage in Australia were the impact the legalisation of same-sex marriage would have on children and on freedom of religion. Religious schools, the place where children and religion intersect, have unsurprisingly become a focus of public debate.
One of the main concerns for religious schools during the same-sex marriage debate was whether they would still be able to teach that marriage was between a man and a woman. In an attempt to alleviate such concerns about freedom of religion, the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a review into freedom of religion in November 2017. Same-sex marriage was legalised by the Australian Parliament on 7 December 2017.