What you need to know about the 'religious freedoms and schools' debate

What’s happening:

There’s a new push aimed towards allowing schools to discriminate against LGBTIQ+ students, on the grounds of religious freedoms.

(Leaked Ruddock Report segment)

How did we get here:

• We had the Same Sex Marriage Survey in November last year.
  

• Australia voted YES.
  

• The Prime Minister at the time, Turnbull, established a review into religious freedom as a sort of olive branch to the ‘NO’ side of the parliament.
  

• The review was headed by conservative ex-politician and former Attorney General, Phillip Ruddock.
  

• It was finished in May 2018.
  

• It was kept under wraps for quite a while.
  

• Bits of it were leaked recently, including recommendations to allow religious schools to discriminate against LGBTIQ+ students.
  
  UPDATE:

• Now the Federal Parliament is considering passing a new law - called The Sex Discrimination (Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018 - that would strengthen the protections for LGBTIQ+ students.
  

• The proposed law is good - but we don’t think it goes far enough.

So basically, we’re at a point where the rights of LGBTIQ+ students (and teachers) are a contentious political debate.  

YACSA’s take

 Read more

Here’s an article that explains what the Ruddock Report is and what we know so far, from the Guardian.

Here’s an article from May about what people thought of the Ruddock report, from Buzzfeed.

Here’s an article about the complexities afoot, from the Conversation.

And here’s an article from a teacher in Tasmania, who has seen the benefits of strong protections for LGBTIQ+ students and teachers.

What do you think?

Let us know here: