[cover] زن زندگی آزادی

touche pas à mon prof!

freedom to discriminate???

“Gay students and teachers could be rejected by religious schools under changes to anti-discrimination laws being recommended by a federal review into religious freedom.” The Guardian, 9 Oct. 2018

The quote is not speaking of one of the 72 countries in the World where homosexuality is considered a crime (with 13 states applying the death penalty), but of Australia, ranked 8th on the Economist 2017 Democracy Index, where religious freedom arguments are legally recognised as a right to discriminate against homosexual students and staff. (As an aside, Australia still has a blasphemy law.)

“While the panel accepted the right of religious school to discriminate against students on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation, it could see no justification for a school to discriminate on the basis of race, disability, pregnancy or intersex status.” The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 Oct. 2018

I find it flabbergasting that such newspeak inversions (also found in the French “Manif pour tous” slogans turning égalité into a discrimination argument against homosexual weddings and adoptions) can find their way into a legislative text. And more generally that religions can still continue to promote gender discrimination with no consequences.

a weird version of secularism