The expression the price of freedom is eternal vigilance is certainly true when it comes to religious freedom and freedom of conscience. At a time when the commonwealth government is undertaking consultations about its proposed religious discrimination legislation such a warning is especially apt.

That people of faith need to be concerned about the threat to religious freedom is illustrated by the way Christian teachings and any who espouse them are vilified and condemned in the public square. While woke, secular critics champion tolerance, when it comes to Christianity it’s open season.

Nicki Gemmell’s article titled Losing their religion published in the Australian’s Weekend Magazine provides a case in point. Gemmell begins with a Christopher Hitchens quote arguing Christianity terrifies children with visions of hell and teaches women are inferior to men.

Gemmell then moves on to argue the ‘dogma of religious ultra-conservatives’ and ‘religious extremists’ in areas like ‘homophobia and sexism’ is leading to countless young people deserting the Christian churches.

Unlike Jesus, who Gemmell describes as a ‘revolutionary’ committed to preaching ‘courageous compassion (and) a sense of tolerance’, so-called conservative religious movements are only concerned with erecting barriers and walls against sinners.

Andrew Thorburn’s church the City on a Hill and the newly established Anglican movement the Diocese of the Southern Cross, instead of embracing ‘kindness, tolerance, equality, and fairness’ are condemned for embracing ‘hard-line Christianity’ and ‘Christian fundamentalism’.

Like many who attack those committed to an orthodox reading of the Bible, Gemmell argues the failure to embrace ‘modern thinking’ is leading to young people rejecting the church because it defends what she describes as ‘values not of their world’.

While not as extreme, a second example of the prevailing anti-Christian ethos and attacks on religious freedom is the ABC’s Australian Story titled Losing Faith (aired on 31/10/2022).

The program centres on Brisbane’s Citipointe Christian College’s decision to ask parents enrolling their children to sign a contract stipulating a student’s gender and sexuality should conform to his or her biological sex and the fact God created men and women.

Based on interviews with a number of ex-students, viewers are told the school teaches students homosexuality is an ‘abomination, unnatural and a sin’ and any who transgress will be ‘sentenced to an eternity of hell’. One of the students interviewed also says the school often portrays homosexuality as an ‘evil choice’.

While the program provides some balance by including interviews and statements by the school principal Brian Mulheran, Christian schools’ representatives, and parents supporting the school’s right to discriminate, those responsible for the program cannot hide their anti-Christian bias.

The LGBTQ+ students, parents, and sympathetic ex-teachers interviewed are given free rein to criticise the school, and the school’s opposition to radical gender theory is characterised as doctrinaire, unforgiving, and brutal.

While there is a brief excerpt involving the conservative politician George Christensen arguing the case for religious freedom most of the program involves comments by those critical of the school including Queensland’s Attorney-General and the Education Minister.

Near the end of the program viewers are told the campaign against the school was a success as the school withdrew its enrolment form and the principal, presented as a conservative Christian, was pressured to resign.

One of the students primarily responsible for the campaign against the school on social networking sites is then presented as a proud LGBTQ+ activist who has continued her campaign by establishing the ‘Educate Don’t Discriminate’ Facebook page and website.

Not only does the ABC program present a misleading caricature of the opposition to homosexuality and transgenderism, one where students are condemned to the fires of hell, it also fails to properly detail the counter-argument religious schools have the right to act according to the tenets of their faith.

Near the end of the program a left-leaning lawyer argues the rights of LGBTQ+ students and the right religious-schools have over who they enrol ‘should be equally protected’ by legislation and human rights commissions.

The reality is you cannot have it both ways. Based on the argument religious freedom is an inherent right, Christian schools must have the power to discriminate in relation to who they enrol and who they employ.

Drawing on international covenants and agreements, parents also have the right to send their children to schools that embody their religious convictions and beliefs. The right students have to cancel their birth sex in favour of self-identifying as homosexual, lesbian or transgender should not take precedence.

Only time will tell what the proposed commonwealth Religious Discrimination Bill decides, but given the growth of anti-religious sentiment evidenced by Andrew Thorburn’s forced resignation for alleged religious beliefs and the campaign to target Christian schools like Citipointe people of faith are right to be concerned.

Dr Kevin Donnelly is a senior fellow at the ACU’s PM Glynn Institute and editor of The Dictionary Of Woke and Why Christianity Matters.

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