Key Points
- An Australian Law Reform Commission report on Australia's anti-discrimination laws has been delayed.
- The inquiry is part of the Albanese government's election promise to legislate protections for LGBTIQ+ staff and students.
- LGBTIQ+ and Christian school advocates are at loggerheads over the laws.
A committed Christian for her whole life, Karen Pack says it was devastating when she was lost her teaching job at a Baptist college in Sydney in 2020.
At the time she had just gotten engaged to her long-time same-sex partner. It was meant to be a joyful occasion, but it triggered an email complaining about Dr Pack's sexuality and urging the school to "denounce" her and "demonic actions".
The daughter of a pastor, and now an ordained pastor herself, Dr Pack said the experience was damaging.
"And for them to turn around and say, 'you're fired, you can no longer work at this college'; it's incredibly traumatic because all the things that you feared, all the things that you are taught are going to happen to gay people, to LGBTQ people in the Church - they happened," she said.
"It all came true."
Ms Pack's principal, the Reverend Ross Clifford, told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2021 that the school disputes firing her, saying she left after the situation was explained.
He said it was "fairly significant to be in a position where someone is training and equipping people for Christian ministry, while living out a lifestyle that's inconsistent with the teachings".
Ms Pack said since telling her story, others have shared their experience with her of being in similar position.
Christian schools welcome deadline extension
The Albanese government said it is committed to its election promise to legislate protections for LGBTIQ+ staff and students, and is awaiting the final report from the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) on how federal anti-discrimination laws should be changed to be compatible with that goal and international human right obligations.
The expert panel was due to report on Friday, but now has extended that deadline by eight months to 31 December.
"The issues raised by this Inquiry are of great significance to a large number of Australians. It is important that the Commission considers the many varied perspectives thoroughly and sensitively," ALRC commissioner Stephen Rothman said.
Ms Pack said it is important that protections are put in place for teachers and students to prevent others going through what she experienced.
"The longer that this inquiry, the findings of this inquiry are delayed - the longer we force students and staff to stay in this dehumanising, harmful environment of self-closeting and community exclusion," she told SBS News.
The Australian Association of Christian Schools welcomed the deadline extension, saying the initial consultation paper by the Law Reform Commission "failed to protect Christian and other faith schools’ ability to employ staff of the same faith".
"The ALRC has a lot of work to do to get this right," the association said in a statement.
"We hope the extension of time allows it to deliver a much more balanced set of recommendations, which will protect the personal rights of staff and students while also allowing the freedom of religious schools to build a ‘community of faith'."
'What a terrible burden to place on young people'
High school teacher Nathan Zamprogno has added his voice to calls for reform, saying the exemption allowing religious schools to expel students or fire teachers for their sexuality must change.
He taught at Christian schools in Sydney for 20 years. In 2020 a school discovered his sexuality and he was sacked, he said.
"I found myself in a school where the headmaster would casually drop into conversation at a staff meeting: 'Well I wouldn't employ a gay teacher', and I would find myself slinking into a corner, and a part of me would die inside," he said.
"I was also in environment] where the chief PDHPE teacher - who had the responsibility for teaching on what is this crucial mental health issue for young people - would say: 'Well sexual preference is a choice, and you can choose yourself into it and choose yourself out of it'. And I thought: what a terrible burden to place on young people if that is the prevailing attitude."
Under section 38 of the federal Sex Discrimination Act, religious schools have an exemption that allows them to expel LGBTQ+ students and sack LGBTQ+ teachers if it is in done in "good faith" to "avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents of that religion or creed".
Laws have far-reaching impact: Equality Australia
Equality Australia, a national group promoting the rights of LGBTIQ+ Australians, said the exemption for religious schools to expel students or fire staff based on sexuality has broader impacts.
"So what we are seeing is that is now impacting on anyone who affirms or supports LGBTIQ+people," the group's legal director, Ghassan Kassisieh, told SBS News.
"The impact extends to people who have family members that are LGBTIQ+ or who want to support students in their classrooms that come out to them, and who are being told that unless you toe the line on our views around sexuality or gender identity, regardless of how great you are as a teacher, on that one difference of opinion, we will fire you."
The ALRC inquiry was established in November 2022 by the Albanese government as part of its election promise to improve protections for staff and students from discrimination in religious schools.
Prior to the May 2022 federal election, the former Coalition government had attempted to deliver on its 2019 election promise to introduce a .
The legislation was eventually abandoned after five Liberal MPs crossed the floor in the lower house to support Labor amendments on protections for LGBTIQ+ students.
