30 Musgrave Ave.,
Banksia Park, SA 5091

January 7, 2020

RE REQUEST DURING JANUARY 2020
FOR SUBMISSIONS ON SECOND EXPOSURE DRAFT OF

THE FORTHCOMING RELIGION BILL

 

Dear Government Receiver of Submissions on the above topic, I should like to thank the Government for making this opportunity for submissions to extend to January.

Reason for Contribution and

Orientation

First, orientation.

I was not called as a statesman, so that the resolution of  State matters, such as you as Government face in the Religion Bills, concerns chiefly indirectly. They are not as such my field, though they  may and do enter into it in a major way on this occasion.

What is my field and that to which I have been and am called, having been ordained as a Presbyterian Minister  over 50 years ago. It is is in the area of Christian and biblical ministry of the Gospel and of the word of God, having now acted as pastor in 4 countries, USA, Canada, NZ and Australia.

As such, it is part of my function and task to help the Church which follows the Lord and His  written word, the Bible, from harm, silencing, mutation, invasion for whatever motive, from those who follow something else, as also from confusion; and this, in any sound way the Lord enables. Such  are duties (cf. Philippians 1:7).

Since at the present time,  Australia is a democracy, and the Government is seeking contributions to be submitted in the area of the religion bills, our paths cross, and I am happy to respond.

Secondly, I not only thank but congratulate the Government on its decision to ask for further viewpoints or material re the above, this month.

The matters that concern  me so far are not numerous, but are far-reaching.

In terms of what seems initially suitable here,  the Explanatory Notes for the Second Draft (much in the first draft I found very much to the point and in general terms commendable in meeting issues), there are in particular two sites of major concern. As they are numbered there, these are points 35 and 39. These are not alone, but provide some chief issues.

For convenience, points 35 and 39 of the Explanatory Notes are given below, but are taken in full context.

RELATIVE TO POINT 35

35.For example, the Bill includes a general exception for discrimination against a person where a reasonable person would conclude that the person has expressed a particular belief that is counselling, promoting, encouraging or urging conduct that would constitute a serious criminal offence. This exception is intended to ensure that the counselling, promotion, encouragement or urging of serious offences, which are inconsistent with Australian values are not protected or otherwise condoned by the Bill by being clothed in the mantle of religious belief.

Conformism in Religion

As it stands, might this not be taken to mean that reasoning for a religion and pointing out irrational results in this sphere of thought and life - which concerns not least the issues of what it deems the ultimate point,  value, origin, destiny and destinies, covering commands, ethical sanctions or moral rules, must be conformist: if permitted at all ? Must theology be dumbed down and  even closed, under legal threat, to free debate ? Must it legally have on blinkers ?

Must not in that case the same EQUALITY in all fields not apply to politics as well, so that the seemingly secular nation has blind spots hidden in fear of legal prosecution - or multiple costs, if freely addressed ? .. including perhaps the extreme pain of what the Chinese might call re-education ?

 No ? Then this phase of the matter needs to be thoroughly addressed made clear without qualification, lest extremes should enter in and concessions then in due course be made, to assuage these.

If then this area of religion is to be conformed to something, then conformist to what ? Is it to be relegated (apart from usual and general illegalities) as a topic beneath some over-arching authority ? Which ? It is always perilous to close down discussion or frighten it with legal pre-occupations, on the mere ground that it is not within the current array of popular preferences. Moreover, in what recent century have we have more to learn with more blood to underline it, than in this one!

What authority then has this pre-eminence? Ignoring for the moment the issue of Commonwealth and State authority, let us look at the fundamental principle for the former.

Mysterious Forces or Vagrant Violations

Why is such asserted by something beyond that of the Commonwealth, which formerly and explicitly is limited so that it does not abort or replace religious freedom of expression and exhibition, by its own preference in the field. ? It must be something else which can so clip the wings of religion and turn the country in this field into one more conformist in religion, while seeming to be keen on liberty (the worst case of this perhaps being the former USSR).

But what ?  It cannot well be the  Australian Constitution since it forbids this very thing for the Commonwealth, with no small clout, in Section 116. What indeed might both supervene and contravene this long-established constitutionalset of rules, emphases, requirements and reliefs ?

What then  has this power ? It appears to be what is taken to be a certain existential authority which seems beyond the permission of the law ? In point 35 of the  Explanatory Notes this is set as "Australian values." Despite the Constitution's regulatory requirements here, in the Bill, THIS element of religion can, we find, if breached, reinforce the concept of seri ous crime (i.e. when this quality is also present, the thing is ratified). Or does the qualification, "which are inconsistent with Australian values" may merely instruct us, in case we have forgotten, that serious crime is as such contrary to Australian values ?

However, it appears  rather to be a reinforcement than a sudden excursion into civics. If  then contrary to Australian values is one relevant ground for judicial action, that becomes a religious intrusion, as forbidden in the Constitution.  Since the issues raised are threatening to the life of thousands of citizens, this point can be left in no doubt.

Further, might not such a requirement here be taken to mean that it must be exceedingly different from the liberty enjoyed in the parallel field of politics ? and would this not breach the "universality and individuality of human rights," one of the stated requirements of this religion bill ? Here there appears a super- and in this case contra- constitutional office of command, and it is moreover, merely an estimate of what in fact changes - as it has changed in this land in the last 80-90 years, as I have had opportunity to perceive.

The same sort of intrusion of Government Religion is open in Item Number 39, to which we turn shortly. It appears to involve the same subjectivism as ultimate determinant, with this vested in what a reasonable person might deem to be the case.

Justice and popularity are not the same thing and subjectivising religion en bloc is assuredly such a fault, as if it could be pushed and pulled this way and that, purely for political convenience of the time, in prima facie defiance of what the Bill is ostensibly seeking. Indeed, in any such venture, it would be the Government itself that could be held accountable as seriously harassing, threatening etc. with  its powers, so misusing protection as a stated purpose, to break its own laws, indeed markedly to breach them, in terms of an unstable index. This is far from what is desirable.

Moreover a particular "Australian value" as assessed in terms of Item 35, may be breached, or taken to be breached in terms of unqualified requirements of a religion, a command for those who follow the same, so clearly breaking Section 116 of the Constitution, and inducing a frank and systematic clash between State and such a person's life and liberty  and religion. Such  is  the peril for those so afflicted by such a systematic intrusion of Government into this field.

Human values by any reflection of law have changed monumentally in the last 90 years, and could do so again, the shameful and prohibited in some points becoming lauded and allowed with what appears relish. Some religions have not followed this mutability, and hence the application of the political position so defined to the religious one becomes by nature confrontational, and in effect discriminatory in the extreme, as it has notoriously been in potential and often in practice,  for millenia.

Excuses, Confusions and Bad Examples

Since the Constitution requires a totally different approach, where governmental desire as a critical norm in this field is subordinate to religious liberty, the excuses for apparent violation at the fundamental and ultimate level of the constitutional code, cannot be consistently honoured simply by assuming the writers of the Constitution were not well aware of the advanced liberty they were protecting. In any case, this is what is written. Interpretation by fundamental contradiction is not an obvious method.

Clearly, as such, this is not to be desired, and so extreme care for needless vulnerabilities needs to be taken. Further, if in the anomalous name of freedom, many are forced to pay fines or be re-educated or to be imprisoned, if insisting on continuing sincere in following the commands of their religion, this is a prescription for persecution, an aspect of totalitarianism at utter odds with any thought of liberty, of national peace and the avoidance of unnecessary suffering.

Is such disruption for many to be entertained (or is it rather to be ignored ?) as if this were not a revolutionary action of force in the area of religion, as a METHOD ? (cf. in the Bible Christian case, Colossians 3:17). Is it possible that the Government thinks it was elected in order to provide such disruptive dynamic and spiritual squalor ?

The situation then and there does not even seem slightly turned to preventing a Commonwealth Government, through its laws, lording it over other people's religion with its own brand of the same as if this were not a spurious operation. Yet in terms of Section 116, it is to govern, not dictate in this field. 

The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

Moreover there appears a singularity of disparagement of this theme and topic of religion, in the pejorative phrasing of the mode of reference to such things. They cannot escape legal assault by "being clothed in the mantle of religious belief." This suggests insincerity, pretence and insidious insertion. Is this then some form of the universality of principles involved, and not derogation of one by prior assumption ?

While some may do this and that, and neither in politics nor in theology is the record of all the contrarities over time any less robust than that in other fields, yet generalisation in this field is one of the most critical features of discriminatory action. Is indeed all religion like all politics to be esteemed to be this or that, because some is ? or it has been ?

Is "there is no truth" to be the true statement which is so hard up that it even states itself by a self-contradiction ? Is this to be assumed of religion ? as a discriminatory
tag ? Is a current array of preferred values, founded merely in desire, to become part of a bifurcation of authority, even displacing all religion into a subordinate role to the new (and temporary) breed of the same ? Is this how the Constitution is to effaced or to be effected ?

Further, if any religion is in fact a conveyor of the truth, then being heavy-handed in prosecuting those who follow it, as for example above, becomes a suppression of truth. If this would not constitute a violation of both the tenor and words of the Constitution, what could be ? It would tend to become disruptive of society and dispersive of the truth. It would come to represent an Australian government assault on this group, to name but one as butt for any such action. Is the defence of such dxerciseds in the  rule of religion to be made by refusing to consider this, though it is the normal situation with biblical Christianity (as in John 14, Matthew 5:17ff.) ?

It seems useless simply to hope for the best when millions of dollars may be spent in law cases to determine a thing, however obvious it might be on normal presuppositions. It is not necessary to have a certain needless opacity when so many are so activated by such different motives in this overall field, as in the parallel field of politics, as to exploit what suits them, at great cost. Of course, many political things are ultimately motivated by things theological, enhancing the need for explicitness, and constitutional sensitivity, in the latter.

Again, some may feel harassed by what is said in a religious standard work, such as the Bible, and then by confusion or deceit attribute the offence they feel, or the harassment or other feeling, to someone now clearly stating it or reasoning for it. Thus discrimination becomes readily practised through this Religion Bill, or group, so that the new office in the field of government would readily be enabled to become a leader in oppression and harassment with all the power of the government at its disposal.  Indeed, so readily available is such assault on those following a religious rule, that it resembles a four lane highway to oppression, thus achieving in this way the opposite of apparent intention.

It is difficult therefore to clear such things from the domain of fraud; for it is one thing to permit certain practices on the part of individuals, by huge change; it is quite another to make them regulative requirements demanding the approbation of all, the totality being subjected to such tyranny.

To say that this would be inefficient would  be merely minimal. In fact, a warning in terms of what is written in a religious primary work, can be accepted or rejected, and this with or without reason. Yet to turn its presentation into one of the harass, threaten, seriously intimidate or vilify group of the unconstitutional restraints on religion, filled as they are with grounds for misinterpretation and opportunities for persecution rather than mere prosecution, is and remains an invitation to disaster.

It is likewise allied to pressure for a false uniformity in terms of the developing government religion, in which everyone tends to be comfortable with whatever the new religion, with its new increasingly enforcible morals,  has to say, many having objected to the presentation and defence of such instruments as the Bible, for example, for inscrutable reasons. Others tend to be sent if not to the lions - as of yore, then to the lawyers, as is more contemporary. This is fair to neither  those sent nor to lawyers.  This is very uniformitarian, a way of hiding in shame what cannot be hidden, a destiny undesired, a clangour against justice and truth.

It could not happen ? it has happened to many others. This leads naturally to the extremely brazen case of potential authoritarian invasion of religious liberty without even the slightest shadow of an excuse, far less the importance required by the Human Rights Commission for any harrowing of this liberty which it appears so to prize.  

RELATIVE TO POINT 39

39.In addition, Part 4 of this Bill provides that certain statements of belief do not constitute discrimination under Commonwealth, state or territory anti-discrimination law, nor do they contravene subsection 17(1) of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 (Tas). This will ensure that the ability of people to simply express their genuine religious beliefs in good faith, without malice is not restricted by the operation of any Australian anti-discrimination law, so long as such statements do not harass, threaten, seriously intimidate or vilify a person or group.

Caution, Restraint and Precision

Many of the above considerations relevant to the cited point 35 apply similarly to point 39, of the Explanatory Notes, which since this is at the level of principle, is a useful essentialisation of the affair. Here a "reasonable" person or group is to judge the reward word,  or degradation, vilification, intimidation etc. which some may feel when others open their mouths or ways in the field of religion. It is rather like a meeting of the French in the day of its revolution, as to whether or not to guillotine someone - here in view is not merely the loss of a religious freedom, reputation, possibly physical liberty, dignity, savings, but possibly even freedom from forcible propaganda in "re-education": which by report the Chinese Government seems to have found so useful and deployed so much in seeking to change people's religion, and morals, part of that domain, unless this is degraded into just another word for 'wants'.

Many have long hated the standing, status, type and principles of other people's religion or values, and I have seen one chortling with joy at an opportunity to lash with zestful glee! Malice may even be alleged against someone who is following most zealously the Bible, its principles, motivational emphasis, example and intense insistence on love (not however without justice).

First, this is a guess, since you cannot observe motives. Second as such it is odious disregard of a cure for this world's condition, something which is benignant in motive, the opposite of what may readily be alleged, being held in mind by preachers of the word of God for its people (as in John 3:17). It is call black, white, name endeavours to help, as if they were those to hinder, and even incidentally to blaspheme the love of God, who is back of love. It is far more but not less, and altogether such variability in 'reasonable' people or a reasonable person, can be merely a seething religious vengeance, contrary to reason, peace, truth and even righteousness. It is too subjective, an invented criterion for charges which readily able to disrupt the peace in entire error. This sort of approach is therefore to open a Pandora's box.

Further, the reference to "the ability of people to simply express their genuine religious beliefs in good faith, without malice" can, in the interstices of legal argument, be used to mischaracterise people's actual intentions AS malicious, this being a chief legal reward word. Similarly the term "simple" may be used to degrade careful argumentation. In fact, what would help the clarity defect, which may cost much to many if not watchfully preserved, is a simple addition here.

In point 39, then, after the words "simply express", these might be added: "and reason for." In one of the earlier religious laws in this country, there was express provision made for academic work, and while this may readily be used as a cover by subversives, it does have a vital function and our universities, while protected from efforts of control by other nations and mere terrorists, should not pre-assign results for political reasons.

Reason must be given an unequivocal place here, if a society is not to become irrational, ready for dangerous romps.

To return to the charge list noted in point 39, it is easy simply to assume that someone claiming to be harassed, threatened or seriously intimidated or vilified, is in fact being so treated. In such cases, the claimant has only to say so, at the cost of a breath. Sometimes that breath appears almost to be held as if it were sacred, as if the harassment had in fact occurred, leaving the legally assailed victim scarred, if not financially ruined by extravaganzas of inordinate penalty for resisting neo-morals and unauthorised religious directives. These, therefore, should not be lightly turned into mathematical geysers, appealing to the opportunist nor should new religious commandments be instituted for a people, like an internal invasion, after the nation so well resisted an extra-territorial one.

Worse, reasoned principles or religious ones may be deemed malicious or threatening,  by those who hold something different for reasons philosophical, political, personal or psychological, without their actually feeling such things. They may object in this field, just in terms of the type of thing and the type of formal result they do not like. In all this, the Constitution appears far more modest and restrained in the matter of laying down legal highways and its perspective a far better march towards order and peace in the nation.  

Indeed, vague generalisations about religion as such may constitute forms of what amounts to just another religion, perhaps that of the Government, and so wrongly be used to subject the users and exponents of other religions, to legal attack. In so acting, however, those responsible become disqualified by the principles beyond current law, even those enunciated in the Constitution. It is then not only the member of the Commonwealth who suffers discrimination, but the Constitution itself which does so.

While some religions may lead to invasion and injury, not all are so not by any means, nor do they give evidence of it. Rash generalisation at this point must be avoided, as in any other theme. This applies to those who would charge legally, their fellow citizens for alleged breaches, as to others. Actual dangers need to be met discretely, not with a broad spray over all.

Again, confusion is all too ready to prey, in this field, when the objectively available set of doctrines of a religion are made into something personally offensive among Australians. Yet among all Australians, not one of these wrote the Bible, for example, or any part of it; and citing it for believers is therefore purely an exhibition of their faith, born of benevolence, and not at all to be controlled by a prohibitive approach. That is expressly protected by the Constitution.

There have been many reasons for which Australians have been noted for independence of action and procedure, and this liberty is undoubtedly one of them. It would violate what many have sought at extreme cost, and harass it, instead of patiently harnessing it. For true, stated, basic and sustained aims in a religion, supported by exceedingly costly actions, to be summarily discounted, resembles having terrorists equated with soldiers for peace with truth, and vice versa in inextricable mental confusion.

The Cost, Complexity, Gratings and Potential Intrusions
of Unmoderated Legalism

Indeed, legal endeavours to find out whether some discussion, argumentation, presentation was or was not given with "malice" (despite, as in biblical Christianity for example, its having internal and sustained insistence on the exact opposite in basic principle), may be energised by many considerations, good and bad. It may be by the thought of reward, if an award may be made against an offence. It is a situation fraught with legal quandaries and vulnerabilities. In particular, also,  the danger of a priori cynicism on the part of prosecuting persons or assessors, towards the one being attacked legally (if misconstrued), and forced to  court, cannot wisely be either ignored or discounted.

In effect, it is to import some of the needless clash and confusion of sudden, declared war, when this is without full warrant, readily divisive, degrading, disruptive, destructive, sometimes construable as an offensive splash of spectacular or profitable power.

Consider the opportunities.

Who are these who declare 'malice' with the readiness with which some cough! Everything which does not appeal to them, which does not sate their desire for a world after their own image, which dares to run counter to their pre-occupations and prejudices, becomes an opportunity for prey or parade. The matter is far too adaptable to evil to be a safe path to good.

Is there any easier way of dismissing an uncomfortable fact ? mischaracterising someone who holds standards you do not  ? or moving voters to support your own perhaps radical changes in view, by revulsion from the very sight of the spurious charges made,  submitted to what are conceived of as reasonable men!

Did the Nazi or Rising Sun or the arrested Russian nation think it reasonable to war, the first two with a pseudo-religious leader of determined mind, the second with a most religious head and the third, by a deceitful murderer who by some reckoning, may have murdered 30 million of his own ? These are only examples and not intended to singularise but illustrate from lessons recently learnt. Readily does self-assurance become certainty and non-innovation a subject of scorn, and vast are its examples.

You might have felt assured that it would be intensely reasonable to follow Hitler to greatness for your people, or Stalin to great equality: but what inequality was ever  greater! If the criterion is to in part what a reasonable person would hold, given certain foci of his own, not only is this as variable as the winds in its direction, as unreliable as history repeatedly declares, but sometimes downright vicious, in a hullabaloo of new found academic slant of some kind or other. To circumscribe truth is what some systems would describe as 'fatal error.' It is like forbidding antibiotics.

It would moreover tend to extend bigotries already popular (these being deemed reasonable in society quite often), and above all, submits the practical exhibition of religion to culture. This is in principle contrary to the Constitution, not being a matter of detail, but KIND, and wholly unnecessary to preserve what is of  much importance. for this, a better dissecting instrument is needed. Is there some right about feeling that something long deemed good or normal with elaborate defence, is now to be handed over to something rigorously contrary, lacking any secure grounds, as to be obeyed, as you see fit to determine it ?

How does liberty determine the point, if religious assessment of morals and motives is allowed free reign and to sit directly or indirectly in judgment's chair, to rule in religious robes!

Imagine, for instance, if a doctor were found guilty in some dishonest way for warning his patient of the existence of influenza germs, their comparative force in a given season, the symptoms and the modes of avoidance, only to be condemned for threatening or intimidating his patient! The objective is on the contrary to assist him to be aware and apply himself to his need. This has its parallel in the religious field. Such misconstruction can readily become viciously misleading as to truth, sordid in substance and even worse than injustice.

The same kind of real peril may readily apply to the other forbidden elements in the law list of items for accusation, as cited in point 39.  Is a minefield of perils through adversaries to vital elements of religious liberty to be planted in our own land and by our own Australian hands ?

Can putting options in the hands of people for their welfare possibly be construed as an evil ? Yes it may; we have seen that. But only if the value set on whatever is in view, is greater than that set on truth. If you want slaves, not employees, then of course it is best to say so. If you want to found new religion, or part thereof,  it might be best to say so too, first and clearly... in advance. Why align in this sphere later ? Concerning some things, some mind, some do not. It is important to choose and not lumber in later.

Much needs to be done to prevent this type of tragedy. If every effort fails, we seem set to become one more people trading liberty of thought and speech and argument and worship, for the complexities of a legal/political minefield.

A further example would be found in any move to implement results of atheistic thought, to take one case, to move from long-term general usage for addressing people, to another one, and this BY COMMAND. As to that, what happens to come in variations in modes of address over time  is one thing; what is by political command is another, and any such act indirectly but most clearly is based on the new governmental religion. Much may be based, in particular, on atheism, never acknowledged, and never given primacy, except by variable assumptions.

It would be one more levitation out of reach of the Constitution, an invalid intrusion of a particular point of view to modes of general communication. Why such harassment ? Here would be another case for attention by a body set up to prevent discrimination and persecution: if that is the genuine intention. Other revolutionary changes are in a similar position. Where is their demonstration or warrant or place in the annals of freedom and care ?

Assault on what one holds, believes, in terms of forcing behaviour in flat contradiction with it, is not merely insensitive and potentially disruptive in society, but becomes one of the great examples of discrimination. Those with flexible religions may not meet such invasion of their religions with any great concern, thus creating a differential treatment in the same field, according to flexibility and fixity in one more invasion of religion to meet what for a time may be popular.

What we face is movement towards a repressive procedure, a dispersive assault and a selective slither creeping into the field of religion on various fronts. Systematising the trend is like pouring water on a flood. It is occurring legislatively in this present period in numbers of discrete areas, but with the same tactics and the same result and with the same type of reason for objection.

Some may be acutely seeking it, some yielding to it with reluctance, some undiscerning or for peace, going with the flow. Indeed, many may have many different reasons for what they do, whether in terms ideals, ideas, motifs, hatred, love, patience, intemperance, but where the topic is the avoidance of religious intrusion where even possible, and not variable possible additives, the issue comes to a focus in the results of whatever is at work. Is it an admirable prevention of religion falsely and support of it from enslavement, or a blunt instrument where a scalpel is needed, a deft dealing with a set of issues, or a lapse in some areas and an enlargement in others allowing subversion of peace, not its defence.

As to the form of address issue and change, which is in view, this is not alone in the movement from moral fixtures of centuries, to their opposite or to rigorous change, with penalty if not within one's religious ambit, so that one is encouraged to connive with the change. Such a combination of events readily becomes like squadrons of bombers, attacking a city, not so dangerous if you are quiet in an air raid shelter, deprived of speech. .

If this sort of situation is not desired, then action is needed. Such a mode moves simply into its own more subtle form of totalitarianism, and if this is in the field of religion, then that particular field, as such by its nature, can be all-embracive. After all, democracy, even if faithfully followed, does not ordain disruption. That is a separate and contradictory choice.

To be sure, many foolish generalisations regarding the nature of religion CAN occur, and lead to assault of one kind or another; but the tangle of determining whether agents of it or followers did or did not so act, needs extreme clarity, to avoid petty persecution, legal rewards for dishonest manipulation and the like. The distinction between concern in terms of truth for another's welfare and intrusive assault shows the vital importance of motive; and virtual guesswork on this topic in the outcome of a legal suit, makes the danger of a trivialisation of truth to be exceedingly enhanced.

The Little Matter of Justice:
No Need to Divorce it from Law

In the same overall concern, comes the consideration of justice in its efforts at comprehensiveness. Thus if you exclude some forms of evidence in such a case, you are already in peril of injustice, not giving the one attacked the benefit of all relating to the matter. This appears as a contempt for justice itself. If feelings only, or statements about them, or points of view, or chosen values, or psychological discernment are to be determinants, then injustice is virtually assured. It is the same with all legal assault which forbids or avoids all the aspects. It is a foreshortening of the matter which cuts off not its tail but its head.

It is the pre-judgment of what is to be looked at which becomes judge, one which omits all the elements of a case, what features what is a virtual guessing game, a rule to avoid certain elements or a limit with this effect, and. Instead, the emphasis must be honestly to seek to find out the truth, rather than simply use one of the four potential whips as noted in point 39 of the document in view (harass, vilify, threaten or seriously intimidate) ... or worse

That readily may become not a curb on injustice but an augment to it, making good heart and goodwill amenable to prosecution.  Is that good government ? Does such a travesty need to be left in place ? The Bill in this field is more than heavy-handed: it is an invitation to vilification of those complained against, in prodigious collision with the careful watchfulness of the Constitution, while dealing incautiously with one of the areas which has been a distinctive characteristic and a fine one, of the Australian nation, widely recognised and a signal of many for relief, one of the items making our shores attractive.

As in medical operations, then, not only effort but minimisation of spoliation of other organs is requisite. Here the 'organs' are people.

It needs to be achieved rather than merely given effort, if the operation is likely to proceed. Faux assault in this field on even one, is failure. Every step must be sound, and not merely thrown out in hope, in reliance on the current state of neo-morals, intensely variable as it is and passionately followed by many even as some kind of ideal and site for education and habituation..

Having an arm of government, through such pre-judgment, implement what it is intended to prevent may be a delicious irony; but it is not a delicious fact. MUCH yet needs to be done to prevent such an outcome.

The Self-Declarative, and the Invasion from Within

The very mode of some things done by extremists, where a case of substance is inherent in their violence, is exceedingly obvious as in some other cases, depending on the grounds of assessment here. There needs therefore to be strong effort at protection from discrimination against those who rather use the norms of reasoning, seek especially the liberty of others: from what ? Among other duties, it is from legal entanglement through this, their legitimate concern; as from malicious or careless misrepresentation, whether by lawyer or assailant.          

When, then, the Constitution declares what the Commonwealth Government cannot do, it does not mean that the opposite is not a violation, or that the Government may freely (if inferentially) make and apply its own version of religion, and this even in principle, or instead empower those who do.

Nor is it indicated that judgment should based on certain values enshrined in their hearts which they then apply to judge others. This is not at all freedom of religion but a systematic substitute. Such beliefs and preferences are now in danger of  being self-assessed, self-applied and to be suffered by religious underlings, in turn subjectible, in this very field. Then this, an horrific example, may be applied to such second degree manacles, even between each other, as may seem good and well-fitting. It is thus not merely a disruptive violation of freedom of religion, but a bad example to individuals which is in view.

In the field of religion in this present world, I believe in an absolute minimum of force and maximum of regard, not for ideas, for the truth must be sought resolutely and adhered to, but towards people. This should be steadfastly adhered to, however much one's love is misinterpreted, as if the delight in goodness and good results were similar to the smouldering pits of malice, the fumes of which may in effect intoxicate those who falsely charge with this very thing. .

How difficult the task when there is abortion even of goodwill! but there must be no diminution of its display, or the tenacity of adherence to truth.

Yours faithfully,

Rev. Robert Donaldson, Th.D., B.A., M.A., B.D., Dip. Ed.       {FoRConsultation@ag.gov.au}