Christian schools’ warning to gay staff

Christian education groups have defended schools’ “right” to discipline or even fire a teacher who becomes divorced, cheats on their spouse, or enters a non-heterosexual relationship.

Speaking at a parliamentary inquiry on Tuesday, Christian Schools Australia and the Australian Christian Higher Education Alliance said faith-based schools should be able to selectively hire staff who reflected the school’s religious beliefs.

When asked about how religious schools might treat a staff member who was divorced, CSA policy head Mark Spencer said the employee could potentially be fired for contradicting the school’s values.

“The fact that they were divorced may or may not – depending on the context and how they’ve responded to that – impact their employment,” Mr Spencer told the inquiry on Tuesday.

“It really is impossible to be clear on that. You could have a range of situations where depending on how they responded, whether they were a suitable fit for that school anymore.”

Mr Spencer’s controversial comments come amid significant disagreements across the political spectrum about the potential impacts of the proposed Religious Discrimination Bill.

The Bill would affirm religious schools’ right to exclusively hire staff with the same belief system and overpower existing state laws aimed at preventing this kind of discrimination.

ACHEA chair and Morling College principal Ross Clifford defended his school’s decision to fire former teacher Karen Pack after she announced her plan to marry her female partner.

“It’s a fairly significant position to be in, lecturing in a theological college, which is training and equipping people for Christian ministry, and you are actually in that context living out a lifestyle and modelling a lifestyle that’s inconsistent with the teachings,” Mr Clifford said.

The committed Baptist said the employment impacts of a teacher’s divorce would be considered case by case basis, and would be determined by the school’s individual value system.

“If it’s a divorce because the person is living a totally inconsistent lifestyle and the partner left them because of their infidelity or whatever that would be very different from a divorce situation where a marriage had just clearly broken down,” he said.

But Australian Discrimination Law Experts Group representative Cristy Clark told the inquiry that the provision of the Religious Discrimination Bill that would affirm this kind of behaviour from schools was a breach of international legal standards.

“It’s an unequal protection of people’s rights to manifest their religion or beliefs because only some people get that protection,” Dr Clark said.

“In some cases, it might mean that institutions get their protection over and above individuals, for example, in the school or employment context.

“That‘s fundamentally inconsistent with international human rights law and the way that is supposed to be implemented.”