An annoying bill is proof of how craven our policy has become

It comes down to a direct clash of values, an irreconcilable difference: those who believe that no one should be excluded from a school because of their sexuality, and those who believe that religious bodies should be able to exclude people from because of their sexuality.

It is very difficult, mind you, to get someone to come out and admit the latter – which is a testament to how much the public attitude has changed to people attracted to the same sex. Religious organizations know they can not openly say, “We want to preserve the right to exclude gay teachers,” just as they would not publicly declare their right to exclude divorcees, people who have sex outside of marriage, sinners who eat meat on Friday, or mothers who have given birth to “illegitimate” children. The religious texts have not changed, but social customs have.

The bill on religious discrimination is forcing us all to take sides.Credit:AFR

But let’s be right: there are still pockets of Christianity and especially Islam that believe same-sex sex is wrong, and the debate over the bill on religious discrimination is coming down to that. And that is what is so annoying about this legislation, which solves a problem that the government’s own religious freedom assessment found did not exist. It forces us all to take sides, and it brings something into the political realm that is most often designed peacefully between people at the societal level.

And for what? It is tempting to conclude that Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who knows his political stocks are low in Victoria and Western Australia, is focusing his re-election efforts on NSW. It is his home state, he used to be the director of the Liberal Party here, and he knows that key circles in the culturally diverse seats in western Sydney respond well to a believing man.

It is the ultimate wedge for opposition leader Anthony Albanese – perhaps a Labor man, but also an atheist. Albanese’s own constituency of Grayndler in Sydney’s inner west would revolt (and vote Green) if he was not seen for protecting gay children. The detail afterwards means little, and that is why the debate on the exclusion of homosexual children is so cynical and so gross.

Morrison declared at his news conference Thursday that “gay students should not be expelled from religious schools, and gay teachers who have been employed at those schools should not be fired if they are gay either.” But Morrison knows better than anyone else that the bill he is submitting to Parliament is doing nothing to change the status quo. And the status quo is that the Gender Discrimination Act already gives schools a legal basis to expel students or fire teachers for being gay.

Scott Morrison angler for re-election in NSW.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

This is a lousy trick and a broken promise: In 2018, Morrison promised to legislate to remove the student exemption. Now he has kicked the issue down the road – it will be investigated by the Australian Law Reform Commission, which will report back 12 months after the current legislation is passed.

Whatever the ALRC recommends, it must be taken up, drafted into legislation and adopted. That is, if a political consensus could be reached, which we now know is impossible. It is a never-never non-solution and it is deliberately designed that way. If there was a need for further evidence of how craven our policies have become, then this is it: a fight over an issue that hurts our most vulnerable and does nothing to address the very real problems facing the country.