Church-State separation in Australia and beyond
Submitted by admin on 29 June, 2006 - 04:01.
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Texts of three conference papers added
Keeping God out of Government was the theme of an important conference held in Melbourne, Australia on 17th and 18th June 2006. Sponsored jointly by the Australian National Secular Association, the Council of Australian Humanist Societies and the Rationalist Society of Australia, the conference featured papers on every aspect of church-state separation in Australia and beyond. We have the text of some of the contributions available on this web site.
- Prof Helen Irving showed how small differences in wording on state-church separation in the American and Australian constitutions have led to diametrically opposed interpretations.
- Dr Max Wallace highlighted the recent survey showing strong support for separation in Australia in his paper Separation of Church and State in New Zealand?.
- Jane Caro explained how state funding of private, mainly religious schools, is creating a two-tier society in Australia in How God is killing public education - Indoctrination v Education.
- Senator Lyn Allison tracked the increase in the faith-based and discriminatory delivery of social services, but saw hopeful signs that the blatant abuse of religious privilege was heightening public awareness of the illusory nature of church-state separation.
- Roy Brown spoke of the urgent need to defend freedom of expression, currently under new sustained attack around the world.
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Separation of Religion and State
The word church should be replaced with the word Religion as church is related to Chirstian only where as religion means any religion Christian, Muslim, Hindu, etc.
Church and State
Agree with Dusavla. There is a big difference between insitutionalised churches and religion. The state should not be entangled with either, and failure to recognise the difference can lead us to ignoring the influence that non-institutionalised religious lobbyists can have on political decision-making. Also, separation of state and religion should not be used as an excuse for the state to ignore the tremendous harm relgiion can cause in society, especially to women and children. Unfortunately there is not an express right in international statements of the right to freedom of religion or belief to freedom FROM religion (e.g. ICCPR, European Convention on Human Rights), so adherents to religious beliefs demand the right to exemption from the general law in the name of 'freedom of religion', regardless of the adverse effects this can have. The French and the US have come closest, the former with its non-constitutional prinicple of 'laicite', and the latter with its constitutional principle of non-establishment of religion.