In thirteen countries around the world, failure to comply with the religion recognised by the state is punishable. By death. However, out of the 86% of people who do choose to find comfort and hope in faith; some views are better off being kept private. These ideologies have crept into our governments, and not only are detrimental to minorities but allow unjust exemptions to other groups, and prevent access to unbiased education.
Let us start by opening the Australian Parliament with a Christian prayer. Why should over 35% of Parliament and anyone who bears witness to their speeches during Question Time have to be silenced by a force they do not concur with? Why isn’t everyone treated equally? The Greens party has motioned to remove this and replace it with an opportunity for everyone to pray in silence, allowing inclusivity of all peoples, but this has been shot down many times.
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A member of the Christain community, Archbishop Anthony Fisher, rejects this idea as it apparently “excludes religion from the public square in an increasingly secular culture”.This is despite the fact that the focal point of separation of church and state is to get people talking about religion more, and how we can become more transparent with our faiths in order to understand the bias they bring. Australian Christain Lobby NSW Director, Kieran Jackson, alleges that the proposal is an “attempt to rewrite history and attack tradition [and] is not about inclusivity at all, its misguided hostility towards Christianity, a faith which is about love, peace, and humility.” This is referring to the same faith where a schizophrenic father was told to murder his child to prove his loyalty to their God (22:1-19) and the same belief where a convicted child sex offender was unable to be prosecuted because of their status in their church.
In March 2019, whilst he was the Archbishop of Melbourne, Cardinal George Pell was convicted to a minimum of three years and eight months in jail after being found guilty of five charges for sexually assaulting two 13-year-old boys. In 2014, when the allegations started to gain traction, Pell was coincidentally appointed the prefect of the Secretariat of the Economy, meaning he had to travel to Rome. After he was found guilty in December 2018, no action could be taken on account of his diplomatic immunity, and only after another three months did the Catholic Church defrock Pell of that privilege. It is atrocious that anyone should be above the law, especially when that person has been convicted of child molestation as early as 2002 and especially when that person is looked up to as a role model within their community. The severity of his sentence is a whole other topic. If there is any reason whatsoever that the church and state should be separated, this is it.
These issues relating to church and state are not just here in Australia; they are internationally widespread. In December of 2017, the republican party of the United States implemented a bill reforming the way immigrant visas are issued. The law supposedly meant to reduce the number of refugees in the United States. However, it ended up cutting the visas issued to Muslim immigrants but exempting Christian immigrants, even prioritising them. A graph released by the State Department revealed the number of visas distributed to primarily Muslim countries was at 1419 a month before the Bill was implemented, then dropped to a mere 69 a month.
These numbers have quickly been dismissed by the Right-wing Conservatives, claiming that because of the inclusion of North Korea and Venezuela to this Bill, that it cannot be addressed as a ‘Muslim ban’. However, the numbers show that those countries showed no drop in visas issued, dismissing this notion. Since this ban, 98% of people from affected countries have been denied visas. We need to remove all interference from churches in all democracies around the world so that there are no bias representatives, who deem it necessary to discriminate against some of the worlds most vulnerable people.
Further, the state’s Secretary for Education describes her work as “advancing God’s kingdom”, and has started organisations that distribute scholarships to public schools, which can only be spent on private Christian schools. None of which teach evolution, but creationism.
It is outrageous that anybody should be above the law. It is repugnant that Parliament should be preached upon. It is barbaric that Muslims are not treated the same as their Christain counterparts, and it is wicked that unbiased education is becoming inaccessible. We should all be treated equally and all subjected to the same laws that were not influenced by an exterior force. We all need a separation of church and state.
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