A Watershed Moment: Will State discrimination remove the essential ethos of Australian religious schools?

Dr Daud Batchelor

Australia is losing its democratic representativity where different views could be held, including by religious minorities in their schools, who until now could pursue their teachings/practices and maintain their whole-of-school ethos/religious environment.

Indeed, this aligns with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion … to manifest his religion/belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

However, religious people are on the cusp of being severely discriminated against in having these rights removed by Federal/ State Labor governments.

It could mean end of authentic Islamic schooling in Australia.

Law reform/human rights commissioners are priming them to expand legislative protections to the LGBT minority, while trashing religious ethos in private schools (Shanahan, “Hellbent on trashing religious schools’ ethos,” Weekend Australian).

The 2017 Same-sex marriage survey indicated a sizeable 38% Australians opposed, who likely didn’t empathise with LGBT lifestyles.

Fast-track forward, the majority now seems to support legislation penalizing religious adherents (of this minority) for wishing to protect their schools’ ethos – a sad development in a country once proud of its diverse ethnic, cultural, religious society.

As Co-founder of one Islamic school, my purpose working to establish it was to ensure an Islamic ethos would be inculcated to safeguard Muslims students living as a minority in Australia.

Dennis Fang in his TikTok blog clearly explained why Qatar found difficulty in accepting overt LGBT displays during the World Cup: “the moral framework of Islam and LGBT are diametrically opposed.”

While a Western liberal may identify with their own feelings and bodily urges, “In Islam … one doesn’t have sovereignty over their own bodies, for humans were created deliberately by God to fulfill a noble spiritual purpose serving God … In this framework, Allah created male and female with reproductive and social roles; thus fulfilling these purposes is honoring God. … So sex outside those purposes loses its meaning and legitimacy …”

He concluded: Although individualistic liberalism had become the defacto lingua franca of the new Western morality, it was improper to try to colonise everyone with such ideas.

Yaqeen Institute highlights, “One would have to reject Islamic guidance root and branch in order to incorporate this radical gender egalitarianism.”

For moral advice, the Muslim community refers to those knowledgeable – Australian Imams/scholars, who are virtually unanimous that LGBT practices are against Islamic teachings.

Consequently, an Islamic school would wish to build an environment free of such influences.

It should be able to turn-down applications from those applying to become students/staff, who overtly embrace LGBT outlooks.

Indicated legislative changes would inculcate LGBT practices on schoolgrounds, affecting governance on gender identity, uniforms, toilets, sports, with heavy litigative threat on presenting Islam’s teachings on marriage/family.

In an Islamic school, if a school teacher/ student changes to exhibit LGBT behaviors they would be counselled and requested to reconcile.

The school would support Muslims who respect Islamic teachings, but struggle with same-sex attractions and/or gender dysphoria while struggling to live lives of virtue conforming with Islamic teachings.

However, if they wished to continue exhibiting this behavior, the caring solution is for them to join one of many schools accepting their outlook.

Islam contends that serious consequences of LGBT lifestyles will become apparent over time.

We see in collapse of the UK Tavistock Clinic and last Weekend Australian’s edito- rial, multiple issues including serious harms arising from premature transgender transitions.

Do read Abigail Shrier’s remarkable book, “Irreversible Damage: Teenage Girls and the Transgender Craze.”

Facing such extremely serious threats, I highlight to politicians that voters will surely make their views known on the new legislation.

In the past two elections, Labor had swings against it in religious/multicultural seats in NSW, Victoria, Queensland. On this issue, any such swings could likely cause permanent changes in political allegiance.

Dr Daud Batchelor, holds an MA in Islamic and Other Civilisations and a Diploma in Islamic Studies from the International Islamic University Malaysia, PhD from University of Malaya, MSc from the University of London.