BY SIMON BUTLER
Federal employment minister Tony Abbott has come to the defence of Centacare, the Catholic Church's government-funded employment agency, arguing that it should be able to sack employees it discovers are homosexuals.
Abbott's homophobic attack on the rights of gays and lesbians to live without persecution was a response to draft guidelines released by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC) designed to protect staff employed at the four religion-based employment agencies that currently operate on government contracts.
Abbott told the Sydney Morning Herald on September 11, "There are serious problems with the guidelines ... they show a lack of sympathy for the principle that a religious organisation has a right to maintain its own ethos."
HREOC's draft report, released on August 4, pointed out that any discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual preference would contravene the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Labour Organisation Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention and also the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986.
Abbott disagreed: "I don't think an openly homosexual person has a right to be employed by an organisation publicly committed to oppose that lifestyle ... it's an infringement of [churches'] civil liberties." He went on to claim that not allowing the Catholic Church to persecute homosexual staff was "an unreasonable interference in the freedom of religion".
Abbott's defence of the "freedom and "rights" to oppress others has been accompanied by a renewed ideological campaign by the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Bishops Conference is drafting a response to HREOC in which it will argue that all employees of Centacare are subject to church teachings on sexual relations. The bishops hope to gain exemption from federal anti-discrimination laws.
The Reverend Howard Dillon, executive director of Anglicare (the Anglican Church's employment service), has similarly argued that it is impossible to separate the ethos of a Christian agency and the staff it employs. The impossible separation Dillon is referring to is usually known as the separation of church and state.
Both Centacare and Anglicare are members of the federal government's Job Network program, which replaced the Commonwealth Employment Service in late 1999. Job Network is part of the government's "social coalition" policy, which seeks to shift the provision of social service from government to families, charities and private corporations.
Church-owned employment agencies have profited greatly from the government's privatisation. The four religious agencies will receive around $700 million over the next three years. Fears raised last year that the Job Network would encourage religious organisations to discriminate against people who don't share their beliefs seem to be coming true.
Unemployment agencies are not supposed to be religious bodies. Employment with and access to these agencies should not be withheld from those who disagree with religious beliefs. Unemployed people are required by law to register with a Job Network agency to receive welfare benefits.
Similar church influence in the provision of health care has resulted in abortion services being far less accessible. The churches of course use the profits they make to advance their influence.
Ominously, Abbott has pledged to protect Christian agencies from any interference. Given that current federal legislation outlaws discrimination against homosexuals, the Howard government may be signalling its intention to dump these laws.
Defenders of human rights should demand that the government sever Job Network contracts with agencies, church-based or otherwise, that discriminate against employees on the basis of sexuality, marital status or any other religious criterion. And we should demand that the privatisation of welfare services be reversed.