More outrages, more revulsion, more enmity

Christians are not noted for scurrying off to the nearest lawyer whenever somebody violates their self-invented freedom never to be offended or reviled. However unless the government removes the religious aspects from the Act, it runs the serious risk of Christians losing their normal equanimity and to begin visiting other religions’ places of worship and instruction, making notes, recording speeches and taking away literature for further assessment and complaint.

Is this what the government wants?

And why stop at other religions? Expect the Comedy Festival to come under close inspection, for if there is one set of events that in the words of the Act, “incites hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of, that other person or class of persons” on the basis of their religious belief or activity, it is the Comedy Festival. And why stop with the Comedy Festival, why not the next Piss Christ event, or for that matter the gross distortion of the Christian story in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code?

The government seriously erred in lumping religious vilification in with racial vilification. Race and religion, with few exceptions, in the modern world are not the same thing. Race for any person is a given, not so religion. Both Islam and Christianity are vibrant missionary religions, seeking converts wherever they can, and this situation will not change.

As far as the Islamic Council of Victoria’s action against Catch the Fire and the two pastors is concerned, the chances are highly likely that aspects of the judge’s decision will be overturned in the Victorian Supreme Court, though the pastors may yet face fines and time in jail for conscience sake - how good will that look for the Bracks Government or for Muslims generally when it is considered how thin-skinned they demonstrated themselves to be in not tolerating any quoting and analysis of the Koran and Hadith from a Christian perspective?

Quite apart from issues of freedom of speech and religious freedom, the government needs to understand this Act is very seriously damaging the social and religious fabric of Victoria. In view of the mounting criticism of the Act and the most recent disavowal of religious vilification legislation by the Premier of NSW, we remain confident that the Act will in fact be amended to remove the religious aspects from it, or at the very least, amended to prevent a repetition of the action of the Islamic Council of Victoria against Catch the Fire Ministries.