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The Forum > Article Comments > Religious Freedom Act should be opposed as a back-door Bill of Rights > Comments

Religious Freedom Act should be opposed as a back-door Bill of Rights : Comments

By Lorraine Finlay, published 6/8/2018

The problem in this case is that a Religious Freedom Act could ultimately be used, paradoxically, to undermine the very freedoms it is meant to protect.

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Agree that a bill of rights is a bad idea.

In the US there have been dozens, if not hundreds, of Supreme Court cases about what the religious freedom part of their constitution means. The concept of religious freedom is meaningless, which is why all it really means is more money for lawyers.

There is no such thing as religious freedom. There is no such thing as freedom of speech. Only freedom subject to law, i.e. subject to the many statutory and common law restrictions on speech and religion that already rightly exist.
Posted by WilliamS, Tuesday, 7 August 2018 10:24:50 AM
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The idea of RIGHTS has very little clarity in any discussion I have read or listened to. Most of the things people express as RIGHTS are not RIGHTS at all but a benefit of belonging to a society with a governmental culture of allowing, even supporting, the expressed needs of a minority sub-group of people in that society. I am all in agreement with such a society and governance. However, without RIGHTS as a clear set of principles, i.e. something unchanging that underpins how the governmental culture can deal with the needs of sub-groups, then the tendency is for RIGHTS to become whatever the powerful group who can swing a majority, can pass into legislation. That is patently unfair. It is the failure of being able to sound a clear RIGHTS principle, that is preventing the Uluru Statement from getting immediate traction. Once a RIGHTS principle is clearly established ie where every philosopher and legislator can accept, and the average 15 year old, understand, then all religious and minority groups are provided the necessary freedoms and limitations to pursue their potentiality. Until then there will just be an inadequate conversation in forums like this
Posted by Owen59, Tuesday, 7 August 2018 4:13:57 PM
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Dear CHERFUL,

«Violence and religion are not contradictory terms. The Muslim Koran(religion),actually commands muslims to kill non believers. The Infidel.»

The Muslim Koran, at least to that extent, is therefore not a religious text.

«Religion and violence were certainly bedfellows when the Catholic Church persecuted the “The Heretics” in middle centuries England.»

And to that extent, the Catholic church is not a religious organisation either.

«God should command love and peace, true spirituality.»

This is an idiom because God does not actually command anything, rather, certain acts lead towards God and other acts lead away from God.

«religion is always deciphered by mankind.»

Idiomatically so. In more accurate terms, people often fail to find the path to God, including even those who devote their lives to actively seeking that path.

«So any laws made in respect to enshrining religious rights would have to deal with the violence of religion in the world we have here and now..»

Given that even those who actively devote their lives to seek the path to God, often fail, how could you expect legislators (who have different goals in mind) to be more successful in identifying religion?

At best, they could try to oppose all violence in principle, without any specific reference to religion, but can they be trusted to recognise violence, especially while engaged in violence themselves? and can they also be trusted to never mistake non-violent actions and wrongly consider them to be violent? Some have tried, but they are all bound to mumble, stumble and never get it right.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Tuesday, 7 August 2018 6:38:24 PM
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