I have had problems with some of Dick Gross’ columns in the past, as you might remember. But I think this time he has got it exactly right, and since his pieces get read by many more people than mine, I’m happy to blog about it, when he does get it right.
I have already posted about this disgusting move by the new Baillieu government in Victoria, to turn back the clock and give religious organisations carte blanche to discriminate against prospective employees, be that people of different faiths, or single mothers.
I like what Dick Gross wrote about it for the National Times today.
Australia’s major faiths have shown themselves to be the moral handbrake in Australian society.
They brazenly embrace discrimination and bend the wills of supine governments to preserve their power to preserve the power to commit sins that most Australians would not dream of.
I normally take a benevolent view of faiths and admire their philanthropy, their liturgy and their sense of community. But when the bonds of a faith community are built upon the capricious exclusion of others, that behaviour goes beyond the bounds and must be condemned. Far from being morally pure or demonstrating that one needs God to be good, the religions look morally spent, still besieged by issues most of us left behind centuries ago.
Read on here.
