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Articles on Religious freedom

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The Ruddock report recommends the existing right of religious schools to turn away LGBT+ students and teachers be maintained, but that further constraints be added. Shutterstock

Ruddock report constrains, not expands, federal religious exemptions

The report affirms that religious freedom is not to be legally entrenched as superior to rights to equality and freedom from discrimination.
Demonstrators take part in a protest against Quebec’s proposed Values Charter in Montreal in September 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

New premier, same old story: Québec’s longtime anti-niqab efforts

If Quebec’s new premier succeeds in passing ‘secularization’ legislation by wielding the notwithstanding clause, it will come at the cost of civil rights and the protective capacity of the Charter.
Morrison’s brush strokes on his own portrait are designed to create the image of a leader tuned to the voters’ concerns, rather than the “Canberra bubble”. Lukas Coch/AAP

Grattan on Friday: Morrison aims to make agility his prime ministerial trademark

Morrison is tactically quicker than Turnbull, just as in his messaging he can cut through more sharply. He’s more attuned to the emotional and knee-jerk drivers of today’s politics.
President Donald Trump with pastor Paula White during a dinner for evangelical leaders in the White House, on Aug. 27, 2018. AP Photo/Alex Brandon

This 19th-century argument over federal support for Christianity still resonates

President Trump has promised to protect religious liberty. But there was a time when evangelicals believed that a religion that needed protection from government had no reason to exist at all.
People protest the shrinking of Bears Ears National Monument. AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

Why Native Americans struggle to protect their sacred places

Despite the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, passed by the US Congress 40 years ago, Native Americans still struggle to protect public lands where they practice their religions.
As the government considers the Ruddock Review, a case for greater protections for religious freedom. Shutterstock

Why Australians’ religious freedom is worth protecting

Research shows that religion can have a positive impact on society in terms of better health, less crime and a stronger economy.
We don’t know what former Howard government minister Philip Ruddock and his panel have found and recommended about legislation to protect religious freedom. Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Grattan on Friday: Little upside for Malcolm Turnbull in debate over religious freedom

The government won’t be putting out the report before the July 28 byelections, and that tells us something. There are concerns about how this issue will run in the public domain.
We must protect people from harmful speech. But the cause of freedom must exceed the creation of religious exemptions. Shutterstock

Australia needs a better conversation about religious freedom

As the Ruddock review of religious freedom is about to report, we need a more sophisticated understanding of what religion is and the ways its expression can be curtailed - or can curtail others.
The justices have previously ruled that the government cannot compel people to speak its message or associate with ideas they do not hold. www.shutterstock.com

Supreme Court to rule on your First Amendment right to silence

Most people know that the First Amendment protects free speech. But two upcoming Supreme Court cases reveal how it also gives people in the US the right not to speak.

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