GetUp - against church discrimination

The whole row going on right now over churches being able to discriminate on who they employ, using sexuality (among other things) as reasons for denying a work application, is all part of draft legislation that's been put on the table by the gov. The  Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012. 

The Attorney General, Nicola Roxon, has the power to change the legislation to something that the majority of Australians would find much more acceptable. For example, the bit allowing religious organisations to freely discriminate against gays. 

GetUp has organised an online emailing campaign to write the following to the Attorney General here. 

I support and welcome the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012.

However there are four things that need to happen to set a new standard for protection from discrimination:
1. Remove the exemption that would allow religious organisations to legally discriminate.
2. Adopt a definition of gender identity that would protect all people of diverse sex and gender.
3. Make criminal record discrimination a protected attribute where that record is not relevant.
4. Pass the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill before the Federal election.

I encourage you to strengthen the human rights protections in the bill and pass the bill through parliament as soon as possible. Send the email here

Or you can write what you like.

I'd encourage anyone who feels strongly about this to take part in this. It's not only gays being discriminated against either. Those heathen that churches wouldn't want to hire could also include a range of people. From the GetUp email:

You might have already read about the teacher who, after deciding to have a child, was fired by the school she taught at just because she wasn't married.[1] She's not alone. If you or someone you care about is a single parent, gay, divorced, transexual or have ever been accused of a crime then you could find yourself being discriminated against with no legal right to fight back.