Bakers Sued and Teachers Fired: The Dilemma of Freedom

This week's blog post is brought to you by one of our school coordinators, Will. Welcome to the team Will!

The week ended with a bang. With same-sex marriage being legalised, the first weddings will be taken place in January! Everyone is excited for the new page Australia has turned over.

However, with gay weddings taking place next year, the resistance from bakers to discriminate against these weddings is becoming increasingly problematic. Recently, the American Supreme Court Justice, Anthony Kennedy, voiced this issue. Kennedy, a major speaker in the court for gay-rights, worried that a ruling in favour of the baker Jack Phillips might allow bakeries to put up signs saying: “We do not bake gay wedding cakes.”

This of course brings up issues with the American state’s anti-discrimination law. However, under the Trump administration, the government is supporting Phillips' decision in that he cannot be forced to create a cake that violates his religious beliefs.

More locally, a teacher’s job was discounted at Baptist College, south of Perth, when he came out as gay to the school. Craig Campbell, who has been teacher there for over two years (and also a student) is speaking out about inclusiveness in the Christian community. Craig, who has a strong Christian faith, said going public is to help other religious students or staff members about their sexuality.

“I know for me it was pretty hellish,” Campbell said. “I would often think about ways of killing myself before anybody would ever find out. You are so isolated in your thoughts, there’s no support, there’s nobody you can talk to.”

Craig’s experience in the Baptist College was against the ideals of the school. South Coast Baptist College says its staff go “above and beyond their ordinary hours of service” to be supportive to same-sex attracted students. Craig believes that there needs to be some recognition for a need of religious freedom, however, it shouldn’t come at the expense of some of the most vulnerable in our society. He says, “Is that the Christian way to act?”

Legalising same-sex marriage was a win in the human rights movement. However, when something opposes one’s religious beliefs, it must be taken into account that everyone thinks differently. These anecdotes follow a message. It’s about freedom of speech and freedom of religious beliefs. In both events, there is someone that is declining someone else’s rights because of who they are. Of course, this is wrong. But why? We always stop and think about why it’s wrong and not why it’s happening.

To be honest with you, I wrote the ending to this blog several times and I could never phrase my thoughts effectively but I did, however, always reached the same conclusion. That this needs to stop. Not one’s religion, or one’s sexuality, but the way we treat others is paramount to how we live as a society.

We need to know that some people have different views to us and we need to be able to make unbiased decisions on whether they can be a part of our “something bigger”.

This is called freedom of education.

Will is a School Coordinator for StandOut, creative writer and a tireless advocate for the wellbeing of LGBT students. They have written poetry, short stories and created posters raising awareness about the postal survey's effect on mental health of LGBT youth.