They also hope the new laws will protect churches' ability to selectively hire school staff who share their religious ethos. They have been urging the government to frame religious protections "positively", without any exemptions.

Cabinet ministers approved the proposed legislation on Tuesday, and the bill will be taken to the coalition partyroom when parliament returns next month.

A draft of the new bill is due to be released publicly "during the next few weeks".

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says while there is still work to do on the bill, he wants the new laws to unite rather than divide Australians.

He says he will continue to consult with religious groups and others to progress the legislation, which could be passed by the end of the year.

Patrick Parkinson, a spokesperson for Christian legal think tank, Freedom for Faith, said the Morrison government had "shifted" its thinking in response to consultation with church groups.

The new laws won't deal with the issue of how schools deal with gay staff and students, however. LGBTIQ advocates are preparing to push back against "religious privilege", arguing churches should "not be above laws that apply to everyday Australians".

In addition, the Australian Law Reform Commission is expected to release a discussion paper shortly on whether religious schools can expel gay students.

The Bishop of South Sydney says he hopes the bill will mean it is "not discrimination" for religious schools and community organisations to employ staff who subscribe to the organisation's religious ethos.

He is also optimistic it would not be discriminatory to operate a school in accordance with a religious ethos, such as expecting students to attend chapel services.

In Victoria, the law allows doctors to conscientiously object to providing care to people who want to use the state's voluntary assisted dying scheme.

If terminally ill patients in Catholic-run hospitals and hospices in the state want to access the scheme, they have to move to other facilities to do so.

Source

• Brisbane Times
• 9News
• Image: Reuters

Under Australian federal and state laws, some religious organisations are exempt from laws that protect workers from losing their jobs as a result of their gender identity or sexuality. Schools are among these organisations.

The unions have made it clear that although some roles religious organisations want to fill will require candidates to adhere to church teaching (for example, school religious education teachers), the same adherence to church teaching is not necessary for the school cleaner.

Wil Stracke, a member of the Victorian Trades Hall Council which proposed the new motion, said union members hoped the religious exemptions to discrimination laws would be "narrowed significantly so that they can only apply when it's an inherent requirement of the job.

" We'll work on changing those laws and advocating for that change."

Stracke says there are over 200,000 jobs in Australia where workers could be legally fired if they came out.

Nearly 40 percent of LGBTIQ workers were not "out at work", she says.

"That means LGBTIQ workers are forced into the situation where, for example, taking carers' leave to look after their sick partner means they risk being sacked."

Under the current rules, simply supporting views that are contrary to church teaching can cause people to lose their jobs.

One Australian woman says she lost her job after someone discovered on social media that she supported same-sex marriage. However, the woman says her job did not involve teaching about gender or sexuality.

"I'd been careful not to speak about sexuality because I knew it would close doors," she says.

"It turned out someone had found out I was speaking, looked me up on Facebook, found I'd changed my profile picture to a rainbow when the US supreme court passed marriage equality about a year before, and complained to the bishop of the diocese."

Source

• Crux Now
• The Guardian
• Image: Flickr