Religious Restrictions !

The " religious freedom laws " passing through Federal parliament will not please everybody and they have provoked a challenge from the nation's top Jewish body to allow religious hospitals, aged care facilities and housing providers to " preference people of their own faith " when it comes to admitting patients or choosing board members.

The second draft of this legislation gives a degree of latitude to religions in their ability to choose staff but the Executive Council of Australian Jewry's boss, Peter Wertheim is calling for hospitals, aged care homes and accommodation providers to maintain the same right as schools to decide exactly who can benefit from their services.

That idea certainly opens up an interesting can of worms when we examine the range of restrictions that are part of religious dogma and imagine them imposed on patients or residents by the religion providing the service.  We could see perfectly legal medical procedures refused by religious hospitals and everything from food type to activities permitted severely restricted if they failed to meet the guidelines imposed by the owning religion.

In Australia, religions are absolved from the paying of taxes and municipal fees such as rates on their landholding and have a huge advantage over their commercial competitors.  If church run facilities become a closed shop for people of that same faith the church will be gaining an unfair advantage in the cost structure due to its freedom from the usual business charges.

In particular, the law is adamant that people living in aged care have similar rights to when they lived in their own homes.  The care provider can not impose demands related to religion or place restrictions on activities because of religious dogma.  The fact that the residents are as mix of religions is helpful in maintaining that this activities mix covers a wide spectrum.

Mr Wetheim said it was not about allowing religious facilities to turn away people who did not subscribe to the relevant faith, but about being able to " preference " people where that was necessary.  It's positive discrimination.  Not negative.

This drew a response from the Federal Attorney General who said that in reality  religious hospitals and aged care homes  " do not appear to discriminate in service delivery - and do not want to ".

The bill now in parliament gives preference in employment, but not in service delivery, or for the purpose of meeting religious needs, but not linguistic or cultural needs.

A lot of people will think it ought to be kept that way !