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Reducing faith-based schools to a single element of their sexual ethics that stands in contradiction to secular mores, creates a strawman for anti-Christian politicians to attack, eroding the freedom of private schools to teach in accordance with their beliefs.

According to elements within the Australian Labor Party, Christian schools are hotbeds of pro-life, “homophobic” extremism.

This is, at least, the view of one West Australian MP, Dave Kelly.

The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practitioner exclaimed in a Feb. 23 hit piece — platformed by The West Australian — that Christian schools were rampant with anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination.

Christian schools, Kelly implied, were hurting kids and staff by hunting homosexuals down to impose “homophobic” values and beliefs on them.

The Labor MP’s one source for this is a rather benign, solitary statistic provided by the clearly woke Telethon Kids, an institute affiliated with Perth Children’s Hospital.

“10 per cent of students identify as something other than heterosexual,” he said.

Without citing relevant examples of any actual harm done to this 10 per cent, Kelly’s rant, filled with clichés, and stereotypes, doubled down.

“These kids at religious schools can be subjected to teachings that say who they are is the work of the devil, or that being gay will send you to hell,” he claimed.

“In 21st-century Australia,” he argued, “religious belief should never be a blank cheque to hurt others.”

“There are many parts of the world where religious beliefs mean homosexuality is illegal, and even punishable by death,” the pro-Hamas politician oddly added.

Ignoring the 2013 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Kelly concluded,

“Religious organisations, like any other organisation in Australia, should always be expected to be accountable for their actions rather than simply hide behind a blanket claim of religious belief.”

On this basis, he wants to water down key 1984 religious freedom exemptions in the WA discrimination act.

Labelling freedom of religion “outdated”, Kelly’s LGBTQ+ utopia is a land of private schools subsumed into the failing state system, differing from their public counterparts in name only.

Ethics and Biology

Responding to Kelly in a press release, Darryl Budge, the Western Australian Director of FamilyVoice Australia, described the hit piece as “statist”.

“Dave Kelly should recognise freedom of choice, even if it doesn’t suit his own political agenda,” Budge countered.

“Independent education must be different to State schools, and that requires the freedom to promote different values.”

Budge then explained,

“Teachers who seek employment in faith-based schools know fully well what those institutions represent and are hired because they agree to those values and agree to live accordingly.”

Budge is right.

Christian schools are not Sharia-run countries, where jihadists throw those who practise homosexuality off tall buildings.

Kelly’s argument is largely hypothetical.

The self-styled “homophobia” expert provides no tangible evidence to back his arguments.

Additionally, his “can be” when talking about Christian schools subjecting kids to abuse, doesn’t mean they are.

Teaching biological facts backed by the Bible is neither “hate speech” nor “homophobia.”

Christian schools teaching kids anthropological facts, in light of God’s objective moral standard, isn’t “heteronormative oppression.”

Such as 2,000+ years of widely accepted truths about the importance, and beauty in the created order of man for woman, woman for man.

Their priority is to educate, not indoctrinate.

Kids need to be inoculated against the propagandist, equipped with faith, and thinking tools: logic, theology, and civics. (See C.S Lewis’ Abolition of Man.)

Christian education, grounded on faith seeking understanding, has been for centuries a line in the sand against evil.

Hence, DEI Dave’s beef.

For Kelly’s nepotist ilk, Christian schools should be hiring leftwing activists, not educators.

He seems to think Christian schools dissenting from the West’s corrupting, cultural Marxist distortions, makes them evil.

Self-Contradictory

Oblivious to the asinine irony, diversity Dave doesn’t believe in diversity.

Under his proposals, no one will be allowed to teach evidence-based viewpoints that conflict with the accepted, approved narratives of Pride, and its protected political class.

Forced to hire employees to meet an equity quota, Christian schools will be robbed of their uniqueness.

Bureaucratic bullying will replace freedom of speech with LGBTrans-approved forced speech, and educators will be monitored closely by thought police.

His entire wacky woke case for getting the Attorney-General to exclude Christian (and other religious) schools from protections for religious freedom, is dangerously inconsistent.

It’s also speculation.

I approached Kelly about this on X, to no avail.

. @Davekellymp do you care to comment on your Feb 23 article in the West Australian, which blatantly vilifies Christian schools as homophobic, abortion-hating radicalisation centres?

Additionally, do you care to acknowledge the inconsistency in your arguments about ‘protecting…

— Rod Lampard (@rod_lampard) February 27, 2024

Anticipating criticism, his West Australian piece implied that the lack of consistent evidence was because “oppressed” LGBTQ+ identifying individuals and staff at Christian schools feared their heteronormative oppressors.

So, we just have to take his word for it and end livelihoods and liberty, all based on his misguided altruism.

That’s quite the call, and not one the West Australian Attorney-General should bother to entertain.

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Photo by Yan Krukau.