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Australia a soft theocracy? + Christians express alarm at French extremism Bill

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Christians express alarm at French extremism Bill
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2...emism-bill

INTRO: Christian leaders in France have voiced the fear that a government-backed draft Law against Separatism, passed by the National Assembly and due to come before the Senate on 30 March, will upset the country’s secular republican ethos by imposing undue limits on basic freedoms.

“The Republic signifies the ambition and promise that men and women can live together with equal rights and duties, regardless of family, ethnic, cultural or religious affiliations — we have all learned to live well within it,” leaders of the Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Churches said in a joint appeal.

“But this draft law, whatever its intentions, risks undermining fundamental freedoms of worship, association, education and opinion, already abused by a thought police installing itself more and more in the public sphere.”

The church leaders were reacting to the draft law, which is expected to enforce new security and administrative curbs on religious communities and associations.

The church leaders “unreservedly welcomed” the provisions against forced marriages, sexual mutilation, inheritance inequalities, hate speech, and discrimination; but, they continued, the new measures threatened to “modify and transform as never before” the existing legal order, which had enabled France “to unite highly diverse men and women” through the “good and bad times of history”... (MORE)


Religion retains hold on Australian politics in 'soft theocracy'
https://independentaustralia.net/politic...racy,14902

EXCERPT: . . . There is so much politics unrelated to the relationships between government and religion that all of the above usually flies under the radar of political discourse in Australia, including in universities. It is, for the most part, sight unseen. Sure, churches have lost ground on issues like gay marriage, decriminalisation of abortion and voluntary euthanasia. But these social issues involve little taxpayers’ money.

To have any chance of changing our historical political-religious complex – our soft theocracy – Australia would have to become a republic with an amendment to the Constitution to separate government and religion. Only then would it be possible to argue, on grounds of separation of government and religion, that religious privileges of one kind or another are unconstitutional.

Until recently, that was the case in the Republic of the United States in respect of the big-ticket item of Federal funding of religious schools. In the 2019 case Espinoza v Montana Department of Revenue, the Trump appointees on the Supreme Court put a legal torpedo into the hitherto bipartisan support of the principle of separation of church and state, a principle on which the United States was partly founded. This demonstrates that even a republic is not safe from the churches who believe they have a right to impose their theocratic beliefs and they will do whatever it takes to get access to taxpayers’ money to promote them.

So, from a strictly secular perspective, Australia is not a secular democracy that favours neither religion nor atheism. It is a soft, Christian theocracy that has subsidised religion into the powerful position it has today where just five per cent or less of very religiously committed voters can frighten the more enlightened members of political parties into silence or sycophancy to continue their financial and other privileges... (MORE - details)
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