http://www.smh.com.au/news/0009/11/national/national4.html Abbott backs church sacking gay employees David Marr Centacare has a right to sack homosexuals, according to Mr Abbott, the Minister for Work Place Relations, who has endorsed claims by the Catholic Church that its Jobs Network agency has the right to dismiss employees who live "openly at variance with church teaching". The minister was responding to draft guidelines issued by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) designed to protect staff employed by Centacare and the three other "faith based" agencies providing employment services on behalf of the Commonwealth Government. "There are serious problems with the guidelines," he told the Herald. "They show a general lack of sympathy for the principle that a religious organisation has a right to maintain its own ethos." As the minister responsible for the Jobs Network, Mr Abbott has pledged to protect Christian agencies from "unreasonable interference in freedom of religion" - including the right of Christians to hire and fire according to their teaching on sex and marriage. "This is a diverse pluralist democracy that believes everyone has a broad entitlement to live their lives as they see fit," Mr Abbott said. "But I don't think an openly homosexual person has a right to be employed by an organisation publicly committed to oppose that lifestyle." The HREOC draft guidelines are designed to deal with the four "faith based" agencies in Jobs Network now being paid about $700million over three years to shoulder part of the tasks of the old Commonwealth Employment Service. Earlier this year, under pressure from HREOC, the Salvation Army's Employment Plus, Wesley Uniting Employment and Mission Employment dropped controversial claims to favour Christians when hiring their own staff. But now the Catholic Church is asserting its claim to hire and fire Centacare staff according to church teaching on sex. The Catholic Bishops Conference in Canberra is drafting a response to the HREOC on these lines. The church will argue that all its employees - from priests to clerks in Centacare - are subject to church rules and exempt from federal anti-discrimination protection. Mr Abbott, a former trainee for the priesthood, supports this claim. "I am not backing it from a Catholic but a logical point of view," he said. The director of Centacare Sydney, Father John Usher, has assured the Herald that no adulterers, single mothers or homosexuals have been dismissed by his organisation. "I don't want anyone to be hurt by what is the teachings of the church but I would expect them not to hold up publicly any beliefs or behave in ways that would bring the agency or the church into disrepute," he said. The shadow attorney-general, Mr Robert McClelland, believes the proposed HREOC guidelines are "pretty sound" and that Jobs Network agencies should not be allowed to impose religious tests on their employees. "Constitutional protections of freedom of religion should not be contravened by contracting out," Mr McClelland said. "Our founders saw the dangers, and the logic of their reasoning has just as much force 100 years later. "I don't think other members of his party will agree with Abbott. They'll pull him into line.'' -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
