I'm terrified about losing our equal protection...

Ok well I'm going to make this as simple and succinct as I possibly can.

I'm from Victoria, Australia.

Legally Equal Rights and Protection from discrimination is done on a state to state rather than federal level.
In Victoria we have the Equal Rights Charter ( http://www.humanrightscommission.vic.gov.au/ for info ) which provides us most of our freedoms and protections in this state. However, there's always been an issue with religion and the Equal Opportunity Charter. In the charter currently, religious organisations are given free ground to discriminate against anyone who they disagree with, as long as it occurs within their organisation.

This became a big issue last year with a court case which came to a head that was levelled against a church that owned and operated a secular campground decided to try to use this loophole to excuse them from discriminating against a LGBT teen anti-suicide project called the WayOut Project. (More info: http://www.theage.com.au/national/c...barring-camp-to-gay-group-20100707-100od.html and more-more info at: http://wayout.org.au/News-Events/news.html )

Basically they tried to bail their way out using the loophole in the law as a reason for denying them use of the site (Also just quickly going to point out here that I know most of the people involved in this complaint, and until they went to VCAT [civil court] they had absolutely no clue it was run by any form of religious organisation, also funnily enough they went to another openly Christian organisations camp site and were immediately accepted) but the judge ruled, that the campsite was a separate business and the loopholes didn't apply there. (the case is currently under appeal, but chances are the opponents won't succeed because their case has no ground)

Anyway back on topic, the charter was to be updated this year with further protections, and closing of the loopholes that gave religion free reign to harass and discriminate people, instead requiring that they had to show causes for it and a reason. (not just because of sexuality, but also if they were in a defacto couple, single parents, divorced etc etc.) but because we had an election last year we had a changeover of government. and with that changeover of government was a deal given to Christian lobby groups to repeal the laws that closed the loopholes, and instead open them up further so that religion can use them to discriminate at will, and allow them to essentially discriminate at will wherever and whenever they see fit.

This is what has caused me to lose a lot of sleep over the last few months, we're coming very close to the time where these changes will come in, and very little has been going on to rectify the issue. A small group calling themselves Equal Rights Victoria has sprung up but there's still not a lot being done yet to fix the issues...

Instead of the leap forward we were supposed to see in our legal rights, it will become a leap backward, putting members of our community in this state at great risk.

 

yeah at the moment they pretty much have a free pass, and that's where the issues have stemmed from in the past, the gaps were supposed to be patched so that they had to show a reason for discriminating if they were asked, but with this change to the law, it doesn't only stop that from going through, it gives them a wider ground to discriminate on, and the worst part is that it'll not be restricted to just in churches either