Australian voters are vehemently opposed to laws that allow church schools to discriminate against homosexual love teachers and students, and the special exemption clause on discrimination will be challenged next week in a growing political storm.
The overwhelming poll adds to the debate over whether church schools can hire or fire teachers on the basis of sexual orientation. Prime Minister Morrison has vowed to put an end to church schools evicting homosexual love students from authority.
In a month-long debate on taxes, immigration, climate change, and in recent days on religious freedom, Labour opinion polls have made little headway and are now ahead of the Unionparty by 55:45.
Morrison still leads Schotton 48-35 on his favourite prime minister.
A special Fairfax-Ipsos poll showed 74 percent of voters opposed laws that allow church schools to select students on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and relationship status.
The law was opposed by 62% of Unionparty supporters, 81% of Labour supporters, 92% of Greens and 51% of Korean supporters.
Only 30 percent of Unionparty supporters, 15 percent of Labour supporters and 7 percent of Green Party supporters endorse the law that grants church schools the right to discriminate against homosexual love teachers and students. 45% of the proponents of the one-state party endorsed the law.
Church school leaders told Fairfax Media that they did not reject homosexual love teachers and students, arguing that they had been unfairly targeted in the debate over the past week, but that they needed to be able to run schools freely according to their beliefs.
After Fairfax Media revealed last week that the results of the government's inquiry into religious freedom had been kept confidential since May, Morrison over the weekend amended the sex discrimination law, cutting back on exemptions for church schools.
The prime minister said the government would amend the law so that schools could not expel homosexual love students, but did not make the same commitment for homosexual love teachers, saying that "broader issues" could be debated at a later date.
Section 38 of the Sex Discrimination Act allows ecclesiastical schools to be exempted when dealing with staff issues, provided that their discrimination is consistent with their religious beliefs.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/fairfax-ipsos-poll-huge-majority-of-australians-oppose-laws-banning-gay-students-and-teachers-20181014-p509kv.html
