The place of religion in the Australian democracy

The place of religion in the Australian democracy and the nature of religious freedom in Australia has recently attracted controversy, particularly when debating controversial social issues such as the legalisation of same-sex marriage. The Australian Law Reform Commission has recognised this through their recent Freedoms Inquiry, which identified provisions of Commonwealth law which unreasonably encroach upon traditional rights and freedoms, including religious freedom. The Commonwealth Parliament has also recognised this through the work of the Select Committee on the Exposure Draft of the Marriage Amendment (Same-Sex Marriage) Bill which considered religious exemptions to relevant anti-discrimination law relating to the legalisation of same-sex marriage, and the work of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (Human Rights Sub-Committee) Inquiry into the status of the human right to freedom of religion or belief. This draft paper, which is intended to outline a project for a DECRA application next year, overviews the legal and theoretical questions pertaining to the place of religion in a democracy like Australia. In particular, the paper discusses the function of Section 116 of the Constitution, the nature of religious freedom and conflict with anti-discrimination law, understandings of the 'secular' and what it means for Australia to be a secular state, and different views of liberal democracy in an era of religious pluralism. The paper suggests no principled theoretical perspective has engaged with these questions in an integrated, holistic way, and the project aims to address this deficiency by using the approach of Christian theologian John Milbank