Politics -Australia Anti-Discrimination LawPastors Nalliah and Scott clash with Anti- Discrimination Law
What is this about? Pastor Danny Nalliah and Pastor Daniel Scott got in trouble with the government and an anti discrimination law when they spoke against Islam. They originally had a heft fine levied on them. What does Pastors Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scott’s opposition to Islam have to do with homosexuality???? I have no idea. I include it on these pages because it is often grouped together with free speech concerns – more on this later. Here is the history of this legal action… Original court order (apparently this all started in 2002) (see link) Quoting from the document above.. “The complaint concerned statements made by Pastor Daniel Scot in a seminar organised by Catch The Fire Ministries and held on 9 March 2002 in Surrey Hills, articles written by Pastor Daniel Nalliah in the Newsletters of Catch The Fire Ministries Inc and an article written by an American called Richard Braidich published on Catch The Fire's website in 2001. VCAT found the seminar was not a balanced discussion, that Pastor Scot presented the seminar in a way that was essentially hostile, demeaning and derogatory of all Muslim people, their God, their prophet Mohammed and in general Muslim beliefs and practices, that Pastor Scot was not a credible witness and that he did not act reasonably and in good faith.” Earlier moments in case's history (June 2005)... (see link) The pastors here (above) tell the media that they refuse to comply with the order to pay a fine and give apology. Here the pastors are allowed leave to appeal the decision (August of 2005)...( see link) And here the case is settled.. (see link) The final agreement can be found here… see link My take on this.. Well of course I rejoice that these pastors were given freedom from fines or penalty for speaking their views. Since I have not heard their actual presentation that incited this legal action I cannot really give an opinion on their presentation. While there is a need for great sensitivity in discussions of other religions there should not be a cause to stifle speech in this way.. A key point to be made here is that Australia is not the United States. Other countries do not have the same free speech protection that we enjoy. In fact other countries even have laws that limit speech. Thus legal action like this and like what happened in Sweden do happen. But with the free speech laws of the United States there should be no reason to fear that this would happen here. Many groups in the United States are protected already and free speech still reigns. See the main pages for more on this. Here are other references.. http://www.religioustolerance.org/news07jun.htm http://www.religioustolerance.org/auspeech.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Nalliah http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/pastors-vow-to-go-to-jail-on-hate-case/2005/06/22/1119321792033.html Audio of a talk by Scott... http://www.sundayatseven.com/audio/sas20050410.mp3 (LINK NOT ACTIVE) |
