Australian Christian Lobby backs sacking of employees with no ‘Christian sexual ethic’

ACL director Martyn Iles says businesses should have greater powers to hire and fire, but denies Christians have a ‘special vendetta’ against LGBT people

Paul Karp
@Paul_Karp
Wed 9 Oct 2019 06.42 BST
Last modified on Wed 9 Oct 2019 08.11 BST

The Australian Christian Lobby has backed calls for religious businesses such as aged care providers to gain more powers of hiring and firing employees who do not conform to religious teachings.

In a debate at the National Press Club on Wednesday the ACL director Martyn Iles backed calls from the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference for greater powers to fire employees who don’t conform to a “Christian sexual ethic” but claimed Christians don’t have a “special vendetta” against the LGBT community.

The intervention comes as the attorney general Christian Porter considers possible amendments to the controversial religious discrimination bill exposure draft before parliament returns next week.

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Although hiring and firing of gay teachers and expelling gay students is the subject of a separate reference to the Australian Law Reform Commission, the bill states in section 10 that a religious body “does not discriminate against a person under this Act” by conduct which “may reasonably be regarded” as in line with that religion.

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