On Philip Ruddock and “religious freedoms”

Dion Giles writes: Re. “Philip Ruddock is here to save us from secular persecution” (Wednesday)

If Parliament is to go on after this to debate religious freedom, let it turn its attention to the squandering of taxpayers’ money – in what is supposed to be a secular democracy – on a range of privileges for religion starting with religious prayers in the Houses of Parliament and dwelling on the subsidising of schools for religious indoctrination, chaplaincy programmes, and the inclusion of church authorities in national and state decision making. Let the pollies focus on the fact that religious freedom means freedom FROM religion.

Graham Thorburn writes: Re. “Philip Ruddock is here to save us from secular persecution” (Wednesday)

From the outset the ‘No’ campaign insisted that the plebiscite was not just about equal access to marriage; but also (and equally) about political correctness, freedom of speech and religious freedoms — by which they meant their right to continue to practice bigotry.

Now that the vote has been roundly lost, they want to reverse their argument, and claim that the plebiscite was only about marriage equality – so those self-same rights that they demanded be taken into account in the vote must now either be included in the legislation, or dealt with separately. It’s the height of self-serving hypocrisy for them to now argue that the outcome reinforces their need to be granted those same protections when in truth they have been hoist on their own petard.