I wish that I didn’t have to write this, but the actions of a certain malignant Christchurch fundamentalist school have left me no choice.

In a recent Stuff.co.nz article, there was a piece on a gay male netball coach who had been given an unfair dismissal by Middleton Grange, apparently the largest fundamentalist school in the country still. Founded in 1964, it was host to Graham Capill, Christian Heritage Party leader. His dad Don was Vice Principal until the eighties. I was a one-time inmate there. It served as a nexus for the abortive campaign against homosexual law reform in the mid-eighties.

I suspect that if the young twenty eight year old teacher in question had known about that ghastly backstory, he wouldn’t have bothered coaching there. Fortunately, there is a happy ending- it has been decided that the young man had experienced unfair dismissal and the school has been forced to pay reparations to him. Frankly, I’m surprised that this sort of collision between lesbian and gay teachers and backward fundamentalist enclaves has taken so long to materialise, probably because we shun such neurotic and hermetically sealed enclaves unless there is good reason to do otherwise. Countering malignant antigay political efforts is the only reason to do so.

Should it end there? Well, no. Why should religious institutions be treated with impunity if they break New Zealand law? If Middleton Grange refuses to employ lesbian and gay teachers, then what if other fundamentalist schools don’t comply with LGBT youth suicide prevention directives, or those against homophobic bullying? Should integrated fundamentalist private schools be penalised by withheld operational funding if they refuse to obey mainstream New Zealand anti-discrimination laws or government directives against bullying or suicide prevention? 

Postscript: No, I am not advocating ‘going after’ Middleton Grange and other fundamentalist private schools. Moreover, one would hope that it does take antigay bullying seriously and would take suicide prevention directives seriously as an integrated school. Nevertheless, I was once in the position of a vulnerable, victimised adolescent and I feel considerable sympathy for any lesbian/gay secondary school students who may be in the same unpleasant situation.

In New Zealand, religious freedom is considerable, but not absolute. Religious freedom consists of freedom of belief, conscience, worship, assembly and speech, and so it should. Practice is the tricky area here. Different faiths, creeds and doctrines have different forms of religious practice, and one should also consider the right of secular ethical frameworks to follow analogous secular ethical practices. So, what is one to do in the context of this plurality of frameworks? There need to be reasonable limits on religious practice where this tangibly harms others. If one does not institute such limits, that way lies theocracy.

And how has the blogosphere reacted? Conservative Christian and social conservative blogsites have gone ballistic about the concept that (gasp) religiously based institutions are actually accountable (!!!) if they cause others tangible harm, such as the case of employment discrimination in this context, which after all, is against the Human Rights Act 1993.  Unfortunately, that has resulted all manner of pap being printed on conservative Christian and social conservative webpages about this incident.

To reiterate- this is about reasonable limits to religious freedom. Religious institutions do not, cannot and should not have the ability to transgress the rule of law merely due to subjective religious belief based on prejudice, routine and archaic prescientific ‘moral philosophy’. They do not have the right to cause tangible harm to others and are accountable for their actions. This does not constitute ‘religious persecution.’ Rather, it is the hallmark of a healthy pluralist society. After all, same sex marriage proper is not currently available to our communities, because it is also under a ‘reasonable limit’ parameter. Is this homophobic persecution? No. Then how is restraining religious institutions from harming others ‘persecution’ in their context, or more specifically, an isolated individual context that may rarely recur?

Mind you, it looks like centre-right blogger Cam (Whaleoil) Slater begs to differ and has upheld the teacher’s response in this context.

Please note. I am under no obligation to permit derogatory, personally abusive or arguably faked contributions to this blogs comments page.  In this instance, I have decided to delete all comments made on this subject, although I reserve the right to make oblique analytical comment on what I comprehend to be the substantive points of their arguments, where these exist. Any continued resort to personally abusive or derogatory comments will be dealt with under the Harrassment Act 1997 or defamation law, if serious enough.

Recommended:

Dirk Vanderpyl (ed) Trust and Obey: Reformed Churches of New Zealand: 1953-1993: Hamilton: Reformed Churches: 1994.

Eric Dunlop: The Middleton Grange Story: Christchurch: MGS: 1989 [Hagiography]

John Haverland: “Theonomy: What Have We Learned?”: (Chapter in Vanderpyl, 1994): http://www.opc.org/OS/html/V4/2b.html