Religion News Australia
May 22 – 29, 2022
Religion news stories from Australia
(Research: Greg Spearritt)
ABUSE
Queensland MP shares story of child sexual abuse to ‘give a voice’ to other survivors (ABC News)
May 26 – A Queensland MP has shared her harrowing story as a victim of child sexual abuse in a bid to raise awareness and inspire other victims to speak out.
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
‘Trying to out-fact someone who’s religious is absurd – and cruel’: Hannah Gadsby (Sydney Morning Herald)
May 28 – (Interview) You grew up in north-western Tasmania’s Bible belt. Tell me about your relationship with religion.
EDUCATION
Why parents are abandoning public schools in Melbourne’s north (The Age, Melbourne)
May 27 – Families in Melbourne’s north are increasingly rejecting their local public schools in favour of private secondary schools, with a surge in Islamic school enrolments.
INTERNATIONAL STORIES
Islam
Six convicted for harassing French teenager over anti-Islam videos (The Guardian, Australia)
May 25 – A French court has convicted six people for harassing a teenager online over her anti-Islam videos, in a case that has sparked debate about free speech and the right to insult religions.
Grenoble takes on French state as burkini legal row reaches highest court (The Guardian, Australia)
May 27 – The legal row over whether burkinis, or full-body swimsuits, should be allowed in French municipal swimming pools is to go before France’s highest administrative court as the city of Grenoble battles the state.
Other
The ‘straight, white, Christian, suburban mom’ taking on Republicans at their own game (The Guardian, Australia)
May 25 – Mallory McMorrow remembers the sting of being slandered by a colleague for wanting to “groom” and “sexualize” young children. “I felt horrible,” she says. But instead of shrugging it off or trying to change the subject, as Democrats are often criticised for doing, the state senator from Michigan decided to fight back.
ISLAM
Woman held younger sister while father stabbed her during ‘attempted honour killing’, court hears (ABC News)
May 25 – An Adelaide court has heard a family accused of trying to kill a young Muslim woman in an “attempted honour killing” tried to track her down days earlier, breaking into a house and assaulting someone else in the process.
POLITICS
Religious leaders support constitutional referendum on Indigenous voice to parliament (ABC News)
May 27 – Australian religious leaders gathered at Sydney’s Barangaroo today to demand an urgent referendum.
The left may think Australia has seen the light, but don’t expect the Christian right to retreat (Sydney Morning Herald)
May 28 – (Opinion: Malcolm Knox) In the last weeks of the federal election campaign, the conservative lobby group Advance Australia defied a cease-and-desist demand from Swimming Australia and the Australian Olympic Committee and kept trundling a motorised billboard around Zali Steggall’s seat of Warringah with an image of three Australian female Olympic athletes, declaring: “Women’s sport is not for men”.
RELIGION & SOCIETY
Mungo Man, Mungo Lady reburials postponed as elders challenge treatment of ancient remains (ABC News)
May 25 – The reburials of Mungo Man and Mungo Lady have been delayed after traditional owners filed an urgent eleventh-hour application to stop what they have described as the “rushed destruction” of some of the oldest human remains ever found.
Honouring Aboriginal history and mourning an atrocity at the Mount Dispersion massacre site (ABC News)
May 26 – At Mount Dispersion, on the banks of the Murray River, the scars of an atrocity co-exist with pride — and hope for the future.
Citipointe Christian College referred to Queensland Human Rights Commission (ABC News)
May 26 – Citipointe Christian College, which made headlines over its “controversial” enrolment contract in February, has become the subject of discrimination complaints lodged with the Queensland Human Rights Commission.
Also: Citipointe college referred to Human Rights Commission over withdrawn student enrolment contracts (The Guardian, Australia)
May 27 – Parents and former students of Citipointe Christian college, one of Queensland’s largest independent schools, will today file a series of discrimination complaints related to the school’s attempt to institute controversial enrolment contracts with anti-gay and anti-trans provisions.
