Religion News Selection
May 22 – 29, 2022
A selection of 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
