With the Bureau of Statistics proposing to change the Census religion question, religious figures have called for the Albanese government to intervene, and some have turned to attacking the campaign behind the push to remove bias from the question.

Michael Dove, the spokesperson for the ‘Census21 – Not Religious?’ campaign (supported by the RSA, among other pro-secular groups), has responded to the criticism and misinformation with a piece in Pearls & Irritations. See the link in the ‘Opinion / Analysis’ section.

Also, check out our new episode for The Secular Agenda podcast on the issue of religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws. It features an interview with Steph Lentz, a teacher who was dismissed from a Christian school because of her homosexuality. Listen on major podcast apps or here on our website.

If you'd like to share something you've seen online or comment on articles in the RSA Weekly, you can email me on editor@rationalist.com.au.

26 July: Three Western Australian men have been charged over the alleged forced marriage of two teenagers in Perth. Police allege the teenagers, one of whom was aged between 13 and 15 and the other 17, wanted to date each other but relatives told them they would have to be married for cultural reasons. A religious ceremony took place in 2023. Read the full article

25 July: A local government council has rejected a development application from a “religious cult,” effectively banning it from teaching out of an office building it occupies in an inner city suburb of a major Australian city. The Town of Cambridge received an application from the International Education Organisation, which a former member claims is a front for the Shincheonji Church of Jesus. Read the full article

25 July: A convicted killer is suing his old Melbourne Catholic school, alleging sexual abuse he suffered there as a teenager set him on a path to a life of crime. The case is part of a wave of hundreds of actions against Victorian schools over historical abuse claims by former students, with one law firm alone investigating more than 470 cases involving some 300 schools. Read the full article

24 July: The Greens will request that the auditor general conduct an inquiry into the flow of public funds to the private school network set up by the secretive Exclusive Brethren sect. Following a Guardian Australia investigation into OneSchool Global ... the Greens senator David Shoebridge said an independent inquiry was needed. Read the full article

24 July: The treatment of people in New Zealand’s state and faith-based care institutions has been described as a “national disgrace” after a landmark report revealed the harrowing scale of abuse 200,000 children and adults suffered at the hands of those entrusted with their safety. Read the full article

23 July: The Productivity Commission has rejected claims that the removal of the Basis Religious Charities category from Australia’s charities laws would infringe on the constitutional guarantee of free exercise of religion. In its report on philanthropy, the Commission expressed its belief that removing BRCs and related exemptions “would, on its face, comply with section 116 of the Australian Constitution”. Read the full article

23 July: An attempt to have prayers removed from council ordinary meetings has been overturned at a Southern Downs Regional Council meeting. The meeting heard that including a prayer in the meeting would actually be in contravention of the Queensland Human Rights Act 2019. Read the full article

23 July: Jewish and Islamic leaders have joined the Catholic Church in urging the Labor Government to reject a Productivity Commission recommendation they say could allow a government agency to appoint and remove religious leaders. In the philanthropy inquiry report, the Productivity Commission said “basic religious charities” should be subject to the same ACNC governance standards and financial reporting requirements as other charities to “improve regulatory transparency and consistency”. Read the full article

23 July: Religious and school leaders blasted a report recommending reforms of Australia’s philanthropy laws for “excluding people of faith” as the Federal Government issued its reassurance that it would not disadvantage school communities. The report, released on 18 July, recommends stripping tax-deductible donations from religious education in schools, school building funds and any activity that “advances religion.” Read the full article

22 July: A father accused of murder was viewed by his friend as a “broken man” torn between giving his daughter life-saving medication and his family’s beliefs against medicine, a judge has heard. In the supreme court in Brisbane, Justice Martin Burns heard evidence on Monday from Travis Barnes, who previously worked night shifts with Elizabeth’s father, Jason Richard Struhs, 52, at a bakery. Read the full article

21 July: A federal judge blocked Louisiana from posting the Ten Commandments in public schools until November after parents from five districts sued the state over the law. In a brief ruling Friday, district court judge John deGravelles said that the parents and the state agreed that the Ten Commandments will not be posted in any public school classroom before 15 November. Read the full article

What's wrong with Louisiana and Oklahoma? American atheist Matt Dillahunty shares his thoughts on the push to impose the Ten Commandments in public schools. "The Supreme Court has basically sent out the signals, and members of the conservative and ultra-conservative Christian wing of the Republican Party have decided to take the signals that they think they're seeing and run with them." What do you think? Email your comments to: editor@rationalist.com.au.

Mattew Wade: Deductible contributions to school building funds were introduced in 1954 as a pragmatic response to rapid growth in enrolments… But 70 years later, Australia’s 3,500 private school building funds have become a key driver of shameful disparities in educational facilities. Read the full article

John Hayman: The factors resulting in same-sex sexual orientation remain controversial, but there is growing evidence that sexual orientation is heavily influenced by prenatal biological mechanisms rather than by unidentified factors in postnatal socialisation. Read the full article

Mike Seccombe: Before its release, Assistant Minister Andrew Leigh told The Saturday Paper the government was “open to” considering all the report’s recommendations – bar one... The government’s response is testament to the influence of the private school sector and its affluent backers. When the draft report was released last November, the non-government lobby came out in furious opposition. And little wonder. Read the full article

Michael Dove: Based on the response to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) proposed change to the religion question for the 2026 census, religious groups are singing from the same misprinted hymn sheet. Paul Collins’ recent article, “Religion and the census” (Pearls and Irritations, 8 June 2024), serves as a faithful echo of the article published by Archbishop Timothy Costelloe in The Australian on 30 April 2024. Read the full article

Josh Roose: Admittedly, this is not the first time that Australian Muslims have contemplated forming a political party. Nor is it, in the context of Australian multiculturalism, the first attempt to mobilise migrant communities as a constituency or to organise a political entity based on religious values. Read the full article

Siobhan Marin and Andrew West: Some constituents are taking matters into their own hands. This month, the newly formed political group Muslim Vote vowed to run in Western Sydney at the next elections. The group's convenor, Sheikh Wesam Charkawi, told the ABC that Labor's position on Israel had outraged Muslim communities. Read the full article

Sophia Smith Galer: When I saw delegates at the Republican National Convention this week sporting bandages on their ears, my mind did not fly to thoughts of dispassionate political solidarity or parasocial fandom but to the imitation of Christ — the practice of following in his example — and to the endless rumination on his suffering that spectacles of faith demanded from religious publics during the Counter-Reformation, and which made them even more fervent. Read the full article

Paul Elie: In all the commentary about Donald Trump’s choice of Senator J. D. Vance as his running mate … one aspect of his biography that could prove of major consequence has received scant attention: his religion. He became a Catholic in 2019, and since then he has aligned himself with conservative-Catholic currents of thought that have already had profound effects on the Supreme Court. Read the full article

Rebecca McCray: In 2021, Liz and Gabe Rutan-Ram decided to take the next step toward growing their family and applied to foster a child. After identifying a three-year-old in Florida who they hoped to ultimately adopt, the Rutan-Rams turned back to their home state of Tennessee to start training to become foster parents. But their plans quickly fell apart when the Christian state-funded foster care placement agency informed them by email that they “only provide adoption services to prospective adoptive families that share our belief system”. Read the full article

Bushra Mohamed: Shamsa Sharawe has become infamous within the Somali community across the world for speaking out against female genital mutilation (FGM) . In a video to illustrate what happened to her vulva when she was aged six she cut off the petals of a rose with a razor blade and then stitched up what was left of the flower. The TikTok post went viral - with nearly 12 million views since it was shared 16 months ago. Read the full article

Charles Freeman: The transformation of the Roman Empire from the classical period to a Christian society has been well studied. One estimate is that ten per cent of the Roman world was Christian by AD 300, although what it meant to be a Christian at this date is impossible to ascertain. Read the full article