AUSTRALIA
The Australian
Cassandra Wilkinson
From:The Australian
November 21, 2012
AUSTRALIA has never been a place where religion has been a cause of protracted violence or political disorder.
A country founded by jailers who worshipped at St James and convicts who worshipped at St Mary’s has gone on to include Asian Buddhists, European Jews, Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians, Bosnian Muslims and Serbian Christians, Indian Hindus and Muslims, and a generous buffet of other faiths from Baha’i to Scientologists.
By and large we get along because the secret to religious tolerance is common respect for a non-religious state.
The royal commission into child abuse has at its heart a single worthy mission: to ensure that all citizens enjoy state protection from individuals or groups who would harm them. Sadly it has also already become a blunt instrument with which to belt religion. Self-righteous atheists have leapt to pour scorn not only on abusers and their protectors but also on the foundations of religious belief. The ABC’s resident national treasure, Phillip Adams, claimed last week that religion twists sexuality. Yet rape is inflicted on adults and children of all classes, on all continents, among all religious groups and ethnic communities; it does no service to victims to pretend the problem is not endemic.
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