Hoops

NH: Israel Folau

Not to sound wankery, but i think the average person on the street dissecting the situation is discussing this using the term "freedom of religion" and applying the constitutional context assuming it extends to this matter.

That's not right, it's broadly irrelevant and any interpretation of that won't be given by a tribunal. It's not a question of law in respect of constitutional law - if it was the matter would be the High Court not the Federal Court.

This is a commercial matter sent to the tribunal from the FCA, so the questions are commercial questions: ie, antidiscrimination act, workplace/other industrial laws.

Whether RA is able to terminate is dictated by 1) Question of the Contract in respect of the term allowing termination for such conduct and then 2) Whether that contractual term complies with the relevant workplace legislation.

So, the question isn't whether Folau can't be terminated because of some broadly applied constitutional interpretation of freedom of religion. Of course, the Federal Government makes it confusing when they discuss legislation with a name "Religious Freedoms Act".

What the Folau matter was never going to provide, is 1) whether there's some broad freedom of religion/how far it extends; 2) any sort of vindication on the ground of freedom of religion.

All this really tells us, is like most matters of workplace suits, the business paid the former employee to go away. Traditionally when this occurs it's not seen as "the business paid they must have done wrong, the person is vindicated", it's "the business had to get rid of xx, is it worth the risk of being troubled by this person?"

Never get in the way of Falou and a bucket of money, he’s been a mercenary his whole career hiding behind religion.

I'd like some thoughts on the church/other church goers from this point. Does the church get in trouble for preaching these messages ? Do the other church goers get in trouble from their employers for having the same beliefs ?
Or does it purely come down to that fact that Folau declared his on Social Media and that he's such a prominent figure ?
Genuine question.
I mean, if society want this kind of talked stopped, shouldn't they be looking to stop the source instead of stopping just Folau.

I ask because it was mentioned previously by one of the Islander heritage players that "they'd need to get rid of all of us then" or something along those lines, as they all have similar religious beliefs. Is the distinction in that Folau thinks it and declares it and the others just think it ?

It's an interesting one KET, because none of that got tested in court due to the settlement. Does an employer's code of conduct override your right to religious freedom away from the workplace? There is a fair chance it doesn't and RA's legal team knew that.

Had this gone to court it would have done us all a favour by setting a precedent and clearing up at least some of this very big grey area.

Settlements of this nature is a "lets just pay them to go away so we can move on".

Glad it's finished, RA did the right thing and demanded that their employees don't put their objectives and values into disrepute - any business has the right to do so.

A lot of people assume freedom of speech/religion entails carte blanche speech which is simply not the case. It means you can likely avoid prosecution by Government, not avoid all and any consequences that arise from speech.

Glad its over and I can go back to not seeing Folau in my news feed.

Rugby Australia did what anyone should do when caught in an argument with someone making irrational arguments (and something I should do more often), say "yeah sorry" and walk away

7 mill donation to fthe lgbtq community in good faith.

just heard on ABC news that speculation is $7m. payout to F.

Did he get paid, all in secrecy.

She stood up for decency, a rare commodity these days. Falou has worked out churches don’t pay taxes, shock the world with bull shit and rake in the millions.

Yes, white people re: tattoos.

"Not sure it's much of a trend if it's mentioned in the bible..."

Hahaha. It's way trendier today, though.

"I'm not calling anyone a hypocrite."

"Qantas are gigantic, epic hypocrites"

Passing conversations where they mentioned Your existence
and the fact that you had been replaced by Your assistants
The discussion was theology
and when they smiled and turned to me ,
all that I could say was : ' I believe in You . '

@AshT, if you really outlaid those bets you would be rolling in cash after the weekend's AFL results, good one!

"BTW, I'm neither religious nor atheist and have a grand on North and another grand on Gold Coast so I'm off to watch those."

Speaking of subconscious, you sound like a believer to me who's notion of God has receded further & further as the religious loose the argument on every front until left with the ghost of an aboration "internal self gods" and the like. Your choice to insert the word god where it's not needed proves this point.

Not an athiest, so you don't not believe theology.

North looking good, perhaps you do have knowledge no available to the rest of Us:)

AshT

Giving you the benifit of doubt, if you genuinely hold this position, you've wonderfully described the ideology of most atheists, humanism, although I think you could get there without the mental gymnastics & convenient unessusary insertion of the term god.

I'm curious as to the nature of the impirical evidence you mentioned?

Some people just can't grasp the concept that life, even though it is just a series of chemical reactions and mutations, can occur and evolve naturally. These people are incapable of accepting that there are things in the universe that they don't understand yet, so the idea of an almighty creator - even though it is more ridiculous than any of the scientific explanations we've come up with so far - is how they choose to encapsulate all they don't understand in some convenient package. A package that has infinite abilities and power. The more we learn about the universe, the more ridiculous the idea of "God" needs to become to account for everything, but they stick with it because the alternative is admitting that not only do we not know everything today, but even more shockingly, the people who were around 2000 years ago didn't know everything then either.

Newsflash: you can still be a good person without being gullible, stubborn, and unwilling to accept science.

LOL sorry but you're making very little sense with your changing-on-the-fly theories

Reality is basically saying because the comments dont impact him, then they shouldn’t impact anyone. Ignorant.

There is nothing different between atheism and your definition of god, yet somehow you think atheism is bad.

"That is caused by denial of God. Virtually all of us do it every day ; defaulting to hurtful thoughts, envy, looking around for who the bad people are, etc."

This in response to an example of the volume of suffering visited on millions at this moment serves as the most perfect example of how religion causes otherwise normal people to say and do and believe the most horrible things.

Generally good people do good things & bad people do bad things, to get good people to express opinions as horrific as this you'll need religion.

Please notice the ease with which suffering on unimaginable scale is dismissed as gods will and as just vengeance against believing children. To suggest that your god exacts revenge on a scale that the most prolific genicidal mass murderers could only dream of should make one thing crystal clear, the moral compasses of extreme religious ideology is profoundly damaging to the inate human understanding of what is true and right.

I have to ask, how could any reasonable, moral thinking person believe this as truth and live with themselves.

Listening to izzys coments confirms just how far the rot has spread.

The problem is the cult of religion has been superceded by a deadlier mass media driven PC-mad cult. Which one is eviler? I know which one.

I would love to become much much closer with God but I'm told that doing so would land me in hell

"If Court was CEO of a business she wouldn't be any longer."

What if she was founder and senior pastor of a Pentecostal church and president of an international network of 70+ like-minded churches?

Love izzy, hope he finds the strength to come out one day.

In other words, absurd levels of hypocrisy are happening at a corporate level. With obvious motive- profit.

Hypocrisy might be happening at an individual level too- but that's not what I've been criticizing in this thread.

[If you think you are doing it for noble reasons while calling others hypocrites for their boycotts, then you are quite ironically being the hypocrite yourself].

I'm not calling anyone a hypocrite.

Qantas are gigantic, epic hypocrites who take hypocrisy to a staggering level. But too much of the public refuse to acknowledge it, and refuse to call out this profit driven hypocrisy that happening in front of our faces.

The people who boycotted Coopers or who support Qantas' comments on Folau aren't necessarily hypocrites at all. But they are badly mistaken, and are supporting ideas that will be hugely unhelpful to free countries and our entire civilization if they continue to spread at their current pace.

"It's the ARU - Australia Rugby Union, not RA or Rugby Australia."

Ah no its Rugby Australia (RA). They rebranded last year. Read it up.

shut down*

So, yes, people are free to tell Coopers what they want.

We as individuals who actually believe in freedom, pluralism and true diversity need to drown out the snowflakes and authoritarians who try to shut done those with whom they disagree. That's the culture that we as individuals should be trying to foster.

The difference is, Isaac, I'm counter-protesting against the people who don't like what somebody else is saying.

I'm all FOR using your voice to tell corporates what you want. I'm AGAINST thinking that everybody who disagrees with you in the public square is bigoted and hateful, or shouldn't have their voice heard.

Coopers was doing what every corporate SHOULD be doing. And people got offended. It was the perfect example of what's wrong with the world today. Yes, people did something that's perfectly legitimate- showing their disapproval of a corporate- but they were supporting an idea that is beyond cancerous.

"Not sure it's much of a trend if it's mentioned in the bible..."

Hahaha. It's way trendier today, though.

LV, surely Coopers is free to make their video and someone else is free to not purchase their product?

You've just said you'll make a purchasing decision based on a corporate act, the same thing you've implied criticism of someone else for doing?

A culture of free speech is literally the most important value we could have.

And it’s in decline.

Our society values diversity of all kinds. Increasingly though we’re losing interest in the most important type of diversity of all – diversity of thought and opinion.

Personally I think that we as a society have progressed past the narrow-minded thinking and old fashioned values that made the inclusion of multiple sandwiches a requirement of a good picnic.

When talking of free speech, I think it’s important to acknowledge the difference between free speech *laws* and free speech *culture*.

Legally, we have Section 18c in this country – and we do have similar laws here in Victoria, famously used against Danny Nalliah many years ago- but there aren’t too many onerous legal restrictions on speech. To put it bluntly- This isn’t Pakistan.

However, increasingly we do have an anti free speech culture. There is an increasingly loud minority of people in this country who think that people shouldn’t have a right disagree with them. The most obvious example of this was the Coopers brewery debacle early last year. Hipsters from Brunswick started cancelling their Coopers orders, so Coopers backpedalled faster than you could say “Backpedal!”.

So we as individuals need to ask: How much do we care? Do you care enough to try and do whatever small thing you can, to influence this culture?

My wife and I always fly Jetstar. It’s our default first choice of website to check for domestic flights.

Next time we fly, I’ll check Virgin first. And if I have to pay an extra $30 per head to fly with them then I will. (If I have to pay an extra $100 per head, maybe not).

And If I do fly with Virgin, I’ll be shooting off a quick email to Qantas, to let them know the reasons why I’m not flying with their subsidiary. Because they’re managed by grossly hypocritical douchebags in thousand dollar suits whose only goal is profit, but who use alleged interest in social causes to bully others and contribute to a culture of shutting down free speech.

Ah yeah tattoos. That's another "trend" in our modern society.

Exactly. The CEO of Qantas is using his position to social engineer, instead of doing the job he is paid to do. and to threaten sponsorship withdrawal because of one person's OPINION is yet another questionable act by him. He is abusing his position by trying to put forward his own alternative lifestyle beliefs.

[Let's say a CEO has the numbers suggesting they can make more money by offending fewer people at the cost of dropping some social/historical niceties? It would be their responsibility to do that.]

Spot on Isaac.

This is why we should always remain extremely skeptical of any claims of "corporate responsibility" made by CEO's.

You think the AFL, Qantas, etc really care about "inclusivity" or the LGBTIQ community? Think again. They only care when it's commercially convenient.

Corporates are merely political players who are out there trying to please their shareholders and the financial markets.

Anyone who doesn't see this is, as the old saying goes, a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

It's the ARU - Australia Rugby Union, not RA or Rugby Australia.

rugby australia

What is "RA"?

Taking the piss - really? Would be good to get that clarified.

Great point from jodiechrist about players having the courage to come out while they're still playing.

As is the norm with religion, it aspires to take us back 50 years in our development rather than progress us forward.

Manu - can you and everyone that chooses to use the Bible as a scientific document explaining the existence of reality please stop.

It was written by illiterate nomads in the iron age who may never have met Jesus.

As soon as you start an argument with - "The Bible says..." you're point goes out the window.

Ah yeah tattoos. That's another "trend" in our modern society. Great point too, what a hypocrite.

"You may not find the changing of what others consider 'normal'titles as anything and thats your right,but those who wish to be recognised as wife/husband/mother/father/Mr/Mrs have as much right as well that was my point,personally Id prefer to be called by my first name,some like formality,I would not like my parental term changed just for social protocol though thats for sure,thats a title I wear with pride,as is my right.

its PC gone mad really"

Exactly. The CEO of Qantas is using his position to social engineer, instead of doing the job he is paid to do. and to threaten sponsorship withdrawal because of one person's OPINION is yet another questionable act by him. He is abusing his position by trying to put forward his own alternative lifestyle beliefs.

Well, I am still happy to live in a country where we are free to say what we believe, as long as it isn't threatening, racist or defaming and I am also happy that we can be critical of what people say, ask questions and use logic, common sense and science or facts to present our ideas.

Best ignore bigots, you can't fairly win a fight of intellect if only one person brings their intellect!

You may not find the changing of what others consider 'normal'titles as anything and thats your right,but those who wish to be recognised as wife/husband/mother/father/Mr/Mrs have as much right as well that was my point,personally Id prefer to be called by my first name,some like formality,I would not like my parental term changed just for social protocol though thats for sure,thats a title I wear with pride,as is my right.

I actually feel sorry for Raelene Castle

She's stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Doesn't want to lose Folau from RU but has to balance against keeping sponsors happy.

I thought she handled well and managed to do enough on both sides to keep the sides happy

I dont get why Sponsors in the modern era are so upset/sensitive..are people really going to stop supporting RA based on what one of their players thinks (and even though RA openly supported gay marriage). A bit of a knee jerk overreaction I thought.

Whilst I don't agree with Izzy's comments I do believe in free speech. He is entitled to say whatever he wants but he must realize there would be ramifications from them. I have opinions on certain matters (I am an atheist) but I don't go out of my way to push them on others. As Ricky Gervais said, "telling an atheist they're going to hell is like telling an adult they're not getting any presents from Santa". If someone disagrees with my views (like many disagree with Folau's) ignore them and move on.

Everyone is happy to preach for freedom of speech, but when someone says something that that person doesn't like the concept goes out the window and it often turns personal.