By John Sandeman, The Other Cheek.
Clergy, churchworkers, and any Christian taken before a tribunal when accused of breaching the Conversion Practices Ban Act in NSW have been assured by Archbishop Kanishka Raffel and the Sydney Anglican Synod that they will be supported. “I concluded by saying, and I want to say this clearly and publicly to you all, that I will stand by any clergy person or church worker who finds themselves brought before a tribunal or court because of this poorly conceived law,” the Archbishop declared in his presidential address to the Synod, repeating an assurance he had sent to his clergy as the new law began to operate.
“We must not be silenced, he added. “We must not be silenced or intimidated from teaching God’s good plan for human sexuality and relationships. We will insist on the freedom to do so respectfully, but without fear, we will obey God. We can do nothing less.” During the debate, Raffel made it clear his support extended to lay people caught up in tribunal hearings as well.
Moving the Synod motion, Bishop Michael Stead explained that for the first time he could be breaking the law in carrying out Christian ministry. The Premier had broken a promise made before the election not to ban prayer. “A group of faith leaders worked extensively with the government to arrive at the legislation so that it would not capture ordinary religious practices, and we thought that we had achieved that through a series of exemptions in the act. We were led to believe that the Act, unlike the Victorian Act, distinguished between sexual orientation and sexual activity and that it was not a change or suppression practice to teach someone to abstain from sexual activity contrary to the Bible’s teaching… The government told us at the time, quote, our bill has powerful protections for people of faith, that it, quote, protects the rights to prayer, that it does not stop you telling someone not to have sex before marriage.