When I contacted the Australian Christian Lobby several months ago, I was not certain what would come of it. Initially I wanted to have an interview where a representative would present their views on LGBTQ+ rights in Australia. However after many emails, I instead arranged to speak to John Steenhof from the Human Rights Law Alliance, a law firm that works in the areas of “freedom of thought, conscience and religion”. While I ideally would have met a representative in person, they are based in Canberra, and as I live in Brisbane, I had to make do with a phone call.

I spoke with Mr Steenhof about the issues of religious freedom and free speech in Australia, and how his organization believes they are under attack. From this I learnt about several notable cases and how individual citizens are allegedly being persecuted. We spoke about how the HRLA’s role as a non-for profit, non-state actor affects the work they do, and the kinds of cases they deal with. We also spoke at length about the current legislation protecting religious freedom in Australia, and the potential changes to this.

From my discussion with Mr Steenhof, I learnt a lot about his organisation, but also about the group of stakeholders that his organisation represents. He confirmed that his organisation mostly represents conservative Christians, who are criticised or face legal consequences for allegedly breaching codes of conduct or anti-discrimination laws. This is a group of stakeholders that are crucial to the wider topic I wish to explore; Religous and LGBTQ+ rights in Australia, and the conflict between them. I also saw evidence in his comments of an idea that there is “whole industry of well paid activists” who attack conservative beliefs within Australia, and that the courts and governments are in some way biased towards this group. I will have to do further research on this idea, as I do not know much of the truth behind it.

Interestingly, Mr Steenhof spoke about how there is not much legislation in Australia which protects Religious freedom, only exceptions to anti-discrimination laws. He spoke about the need for a “legislative expression of positive rights of religious freedoms”. This links clearly to the key concept which I want to focus my research around, of human rights and how they are turned into laws in Australia.