Sadly, the visit to Australia last week of the British barrister who has been defending Christians prosecuted under the UK's Human Rights Act, is unlikely to quieten the cheer squad for a human rights charter.
Paul Diamond says equivalent laws in Britain have intensified religious resentment and introduced a degree of uncertainty into the rule of law.
They may even embed the right to polygamy.
But apart from Murdoch’s The Australian, no media outlet saw fit to report Diamond's visit let alone his lecture to the Ambrose Centre for Religious Liberty at the Sydney Law School last Thursday. So much for informed debate in this country.
Is it time we lobbied Mr Rudd directly to defend our religious freedoms?
Synod motion on religious liberty
In the strongest possible terms, the Anglican Diocese of Sydney wants the Federal Government to develop a policy on religious freedom ahead of any human rights charter.
A motion from Synod has endorsed the proposals put forward in a paper by law professor Patrick Parkinson urging the Government to produce a national policy on religious freedom, to create a body to monitor compliance and to include provisions for religious freedom as outlined by our United Nations obligations.
In moving the Synod motion, the Bishop of South Sydney, Rob Forsyth, said we can "no longer take for granted religious freedom".
In seconding the motion, the Diocesan Secretary (or chief lawyer) Robert Wicks said the aim of the motion was part of wider inter-faith effort to find "a way forward" by "capturing a broad coalition who are seeking the protection of religious freedom".
"This [motion] is not about whether we have a human rights charter," Mr Wicks said. "Our aim is that.. religious freedom, which is a right under international law, is protected accordingly."
Lay representative Andrew Sillar successfully moved an amendment strengthening the motion to say the Synod "strongly supports the principles concerning the protection of religious freedom" in Professor Parkinson's paper.
Mr Sillar argued that Synod should send a "firm, clear and unambiguous to the Federal government" because religious freedom is "under attack from an extreme and dogmatic secularism".
The Parkinson paper and its call to positively promote religious freedom certainly offers a very wise forward.
Blunt opposition to a human rights charter is potentially a divisive issue for the churches. This was clear even at Sydney Synod.
Professor Bernard Stewart from St George's Paddington had urged caution before Synod voted on Mr Sillar's amendment saying its "a complex issue" and "on the whole" those supporting a human rights framework "are not hostile to religion".
"The enemy in respect to the issue of human rights is not amongst the people who are supporting human rights… who are zealous to defend indigenous people. the homeless. the refugee," he said. "The enemy, Satan, is to be found amongst the attitude of the wider community to the disadvantaged."
Two other lay members spoke from the floor expressing their support for a human rights charter in Australia and their frustration Synod had not been given the opportunity to debate the substance of that issue.
In fact it was argued that a human rights agenda may actually boost religious freedom, with of one of them arguing that there is currently "no protection for religious freedom at the Federal level".
However, in response Bishop Forsyth said that his Committee had decided to oppose the human rights charter "on the balance of risks"
Bishop Forsyth pointed in particular to the failure of the human rights charter in Victoria to protect the consciences of doctors who believe it's a sin to perform an abortion.
"Well-intentioned people can do harm unwittingly," he said, explaining that he "does not have confidence in the judiciary" to unravel a conflict between two competing human rights especially "between equality and religious freedom".
The Grumpy Bishop has a point.
Do readers agree?
