According to this article, representatives of various churches have signed a letter addressed to the Victorian Premier requesting that the religious elements of the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act be repealed or amended.  The text of the letter is quoted as saying:

“People use it to pursue religious quarrels,” said Presbyterian Church of Victoria ethics committee convener David Palmer. “It’s the Muslims and occultists who are trying to put barriers around themselves and close down people who dare to offer criticism.”

David Palmer has previous writings on the subject here and here

The article is not entirely clear who has signed the letter:

The letter is signed by Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Assembly of God leaders, several Orthodox churches, and Melbourne’s biggest Pentecostal churches, including CityLife, Crossway and Careforce, but not the Uniting or Baptist churches. It says they hope leading Jewish groups will also endorse the move

The presence of CityLife, Crossway and Careforce on this list would suggest that it is church leaders rather than formal heads of churches who have signed this letter.  Crossway for example is a Baptist church, but the article notes that there has been no signature on behalf of Baptist Churches. 

If anyone can get a copy of the letter or details of the signatories, please let me know.

UPDATE - I have been notified that the ACL press release is published here and that the letter will be available in half an hour or so.  I will post the reference when it is up.

UPDATE 2 - The text of the letter is here. If we put to one side the terrible lack of apostrophe in the title (Christian Leaders Statement), the signatories are Vicar General of the Melbourne Diocese of the Anglican Church (not the Archbishop or any of the Bishops, but I can’t determine what a Vicar General does), the Primate of the Antiocian Orthodox Church, State President of the AOG, Bishop (actually of the Western Region) of the Melbourne Archdiocese of the Catholic Church, senior ministers at Crossway, Whitehorse Christian City, Careforce, City Life, Life Ministry Centre, Southern Eastern Christian Centre, National Director of the Australian Evangelical Alliance, Past Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, Dean of the Russian Orthodox Church in Australia, Conference President of the SDAs, President of the Lutheran Church, a minister from the Syrian Orthodox Church and someone “on behalf of Evangelical members of the Uniting Church of Australia”.

Bec has queried whether the letter was new, but she is probably thinking of this similar letter sent on behalf of the Presbyterian church only.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 9th, 2006 at 8:55 am by dan and is filed under religious vilification laws. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.