MANUS ISLAND, NAURU, AUSTRALIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS AND RELATIONSHIP TO DEATH CAMPS.

The Manus Island concentration camp in Papua New Guinea has now had its 4th death in custody.

The people in the concentration camps have not been tried in criminal courts or in any sort of tribunal, but life has been removed from them so that they will die tortured deaths from a variety of reasons.

The British have got a proud history of concentration camps, having developed them in South Africa between 1899 and 1902 in what is known in some history records as the Boer War.

The people locked up in them, men, women and children, died from all manner of causes such as Typhoid and other diseases, starvation, and brutal treatment at the hands of their jailers. The Afrikaans population of South African never got over their treatment at the hands of the victors of that war, and their bitterness persisted even after the end of official apartheid in 1994, when Nelson Mandela's ANC party became the government of South Africa.

On Nauru, where some people are not actually locked up in the concentration camps there, if they have limited freedom to walk around the country, the Nauruan population resent their presence and attack them and harass them and their so-called freedom becomes non-existent. There have been some gay people walking around who have been assaulted so badly that they have feared for their lives and are now petrified to walk around the island.

Compare the current Australian government with other concentration camp governments - Israel - think Gaza and the West Bank, UK, USA - think Guantanamo, and others too numerous to mention - and you end up with the appalling state of the Australian camps which are apparently worse than some of Australia's worst prisons.

Added to the total inhumanity of the situation is the fact that these concentration camps cost an absolute fortune to maintain and the government tells us that we have to tighten our belts - parliamentarians excepted. In order to rob the poor and pay the rich, organisations such as those who run the concentration camps, no doubt keep offshore accounts and don't pay taxes in Australia.

And, as ever, religions continue to live tax-free existences, costing the community billions to pay for what these organisations don't pay for, and what are these religions doing for the people in our concentration camps to make their lives easier - well of course - exactly nothing.

GILLARD IS A HOMPHOBIC HYPOCRITICAL BIGOT AND YOU SHOULD NOT VOTE FOR HER!

The following article appeared in The Age on 17 January 2013, and the letters following the article are relevant to this and an earlier post. You have to ask yourself how low can this government get? Isn't it at rock-bottom yet? It must be pretty close by now!

Religious groups free to discriminate against pregnant women

By Jane Lee and Clay Lucas

The draft bill makes clearer which groups religious organisations can discriminate against lawfully.

Religious organisations, including those funded by the state government, retain their legal right to discriminate against pregnant women under a new human rights bill. The draft of the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill consolidates five existing federal discrimination laws after a decades-long campaign by lawyers and human rights advocates. The draft bill makes clearer which groups religious organisations can discriminate against lawfully.

Under the draft bill, faith-based groups, including schools and hospitals, can still refuse to hire people because of a wide range of attributes that would be unlawful for any other organisation, including women who are pregnant or potentially pregnant.

When the Sex Discrimination Act - which came into force in 1984 - was drafted, a number of religious bodies argued they should be allowed to discriminate against pregnant or ''potentially pregnant'' women to avoid having to employ unwed mothers.

The Human Rights Law Centre's director of advocacy and strategic litigation, Anna Brown, said that while the bill introduced important new protections from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and removed the ability of religious bodies to discriminate on the basis of age, sex and breastfeeding, it was a ''missed opportunity'' to narrow the broad exemptions available to religious groups.

Weet-Bix manufacturer Sanitarium is a religious organisation owned and operated by the Seventh-Day Adventist church, which means it could discriminate against people with these attributes.

An online advertisement for a manufacturing team leader position with the company says: ''If you share our passion for what we do, our products and you can align with our Christian-based principles this is a great opportunity for you.''

Sanitarium spokeswoman Julie Praestiin said the company's workplace culture was ''grounded on Christian-based values of care, courage, humility, integrity and passion which are generally shared by the Australian community''.

She said Sanitarium complied with employment laws. ''We are an equal opportunity employer and have a diverse workforce which encompasses a variety of cultures and worldviews. Religious belief is not a condition of employment.''

Hugh de Kretser, executive officer of the Federation of Community Legal Centres, said that Sanitarium, which is understood to have a turnover of $300 million a year – although the church is not required to lodge Sanitarium's financial reports – should not be allowed to discriminate.

''That a large organisation with a turnover of $300 million a year is given a green light by the law to discriminate highlights the problems with these exemptions,'' he said.

''It's about balancing freedom of religion from freedom from discrimination, and getting it right as to where we draw the line. And examples like this show that the exemptions need to be wound back.''

President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs, said that the government had aimed to consolidate laws rather than ''embark on full-scale reform''.

Professor Triggs acknowledged that there were some tensions between how the bill protected different human rights. ''In a secular society such as Australia . . . one does not want to give any sort of particular priority to one freedom above the right of people to non-discriminatory employment.'' She said it was important ''that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater'' as the bill was the first step towards creating a coherent federal human rights system.

Jane.Lee@fairfaxmedia.com.au ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letters in The Age:

A betrayal of human rights

January 17, 2013

THE Gillard government had the opportunity to create a law that prevented discrimination against workers and volunteers on the basis of certain ''attributes'' including sexuality and single parenthood. Instead it chose to exclude faith-based organisations (The Age, 16/1) from this even though they receive billions of dollars of taxpayers' money, via funding agreements with governments, to provide essential education, health and community services. Frequently they are the sole local service provider.

Imagine how it feels to know you are denigrated to such an extent that, no matter how experienced and competent you are at work, you can be sacked with no redress because your very being ''injures the religious sensitivities of adherents of that religion''. What do taxpayer-funded, universal services have to do with religious sensitivities? This is a human rights issue that should involve the whole community. I am still haunted by the car stickers proclaiming ''Kill a Queer for Christ'' that I saw in the United States. Bad things happen when good people do nothing.

Lyn McKenzie, Fitzroy

Illustration: Jack Chadwick.

Enshrining bigotry

IN 1981, a friend was sacked from his teaching job at a Catholic school in Geelong after he let slip to a colleague that he was living with his girlfriend. That such action was legal in the 1980s was lamentable. Fast forward to 2013 and the legality of that bigotry is about to be enshrined in the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill. Haven't we come a long way?

Richard Aspland, Rosanna

Well, fair's fair

SO RELIGIOUS groups can refuse to hire law-abiding people they deem to be sinners. Presumably they will not get too upset if I refuse to hire someone because they are religious. Do unto others…

Andy Stewart, Coburg

Shameful legislation

FAR from being the courageous leader she markets herself as, Julia Gillard lacks a spine. She also betrays the real values of Labor and sells out a fairer Australia for base political interests. It is bad enough that she is happy to entrench discrimination against those who face discrimination in their daily lives. Worse is that Penny Wong, an openly gay person, says she is seeking ''to balance the existing law and the practice of religious exemptions with the principle of non-discrimination''. There is no balance when discrimination is legislated. Labor's move to the extreme right of politics is complete. Shame on Gillard and Wong.

Douglas Potter, Surrey Hills

But the Bible said …

RELIGIOUS groups discriminate against gays because the Bible tells them it is OK to hate them. Shamefully, the government agrees. I am looking forward to religious groups sacking menstruating women and those who eat shellfish, trim their beards and wear clothes of mixed material. However, owning and beating slaves is OK.

Ian Smith, Whittlesea

...and another thing

SHAME on Gillard for giving in to bullying by the so-called Australian Christian Lobby. No government should condone discrimination.

Robert Humphreys, Coburg

Discrimination

TO THOSE faith-based organisations that don't want me as an employee: do you still want my taxes?

Michael Dalton, Yarraville

CHURCHES can discriminate against those who are ''different''. That's a lovely Christian attitude. What utter hypocrisy.

Keith Beman, Woodend

GIVEN the revelations of clergy abuse, the last thing churches should be allowed to do is ''vet the sexual practices of potential employees''.

Benjamin Doherty, West Melbourne

GILLARD is our most disappointing atheist prime minister. She could have promoted tolerance and rationality, but she caved in to superstitious bigotry.

Terry Kelly, Carlton North

........and to add insult to injury, WE have to continue to pay our taxes and those who discriminate DON'T pay any at all!!! (RED_JOS COMMENT)

GILLARD, SWAN, DROP GOD AND CONCENTRATE!

In 2011 in Australia the prime minister and the treasurer are telling the population that the May 2011 budget is going to be a tough one!

Gillard and the federal opposition's Tony Abbott are calling for those unfortunate people who receive benefits because of unemployment, disability, old age and various other reasons, to look to their laurels and are being told "we are going to be tough on you because you must get jobs and lose your benefits.

Now, as ever in Australian society, it is those who are most disadvantaged and struggling to put a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs who are told to suffer more.

Those who are rich will be looked after and will be able to get richer at the expense of the poor who will get poorer. By these means the budget will be able to keep Australia afloat.

However, the major organisations which would make Australia prosperous for years to come by being taxed,continue to be tax exempt because they have rich and powerful lobbies. These are the religious institutions in Australia who continue to be treated as gods and royalty because our atheist prime minister has suddenly found god in her middle years - she has had a "Damascus" moment.

In 1994 a group in the USA was pushing for that country's government to consider taxing religious organisations who had been tax-exempt in that country.

Guess what??!! Here we are 17 years later and what has changed?

But the world is changing. There is turmoil in the middle east and the rich countries are literally shitting themselves because it has all come as a surprise and they don't know how to handle it all. Added to which the USA is so bankrupt because of its wars, its bankers and its support for Israel that they too are looking for cuts to budgets to make the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.

The item below therefore makes very interesting reading!

2 February 2009

I came across this 1994 press release while researching further atheist sites relating to gay, lesbian, transgender and HIV/AIDS communities (GLTH), and as I am trying to list as many atheist organisations as possible, this is next on the list!:
PRESS RELEASE AMERICAN GAY AND LESBIAN ATHEISTS, INC.
P O Box 66711 Houston,

PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE *****************************************************************

AMERICAN GAY AND LESBIAN ATHEISTS, INC.

P O Box 66711
Houston, TX 77266-6711
Dial-A-Gay-Atheist: 713-880-4242

AGLA CALLS UPON IRS TO MONITOR CHURCHES FOR POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT

For Immediate Release
Saturday, October 29, 1994
Contact: Don Sanders, National Director

Houston, TX -- As the political season reaches "high gear," the national office of American Gay and Lesbian Atheist is busily watching the degree to which churches and religious organizations in the Houston area are involving themselves in partisan politics. American Gay Atheists, Inc. is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) educational foundation which does not violate the tenets of the IRS codes which prohibit direct involvement in partisan politics by non-profit groups.

American Gay and Lesbian Atheists (AGLA) has been instrumental in having the Dallas office of the Internal Revenue Service maintain an open file (File 4940 Dal) on Houston area churches and religious groups which involve themselves in the political process, such as endorsing candidates for public office. During the 1993 elections, AGLA documented numerous cases of direct political involvement by Houston churches, particularly in the races of Sheila Jackson Lee, who was backed heavily by numerous Black ministerial alliances. In some cases, the political involvement of churches was so blatant that some churches placed campaign signs on their properties.

"Such political involvement by churches is harmful to basic freedoms and civil rights of many, particularly gays and lesbians," says Don Sanders, national director. "The strongest opposition to equality of rights for gays and lesbians comes from the churches and the Christian scriptures. Many ministers bastardize the non-profit status accorded them under the rules of the Internal Revenue Service by directly instructing their congregations for whom to vote and how to vote on key issues, such as abortion rights, women's rights, and rights for gays and lesbians." Sanders points out that efforts to stop churches from influencing politics have proven ineffective. "However," Sanders says, "if the politically-meddling churches suddenly were threatened with loss of their privileged tax status accorded them under the directives of the Internal Revenue Service, much direct partisan political involvement on the part of churches would cease."

During this political season, AGLA is carefully monitoring the antics of the so-called Religious Right and the support of their candidates by churches. "If the churches will not abide by the law which prohibits them from endorsing candidates, instructing their congregants for whom to vote, or funding political campaigns, we hope that our efforts to encourage the IRS to look into these matters by giving them documentation on this obvious abuse and illegal activity will help prove to the churches, once and for all, they should get out of the political game, or lose their tax exemption," says Sanders.

For further comments or questions, contact Don Sanders.

American Gay and Lesbian Atheists promotes Thomas Jefferson's constitutional premise of separation between state and church, and works to protect and promote the civil and human rights of persons who are Atheists and gay.

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