FABC News
BCV 20th Anniversary Celebration on Saturday March 25th, 2017
Australian Sangha Association AGM
2017 ASA Con
ference and AGM will be held in Canberra on March 14 and 15. The Venerable Thich Quang Ba will be hosting the Conference at the Sakyamuni Buddhist Centre, in Lyneham ACT.
March 14: The presenters are Lifeline, DonateLife and Pallcare ACT.
March 15: An alms round will depart and return to Sakyamuni Buddhist Centre.
The current committee members would like to invite monastics to consider a place on the ASA committee as there will be opportunities available for the coming year.
For more info click here.
Senate Inquiry on the Government’s Exposure Draft of the Marriage Amendment Bill
Fed
eration of Australian Buddhist Councils (FABC)’s Submission
The Buddhist position on gender quality and same sex marriage
In Buddhist traditions, there is no fixed or mandated form of marriage and from a Buddhist point of view there is no such thing as a single fixed, natural, or pre-ordained form of marriage.
Buddhist texts do not contain prohibitions on same-sex marriage. Nor do they contain anti-LGBTQ views.
Our principles are guided by wisdom and compassion, and our concern here is for the alleviating of suffering of marginalized people. The empirical evidence strongly supports the contention that ending the ban on same-sex marriage creates a positive outcome for LGBTQ people
The FABC position on the Bill
We welcome and support the Bill introducing Civil Marriage equality in Australia. We applaud the government for this Bill however we humbly ask for the deletion of S 47A of the Bill.
Ideally, no Marriage Celebrant under the Civil Marriage Act should be entitled to refuse to solemnise a marriage against a person’s sexual orientation. This would be legalised discrimination. However, we understand the need to protect religious freedoms and for that reason, we are agreeable to Religious Marriage Celebrants being legally entitled to refuse to solemnise a marriage based on the celebrant’s conscientious or religious beliefs. However, it is our view that this right should not extend to Civil Marriage celebrants.
In our view, Civil Marriage Celebrants should not be empowered by the law to discriminate against the LGBTIQ community. We believe that one of the purposes of the law is to protect and strengthen the whole community. Imagine how it would feel to be told that a civil service is being legally denied to you only on the basis of personal prejudice against you. That would be bring much unnecessary harm and is unacceptable from a Buddhist standpoint
For the reasons above, a deletion of Section 47A of the Bill is necessary.
Yours faithfully,
Cecilia Mitra LLB hons (Singapore LLM (UWA)
President
Federation of Australian Buddhist Councils (FABC)
Note: You can view the Submission on the Parliament of Australia website by clicking here (page 4, number 78)
Christmas Greetings
We take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy and Peaceful Christmas and New Year.
We look forward to more dialogue and working together with the government and the different faith groups in harmony.
May all be well and happy!
Buddhism Teachers Struggling to Keep Up with Demand from State Schools
By Samantha Turnbull (ABC North Coast) | Dec 2016:
New South Wales public schools are struggling to keep up with demand for Buddhism scripture teachers.
Buddhist Council of New South Wales chairman Brian White said there were more than 3,000 public school students across the state studying Buddhism, and the number was growing rapidly.
"It's driven by a few things — general raising of awareness in meditation right across society and how beneficial that can be, and the realisation that even six and seven-year-olds can meditate for a few minutes and benefit from that," Mr White said.
Audio: High demand for Buddhism scripture classes (ABC News)
Statement on Racial Discrimination Act (Section 18C)
The Federation of Australian Buddhist Councils (FABC)’s Statement on the proposed change to Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA)
The FABC does not support any change to Section18C of the RDA.
The FABC supports right speech which is part of the teachings of the Buddha.
The FABC is of the view that there should be a balance between freedom of expression and the freedom to be protected from speech which offends, insults, humiliates or intimidates someone because of his or her race.
No freedom is absolute and the freedom of expression should not override the freedom to be protected from racially offensive behaviour.
The FABC is of the view that the section18C in its current form read together with section 18D provides the right balance.
Section 18C makes it unlawful to do an act which is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to ‘offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate' someone because of his or her race.
Section18D protects any fair comment or reporting on a matter of public interest, and any sentiment expressed ‘in the course of any statement, publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose’.