Privileging prejudice: the threat and opportunity posed by the movement for 'religious freedom'

I have been equally disappointed that Labor, the Greens, the Human Rights Commission and the Yes campaign's successor, Equality Australia, continue to talk about "striking a balance" between "religious freedom" and LGBTI equality as if it's possible to reason with a hungry crocodile.

It's time for all supporters of the LGBTI community and of human rights to abandon the pretense that the "religious freedom" movement is making a genuine claim on justice and instead campaign against it.

But such a campaign must be for something good, not just against something bad.

The second thing supporters of LGBTI equality must do is turn the challenge of the "religious freedom" movement into an opportunity for transformative legal and social change.

The threat the "religious freedom" movement poses to Australia's anti-discrimination laws provides an opportunity for those of us who believe in such laws to again explain to the nation why they are important.

We should be telling the stories of those people whose lives have been improved by anti-discrimination laws.

We should be talking about how such laws have created a more inclusive and compassionate Australia, freer of prejudice and hate than it was before we enacted anti-discrimination statutes.

We should develop a narrative in support of anti-discrimination law that is more compelling than the narrative that seeks to pull it down.

In the fertile soil of a new anti-discrimination and pro-equality narrative we should nurture a new movement to improve our anti-discrimination laws even further.

Most of all, we should make the case that it is a backwards step to enshrine one right and protect one group, at the expense of others.

We should match the religious right's call for protection of "religious freedom" with even louder calls for a national charter of rights.

We should call the religious freedom movement's bluff. It says it wants rights protected. Fine, but let's do it properly.

We should use this small and nasty rights debate as a platform to launch a fuller and more generous debate about genuine human rights and freedoms for all Australians, and why they matter.

These are the opportunity the current "religious freedom" challenge gives us. My hope is that, as a nation, we're up to it.