This webinar was delivered live on Thursday 24th September 2020. It was chaired by Larry Ginsberg (California, USA). The panel of speakers were Nicholas Lobenthal (New York, USA), Nigel Nicholls (Australia), Professor Dr Jakub Urbanik (Poland).
'Free exercise of religion is a basic civil right. The rights to marry, divorce, adopt children, and conduct private and business affairs without being discriminated against on the basis of race, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, age and other factors are also basic civil rights. Which rights prevail when there is actual or supposed conflict? Can the state enable religious practitioners to discriminate – even on the basis of religion? If so, must the state also afford non-religious practitioners the same right to discriminate to avoid establishing a favored state religion? What protections would then be afforded the religious practitioners being discriminated against on the basis of their religion? If free exercise of religion includes discrimination, what is left of other civil rights, including family law rights for same-sex couples, some of whom may have religious motivations for establishing families?'
Answers to these unanswerable questions are now being demanded by litigants and provided by Courts. Unlike other IAFL Fellows Webinars, this free-wheeling survey of some trends in Australia, Poland and the US did not aim to provide correct answers but instead gave some interesting and thought provoking insights.
