Teachers at a controversial Christian school in Brisbane are being asked to sign employment contracts that warn they could be sacked for being openly homosexual.
The Citipointe Christian College is at the heart of yet another scandal after a former teacher lost his job for refusing to sign the document last month.
The private primary and high school located at Carindale, 8km east of Brisbane, told staff that expressing human sexuality incompatible with college faith could constitute a breach of employment.
“Nothing in his/her deliberate conduct should be incompatible with the intrinsic character of their position, especially, but not only, in relation to the expression of human sexuality through heterosexual, monogamous relationships, expressed intimately through marriage.” the school wrote.
“Your failure to abide by such requirements expressed in the above clauses could constitute a breach of your employment contract and subsequent dismissal.”
This is the second time this year the school has been called out for discrimination after it asked families to sign a document that labelled homosexuality as “immoral” and offensive to God.
The enrolment contracts also implied that students would be recognised by their “biological sex”.
“We believe that any form of sexual immorality (including but not limited to adultery, fornication, homosexual acts, bisexual acts, bestiality, incest, paedophilia and pornography) is sinful and offensive to God and is destructive to human relationships and society.” the contract said.
“The College believes that by creating each person, God in his divine love and wisdom gifted them their gender, as male or female. The College therefore acknowledges the biological sex of a person recognised at birth and requires practices consistent with that sex.”
The school’s employment conditions, obtained by The Guardian, date back to February this year, just weeks after former principal and pastor Brian Mulheran was forced to step down over the anti-gay student contracts.
The independent school received massive backlash and wide-scale media attention – resulting in the withdrawal of the contracts, an apology to students, and the appointment of a new principal, Ruth Gravestein.
LGBTI legal service lawyer Matilda Alexander told The Guardian that the employee contracts were most likely unlawful under Queensland anti-discrimination laws.
“It seeks to prohibit conduct that is not in connection with the workplace by stopping an employee acting in a way that is contrary to the religious beliefs of the college, whether or not this is done openly.” she said.
“This is far beyond the power of any employer in Queensland. We all have the right to attend work and pursue our own personal lives outside of work, even if working for a religious school.”
A former Citipointe teacher, who refused to sign the contract, told The Guardian that he effectively lost his job due to discrimination.
“I’m disgusted by this kind of intolerance and discrimination hiding behind the name of God, especially when formalised in a contract – this is not Christianity.” he said.
“Excluding LGBTQIA+ people from the school community perpetuates these archaic values and doesn’t prepare students for the real world. In the real world if you don’t share values with a colleague or friend you can’t contract them out of your life.”
Queensland Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman told reporters that people who believed they had been discriminated against in the workplace should make a complaint to the human rights commission.
“It is absolutely appalling to see these awful and damaging clauses in the employment contracts for Citipointe College teachers – especially after the recent outrage and controversy around their student enrolment forms,” she said.
The school told The Guardian that the wording of staff employment conditions was “under review”.
The Independent Education Union Queensland, which represents teachers at Citipointe, has labelled the contracts as “inherently unfair” and “out of step with modern community expectations”.
