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Australian Court Rules that Muslim Is Not A Race

posted by martyb on Saturday February 16 2019, @08:56AM   
from the Better-than-a-rat-race dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Is a religious group a 'race' or isn't it? Is someone 'racist' if they publicly state their dislike of a religious group? An Australian tribunal has answered this question by ruling that Muslim is not a race, and as such, a person who vilifies them in public, an act which is currently illegal in Australia, would not have broken the law.

In 2016 Sonia Kruger 'called for an end to migration from Islamic countries' saying that she wanted people to feel safe when going out to celebrate Australia day. Sam Ekermawi, a Muslim, filed a complaint to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal claiming the comments were racial vilification.

The tribunal was unable to conclude Muslims living in Australia "are a 'race' by reason of a common ethnic or ethno-religious origin" and dismissed the application. This is an important milestone in the legal and cultural development of the ocean-bound nation which is still attempting to balance the melting pot of cultures and people who have migrated to the country from all over the world. This ruling may be a key threshold for defining what the word 'race' actually means in the legal and social and cultural context and how laws will be interpreted in the future.

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Original Submission

• Re:How would a Religion be a Race (Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Saturday February 16 2019, @12:51PM

  by zocalo (302) on Saturday February 16 2019, @12:51PM (#802018)

  IMHO, it clearly isn't. It's a grouping, certainly, often with a default assignment by virtue of birth circumstances and in close correlation with ethnicity or other factors, but not a race in its own right. The crux for me is that you can *change* your religion (some local laws not withstanding).
  
  Still, to play devil's advocate, if you're going to accept something you can change like religion as a person's race, rather than some other factor like being - say - of a major demographic within that specific religion, then you logically of have to accept flexibility in some other related things as well. For instance; Rachel Dolezal's claims to be black, Elizabeth Warren's claims to be Native American, or any claims of "cultural appropriation" for that matter. Who's to say that person with the "culturally appropriated" whatever hadn't decided to become a more culturally appropriate race for a while? Maybe they're just "racially fluid".
  
  Come to think of it, with that line of reasoning, it should actually get some of the more inane arguments around this kind of crap to go away, which maybe isn't such a bad thing. Not that those who tend to get their panties in bunch over such things will let it, of course.

  --
  UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!

  Parent

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