Rex Ahdar is a conservative Christian law lecturer at Otago University Law School. This article summarises his perspectives on law, politics and religious "liberty." Last Friday, I buried myself inside the National Library of New Zealand and perused all five of Ahdar's books to date. All of them share a particular theme, however. Which is? New Zealand society has become increasingly secularised and pluralist over the last three or four decades. Although New Zealand has had no established church, Christianity has been tacitly understood as the established religion, until the arrival of new immigrants revitalised and increased those who held allegiance to Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and other historic great faiths. At the same time, Wicca and other new religious movements grew, but secularism increased at a faster rate than all of them. Fundamentalists worry about the rise of secularism and pluralism, and believe that there is a 'crisis' within New Zealand society, as allegedly transcendent shared values, religion and tradition fade from view. Of course, we'd regard these as generalisations. Child labour, slavery and anti-Semitism were all 'traditions' and 'shared values' to, and received religious sanction or obliviousness. That didn't make any of them any less destructive. As well as the above, societies will sink into strange new alternative religious movements once religious consensus is gone. He makes an exception for Wicca though, given that it also deserves to be called a faith and has its rituals and ethical framework. In New Zealand though, none of the seventies NRMS, like the Hare Krishnas, has had particular relevance. In his earliest collection, Ahdar edited work that includes one from Reid Mortensen, complaining about the affronted feelings of conservative Catholics confronted with Andre Serrano's "Piss Christ" at the National Gallery of Victoria (1997) and Pictura Brittanica exhibitor Tania Kovats' "Virgin in a Condom" at our own Te Papa (1998). Mayhem, vandalism and sectarian violence ensued, as did attacks on staff. Even our own Maxim Institute has accepted that blasphemy laws constitute an unacceptable infringement on free speech, and should be abolished. One wishes Mortensen had delved more deeply into this, as the "Catholic Action" group that convened the Te Papa protests had no official church standing, and belongs to a breakaway group opposed to the authority of the current pope and bishops conferences on grounds of prior papal conservatism. In Victoria and New Zealand alike, responsible authorities quite rightly refused to use archaic blasphemy laws, which had been used against freedom of conscience, belief, practice and speech in the United Kingdom, and still are. Mary Whitehouse used it against Gay News in the late seventies after it published a 'blasphemous' poem about Christ's crucifixion and an overexcited gay centurion onlooker. At the federal Australian and state (New South Wales) Law Commission levels, official bodies have urged the abolition of the 'offence' of blasphemy laws within criminal codes. Oversensitive fundamentalists willl have no 'right' to mischievously interfere with free speech. Mortensen does express some concerns about attacks on the sensibilities of other great faiths not being similarly protected, but doesn't adequately explain why he thinks Christianity should get special protections. In 2001, Ahdar wrote a monograph for the Education Development Foundation (now known as the Maxim Institute). Ahdar argued that rights should been seen as having related responsibilities and obligations. Actually, I don't have any problems with that argument. I've always viewed safe sex as being centred on responsibility for keeping oneself safe and one's partner, and it could be similarly argued that adoption law reform involves same-sex parental responsibilities and obligations toward children, and how we should exercise them. But he fails to ask whether the same could be true of fundamentalists. He does support the concept of human rights in extreme contexts, but it always seems to be those who endorse LGBT and children's rights who are at fault. In his earliest work (c2000-1), Ahdar's perspective is marred by exaggeration and selective citation. In "Worlds Colliding" (2001), for example, he misses the point when he cites the New Zealand census. Yes, Pentecostalism is growing, but not as fast as secularism, and traditional evangelical denominations are experiencing decline as much as mainline Protestant ones. New Zealand is not the United States, which has abnormally high levels of religious observance, and New Zealand fundamentalists are doing themselves no favours when they generalise from the context of the United States to our own. Some of his sources present similar difficulties. Does Ahdar still share Phillip Johnson's nonsensical remarks about 'totalitarian' aspects of western pluralist societies? Does he approve of David Smoulin's remarks about human rights and 'cultural genocide,' when religious sanction for ethnic cleansing and sectarian violence provides a convincing argument against untramelled religious "liberty," especially over the last decade? In a pluralist society like ours, fundamentalist Christians have considerable freedoms of their own. While we have no established church or state religion, all religious adherents have access to a particular set of democratic rights and freedoms. These include freedom of belief, conscience, assembly, worship and broad rights of religious practice. However, other religious and nonreligious groups have their own philosophies, belief systems, rights, freedoms and responsibilities, so religious freedom is not absolute. That said, no-one is denying them the right to form pressure groups if they disagree with particular public policies either, as is their right and ours in a democratic society. It is difficult to see how minor limitations on the right to religious practice do constitute an infringement of democratic rights and freedoms in our own national contexts. Opponents of the Christian Right do regard religious and political absolutisms as an obstacle to that, and mere dogmatic assertions don't constitute adequate grounds for public policy, although obviously, the Christian Right has its right to freedom of belief, conscience and speech to maek such statements. Can we find some common ground on this? It is odd that Ahdar hasn't critically examined what happened in Serbia, Bosnia and Rwanda during the nineties. In each of those contexts, Serbian Orthodoxy and Rwanda Seventh Day Adventism and Catholicism were poisoned by untramelled religious practice in pursuit of murderous ethnic cleansing, sectarian persecution and genocide. It's no good to refer to humanity as being made in the "image of God" either- look at the history of colonialism, slavery, apartheid and anti-Semitism and one has to ask whether that has made any difference to the history of western racism and anti-Semitism. Nor is Christianity alone in this, as Japanese Shinto was similarly abused to support Japanese imperalism and militarism. No, tradition and authority are not beyond democratic accountability, critical analysis and inquiry. Conservative Catholic Mary Ann Glendon provides one such example, apparently more willing to defend the institutional church against victims of widespread clergy paedophilia and their quest for reparation and accountability from that church. In his work, he only touches on LGBT rights concretely once, in his "Worlds Colliding," which uncritically cites debates over antidiscrimination law reform, the Hero Parade and same-sex marriage debates, he does little more than refer to Hansard arguments, fundamentalist media sources and makes no attempt to assess the veracity or otherwise of cases for and against that particular issue. The Hero Parade receives similar sketchy analysis. Children's rights are one of his particular concerns, although he has modified his shrill tone somewhat. He has even cited case law that appears to show that some fundamentalist parents and other caregivers have been disinhibited enough to horrifically beat children under their care and have been held accountable for it. Therefore, does Section 59 of the Crimes Act work? Many pediatricians and developmental psychologists would argue not, and this is whythe lawneeds reform. If I were a Section 59 Repeal supporter, I'd peruse the New Zealand Law Reportsand other periodicals to discover counter-factual cases where theexisting law led to acquittal of brutal parents. Over time, Ahdar has relented. As he has become aware of the context of public policy debates, he has become more willing to concede that religious/state separation, state religious neutrality and some limits on untrammelled "religious liberty" can be justified, for the sake of public safety and robust democratic institutions. Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions are one example. I'd argue that the same principles apply to LGBT rights and women's reproductive freedom. He's not perfect, though. While I was horrified to see him quote Christian Reconstructionist Rousas Rushdoony, he has clarified that he sees himself more in the tradition of early eighties fundamentalist activism Francis Schaeffer (1912-1982). I wonder why he didn't cite evangelical criticism of Reconstructionist elements in Schaeffer's work. I'm willing to concede that there are legitimate cases where religious people do face some degree of discrimination and infringement of free speech and religious practice that cannot be justified in a pluralist society. France has forbidden students to wear Christian, Jewish or Muslim adornment or religious symbols in class, which is an attack on their religious freedom and right to symbolic free speech. Any religious group should have the right to freely communicate their views in public, as free speech is a basic human right too, so anti-proselytisation laws are wrong. Religious groups shouldn't be prevented from meeting at state schools, as long as religious private schools don't similarly discriminate against students of alternative religious and philosophical views. At Columbine High School's gun massacre, there was an undeniable hate crime when one of the teenage killers shot a fundamentalist girl dead while she was praying. While one might disagree with conservative Christians, assault against them is never justified. They have the same rights and responsibilities as any other citizen in a pluralist and democratic society, no more...and no less. When conservative Christians battle mainstream New Zealanders, isn't it based on their unattainable desire for dominance (or dominion) over our democratic institutions? It will never happen, as there are too few activist fundamentalists out there, and their belligerent sectarianism, aggressiveness and lack of political sophistication will continue to alienate urban liberal, LGBT and female New Zealanders. Recommended: Rex Ahdar: (ed) Law and Religion: Aldershot: Ashgate: 2000. Rex Ahdar: Adrift in a Sea of Rights: Christchurch: New Zealand Education Development Foundation: 2001. Rex Ahdar: Worlds Colliding: Conservative Christians and the Law: Dartmouth: Ashgate: 2001. Rex Ahdar and Ian Leigh: Religious Freedom and the Liberal State: Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2005. Related Reading: Mary Ann Glendon: Rights Talk: New York: Free Press: 1991. Philip Johnson: "Nihilism and the End of Law" First Things: June/July 1993. Rousas Rushdoony: Institutes of Biblical Law: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing: 1973. Francis Schaeffer: A Christian Manifesto: Wheaton: Crossway: 1982. David Smolin: "Will International Human Rights be Used as A Tool of Cultural Genocide?" (1996) Journal of Law and Religion. Craig Young - 10th February 2006