Discriminating discriminators

Victoria's anti-discrimination laws are currently being reviewed, and a suggestion has been made to remove the exemption allowing religious bodies to discriminate.
First, this is a bit of what our former Treasurer and Exclusive Brethren apologist had to say about this very reasonable proposition:

"The Christian churches want to continue current practice. But a host of community organisations wants to change it. The Federation of Community Legal Services told the parliamentary review that the law should change, claiming: "To allow religious organisations a broad exemption for conscience encourages prejudice..."
"Just think about the moral vanity of that statement. According to these lawyers, a religious conscience leads to prejudice. How did the church arouse public conscience over slavery? How did Florence become a haven for the arts and letters? How did civilisation develop in the past couple of millennia without the Community Legal Services to guide it?"

My response in letter format:

"It was ironic that, in the same edition of the newspaper that Peter Costello used as his vehicle to promote intolerance for people who don’t subscribe to the exact same religious viewpoint, another article reported that yet another child has died for religious reasons: “Dead girl's mother: sickness caused by sin”
"Peter, do you really think we should let decisions on what is or is not right to be dictated by people like this?
"The fact is, our society has progressed despite religious doctrine, not because of it. Religious authorities, comfortable with the status quo, are always resistant to change. But thankfully, our secular society has been able to make leaps and bounds in terms of democracy, precisely because it has not stayed in the dark ages of superstition and entropy.
"Made-up religious reasons should no more be a basis for discrimination than made-up racial reasons."

Although my letter didn't get published (possibly because I never sent it), many other reasonable people replied and were published on my behalf (though no-one made the clever link to the crazy lady article), such as this one from Janine Truter de La Basin:

"PETER Costello seems without irony when he talks of the benefits that religious conscience has brought to society, and fails to mention the oppression of women, the biblical endorsement of slavery, the Crusades, the jihads, the Inquisition and, more recently, the sexual and physical abuse of thousands of children in church homes and parishes, and terrorist attacks around the world.
"If religious institutions truly uphold human rights, they will have nothing to fear from this review. But for those who want to sack a pregnant female teacher because she is unmarried, on the grounds of religious conscience, legal standards for human rights are clearly timely and necessary."

I know, I know: "Religion, blah, blah, TV, blah, Lance Armstrong, blah." That's the Rant O'Clock Way.