“Outrage as TABs open for Good Friday”
From an article on the ABC site:
Religious groups are furious Tabcorp has decided to open for gambling on Good Friday for the first time.
The decision to allow punters to place bets at agencies and hotels comes as New South Wales authorities consider an application by big retailers to open on Easter Sunday.
There appear to be 3 separate issues here:
- the relevance of restrictions on business based on traditional Christian religious holidays;
- the prevalence of gambling, and its associated problems;
- industrial relations implications, with staff possibly being required to work on public holidays.
Religion should clearly be irrelevant in determining when businesses - of any kind - can and can not trade. This should not even be worth discussing. Individuals can decide for themselves if they want to shop (or gamble) on any particular day. It is important that the separate aspects of this issue - religion, gambling, industrial relations, commerce - be treated separately.
“Once we begin to water down these days that are significant days on the Christian calendar, then we start to see gambling becomes, in a sense, the new religion.”
Also this from the Sydney Morning Herald online:
Mr Byrne added it was important to uphold Christian traditions in Australia.
“This is a community predominantly built on Christian principles, where we have and recognise and give importance to certain events,” he said.
“As a community we ought to be respecting that irrespective of what our personal individual belief systems are.“
In other words, if you are a Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic, Aboriginal, undecided or anything else you should just shut up and do as you are told by the “Christian majority”.
A few words for Mr Byrne: Nobody is going to force you to shop or gamble on Good Friday - or any other day, for that matter; nobody is going to stop you from doing whatever you want to do, or not do, on Good Friday. Yet you would impose your beliefs on others and restrict their activities based on your beliefs. Respect is a two way street. Until you fully comprehend that, and recognise that your position is also a “personal individual belief system” of no more (or less) value or importance that anyone elses then you don’t have any right to demand respect from others.