Written by: Michael Swain, FOR SA Director
Article source: JOY! Magazine
As a regular reader of JOY!, you may well be aware of the many battles FOR SA has fought for faith and freedom. Here are some of the highlights of our work in 2022:
• We successfully helped to negotiate a settlement between the parties in the Chetty case – upholding the right of a young evangelist to share his faith and testimony after he was taken to court under PEPUDA (the “Equality Act”) for “hate speech”.
• After “Lockdown”, Government attempted to retain sweeping, unilateral, and unaccountable power through the Draft Health Regulations. We helped mobilise over 325,000 individual submissions to oppose this outcome. These regulations are not yet in force, but we remain vigilant.
• We appeared before Parliament to ensure that there is specific protection for religious freedom in the “Hate Speech Bill” and to lobby extensively so that everyone can freely continue to express their faith without fear of criminal sanctions.
• The Marriage Policy considered FOR SA’s submissions and Religious Marriage Officers will now not be forced to solemnise any union against their conscience.
• The Department of Justice has assured FOR SA that it does not intend for the PEPUDA Amendment Bill to interfere with religious freedom and will consider expressly
protecting religious freedom in the next draft.
FOR SA has done extensive work
Space does not allow us to detail our extensive work surrounding the Anti-Money Laundering Bill, Terrorist and Related Activities Amendment Bill and the Films & Publications Regulations, nor our intervention against limitations on visas and work permits for foreign religious workers. We can only briefly mention our tireless efforts to prevent liberal ideologies from being pushed into public schools through Government-backed Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) content and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Guidelines. We cannot begin to summarise the hundreds of interviews FOR SA has given on multiple radio and TV channels, nor the articles we have written and the videos we have produced to inform and mobilise on areas where religious freedom has been threatened.
What we can say – without fear of contradiction – is that without FOR SA’s contributions, the legal environment of this nation today would be significantly more hostile to people of faith.
OUR APPEAL THIS CHRISTMAS
As Christians celebrate the greatest Gift of all on 25 December, FOR SA remains totally dedicated to ensuring that you can continue to express and live out your faith without fear of sanction. We are simply asking you to take a stand with us for faith and freedom!
In this season of giving, please help us to continue to help you by giving financially to FOR SA now – while this appeal is in front of you. And then please keep giving every month because this battle will not go away – ever! The future of religious freedom is indeed in your hands because we cannot stay in the fight without your help!
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Date published: 24/11/2022
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JOY! News is a Christian news portal that shares pre-published articles by writers around the world. Each article is sourced and linked to the origin, and each article is credited with the author’s name. Although we do publish many articles that have been written in-house by JOY! journalists, we do not exclusively create our own content. Any views or opinions presented on this website are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the company.
