Thank you for the extremely heartening response! It’s refreshing to see so many people taking a stand against discrimination.

Something that has been drawn to our attention is that the letter sent out by Abbotsleigh to the school community on October 30th was near-identical to letters released by several other Anglican schools. It appears that the Anglican Church put together a template of sorts, and schools have basically ‘copy-pasted’ this. It is disappointing that Abbotsleigh has not sent out a genuine response. The school community deserves a response that actually comes from the school.

We would also like to point out a blatantly disingenuous claim made by the letter: that the school is merely advocating for the “right to employ staff who support the ethos of the school.” The term “ethos” is deliberately vague.
This is not about 'freedom of religion': the school remains free to run compulsory Christian Studies classes, teach Christian values, hold compulsory Chapel services and otherwise educate children in a 'Christian environment'.
Let’s be very clear: the law that the school wants to maintain – Section 38 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) – pertains specifically to “person’s sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or relationship status or pregnancy.” 
You should be under no illusions that the school is advocating for anything other than the right to discriminate against students and staff on this basis.

Equally confusing and misleading is the claim that the school will never exercise this “right to discriminate.” If it won’t exercise it, then why is it publicly advocating to retain this right? Is it “just in case” they suddenly want to fire someone or expel a student in murky circumstances? If you don’t plan to act in accordance with a law that supports discrimination, then why advocate for the law to be maintained instead of removed or why not simply stay silent on the issue?

We will continue to resist any attempts at obfuscating the truth in this matter. We will not stand for discrimination against LGBTIQA+ students and staff, nor will we accept public declarations by the school in favour of discriminatory laws. LGBTIQA+ students, staff, parents and alumni have all made invaluable contributions to the Abbotsleigh community and deserve our unwavering support.

Thank you for your efforts thus far. We look forward to receiving a genuine response from Abbotsleigh.