New Zealand: There's no state religion A revised national statement on religious diversity has retained the principle that New Zealand has no state religion. Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres told that point was kept in the updated draft, released at a national inter-faith forum in Hamilton. "We start with the state seeks to treat...all faith communities and those who profess no religion equally before the law. New Zealand has no state religion." Prime Minister Helen Clark held the same position as Mr De Bres on Newstalk ZB: "There is no state religion, there will be no state religion. We are very diverse peoples these days. We simply couldn't agree on a state religion -- this is not like a Scandinavian country where people are virtually born into the Lutheran church, and have to resign from it at a later age." "It's a statement of fact as far as I know," De Bres said, "it was also a fact there was diversity in New Zealand." The purpose of this statement is basically to set out some very simple ground rules about tolerance and respect of human rights and that means the human rights of people who are religious and the human rights of people who are not. Prime Minister Helen Clark is to present an agreed statement to an Asian inter-faith dialogue in Waitangi in May. The statement was drafted for the Human Rights Commission by Victoria University Religious Studies Professor Paul Morris. The public consultation process has been conducted by the Race Relations Commissioner and the Human Rights Commission, and has involved city councils, interfaith councils and individual faith and community groups across New Zealand. There have been submissions from interfaith meetings and groups, from the Exclusive Brethren, the Destiny Church, Catholic Bishops, the evangelical Vision Network, Rationalists, Humanists, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Baha'is, Jews, Sikhs, Quakers and many others, he said. Rationalists have been raising the issue of the more than one million New Zealanders who profess no religion. |