With its increasingly secular and religiously diverse population Australia faces many challenges in determining how the state and religion should interact. Australia is not unique in facing these challenges. States worldwide, including common law countries with shared legal and religious heritages, have also been faced with the question of how the state and religion should relate to one another. Countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and the United States have all had to grapple with how to manage the state-religion relationship in the present day. This book provides a comprehensive historical review of the interaction of the state and religion in Australia. It brings together multiple examples of areas in which the state and religion interact, and reviews these examples across Australia's history from settlement through to present day. The book sets this story within a wider theoretical context via an examination of theories of state-religion relationships as well as a comparison with other similar common law jurisdictions. The book demonstrates how the solutions arrived at in Australia is uniquely Australian owing to Australia's unique legal system, religious demographics and history. However this is just one possible outcome among many that have been tried in common law liberal democracies.

This book examines law and religion from the perspective of its case law. Each chapter focuses on a specific case from a Commonwealth jurisdiction, examining the history and impact of the case, both within the originating jurisdiction and its wider global context. The book contains chapters from leading and emerging scholars from across the Commonwealth, including from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Pakistan, Malaysia, India and Nigeria. The cases are divided into four sections covering: - Foundational Questions in Law and Religion - Freedom of Religion around the Commonwealth - Religion and state relations around the Commonwealth - Rights, Relationships and Religion around the Commonwealth. Like religion itself, the case law covers a wide spectrum of life. This diversity is reflected in the cases covered in this book, which include: - Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur v Home Minister on the use of the Muslim name for God by non-Muslims in Malaysia - The Church of the New Faith v Commissioner of Pay-roll Tax (Vic) which determined the meaning of religion in Australia - Eweida v UK which clarified the application of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights - R v Big M Drug Mart on the individual protections of religious freedom under the Canadian Charter of Rights. The book examines how legal disputes involving religion are among the most contested in the courts and shows that in these cases, passions run high and the outcomes can have significant consequences for all involved.

With its increasingly secular and religiously diverse population Australia faces many challenges in determining how the state and religion should interact. Australia is not unique in facing these challenges. States worldwide, including common law countries with shared legal and religious heritages, have also been faced with the question of how the state and religion should relate to one another. Countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and the United States have all had to grapple with how to manage the state-religion relationship in the present day. This book provides a comprehensive historical review of the interaction of the state and religion in Australia. It brings together multiple examples of areas in which the state and religion interact, and reviews these examples across Australia's history from settlement through to present day. The book sets this story within a wider theoretical context via an examination of theories of state-religion relationships as well as a comparison with other similar common law jurisdictions. The book demonstrates how the solutions arrived at in Australia is uniquely Australian owing to Australia's unique legal system, religious demographics and history. However this is just one possible outcome among many that have been tried in common law liberal democracies.

This book examines law and religion from the perspective of its case law. Each chapter focuses on a specific case from a Commonwealth jurisdiction, examining the history and impact of the case, both within the originating jurisdiction and its wider global context. The book contains chapters from leading and emerging scholars from across the Commonwealth, including from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Pakistan, Malaysia, India and Nigeria. The cases are divided into four sections covering: - Foundational Questions in Law and Religion - Freedom of Religion around the Commonwealth - Religion and state relations around the Commonwealth - Rights, Relationships and Religion around the Commonwealth. Like religion itself, the case law covers a wide spectrum of life. This diversity is reflected in the cases covered in this book, which include: - Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur v Home Minister on the use of the Muslim name for God by non-Muslims in Malaysia - The Church of the New Faith v Commissioner of Pay-roll Tax (Vic) which determined the meaning of religion in Australia - Eweida v UK which clarified the application of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights - R v Big M Drug Mart on the individual protections of religious freedom under the Canadian Charter of Rights. The book examines how legal disputes involving religion are among the most contested in the courts and shows that in these cases, passions run high and the outcomes can have significant consequences for all involved.