The Right for Adults and Children to Freely Choose their own Beliefs Statement

We have two classes of people working under two distinct forms of law, religious law and secular law. It is a fact that all forms of law in Australia are based on religious laws.

My contention is that the religion is flawed and that is is those flaws that lay at the heart of the child sexual abuse in religious institutions and that due to its historic existence and tacit approval over generations our laws have been manipulated to aid, abet and to fund the abusers.

My personal story and perspective is reflected in some way by those amongst the survivors who have escaped the religion which abused them and given the circumstances of the origins and make up of the legal system underlying the Royal Commission they like myself could never consider that we have been dealt with on a secular way by a secular body.

In the hearing room I am asked to provide evidence wherever that is possible and I endeavor to provide that wherever possible. The existence, presence, connection and revelations to the Christian god is simply taken to be a fact when in fact there is no such evidence. Understanding this I challenge these men who parade themselves with the even closer connection of being a messenger or servant or servant of this god.

These are the questions on my mind and on the minds of millions of others who have left the Catholic Church (and likely those who have left each of the other religions also) over the sexual abuse of children issue. Many have come to this as a necessary and much reward step in their healing process.

Each of those survivors has had to face down the Catholic reign of terror that had been perpetually held in their mind  as a result of the childhood process enforced through Catholic teaching and doctrine. The fear of death and the fear of spending an eternity in exquisite pain and agony still binds many and keeps them in fear today.

That fear that comes as a result of living in a society that is based on the religion of their abuser keeps them quiet and keeps them by the thousand from coming forward as they correctly can not see a level playing field and that the rules and regulations that run the show have been set by their abuser. They see and they know that this is not a safe environment.

Thousands of us have repeatedly walked into similar traps only to find or cases watered down, minimised, dismissed or threatened, abused, wrongly imprisoned and/or forcibly placed into mental health as a means of silencing us.

Religion has abused me more than any one individual or group of individuals. That it abuses my trust in this way is something that I find insurmountable. How can the Royal Commission afford me the same respect that is afforded to the religious. It can pay its respects through applying a legal system that is based on the ideology of the Christian religion. For any of us to get a fair hearing it must be acknowledge that there is a large and ever present biased towered the religion which caused my abuse and their abusive way of thinking and that that is applied in presence (the Bible) and in actions (history of our law) through the law as it has been developed over time.

If the Royal Commission is to hear the truth as I understand it it is essential that these biases be put aside so that the proper evidence can be put forward so that the Commission can be informed by the facts that come with being human despite that being anathema to religion.

For myself and for many others that is and will be the first point in time when the real issue of the sexual abuse of children will be addressed in an appropriate manner.