Fourteen years after the racist Cronulla riots in suburban Sydney, Muslims in Australia still face widespread Islamophobia and experience acts of violence like no other religious adherents in the country. Videos of racist abuse on public transport are now so common that they are rapidly ceasing to be newsworthy. Proposals for Bendigo’s first mosque faced a barrage of Islamophobic opposition, delaying the project’s construction by several years. In the wake of the Christchurch shooting, disgraced former federal senator Fraser Anning blamed Muslim immigration for what was a white supremacist atrocity.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison — a proud Pentecostal Christian — has warned that religious freedom is under threat in Australia, but it’s not rising Islamophobia that he has in mind. Instead, his heart bleeds for Christian bakers who may be forced, under antidiscrimination legislation, to bake rainbow cakes for same-sex marriages.

To that end, the Morrison government has released a draft package of religious reform bills, to be put to a vote in parliament next month. Under the guise of religious freedom, these new laws will give religious individuals and organizations — including schools, private hospitals, and charities — the right to discriminate, provided they can prove their homophobia has a religious basis.