Last week, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison finally introduced his Religious Discrimination Bill to parliament. The proposed legislation — nicknamed the “religious freedom bill” — aims to enshrine the rights of religious employers to hire, fire, and discriminate on the basis of anything they deem to be not in keeping with their faith. This could include sex, sexual orientation, lawful sexual activity, marital status, parental status, gender identity, or literally anything these employers list publicly as contrary to their creed.

With the tabling of the bill, Morrison has fulfilled his promise to the religious right, which is permanently vengeful and out for blood after its humiliating defeat in the 2017 same-sex marriage plebiscite. These wealthy employers control an enormous and growing share of Australia’s education, health, and social work industries. And they are positively gleeful at the prospect of being free to fire gay teachers, refuse medical care to trans people or people with HIV, and turn LGBT youth away from charities.

But these new “freedoms” will not be an active tool of repression against LGBT people only. Millions of Australian workers might soon have this dark disciplinary cloud looming over them. Any sensible person would think twice about speaking up about a workplace issue, challenging a manager, or insisting on their current rights under a union agreement if their employer could fire them on the spot on the basis of some unrelated pretext like having had sex before marriage.