Carpenter had made a written submission on the HRC's Freedom of Religion discussion document, and was among 25 people from various belief systems who turned up to an Auckland roundtable hosted by the Commission this week. Similar events were also run in Wellington and Christchurch.

The initial document contained a foreword which said, "Matters of religion and belief are deemed to be a matter for the private, rather than public, sphere".

"Says Who?" questions Mr Carpenter. "No major religion sees itself as a privatised matter. They are comprehensive views, no different from secularism, rationalist humanism, or atheism.

"It was good to hear this whole section has been removed and similar references are to be deleted. But there are still a number of other points which we have argued need to be changed before the document is released.

"Not the least of these is that the role of Christianity in our history - which has led to the very context in which we can even have these discussions - has once again been largely ignored".

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