There is, I argue in my column in The Herald today, no more reason for Australians' choices to be restricted on these Easter days than over Ramadan, yet they are. The primary restrictions apply to our freedom to shop at major retailers and to drink alcohol, although how our drinking beer or shopping at Myer will diminish the sacredness of someone else's day is beyond me.

And, finally, these restrictions are coming under sustained assault. Tabcorp is open to punters on Good Friday, next month, although there won't be any horseracing in Australia on that day. Yet. Newcastle's Queens Wharf Brewery has just lost a bid to allow its patrons the use of the wharf area on Good Friday, and this highlighted the silliness of barring the takeaway sales of alcohol on that one day. It is as much a holiday for some people as it is a sacred day for some, but fewer, people. And more than 80 major retailers are urging the State Government to allow them to open on Easter Sunday, citing multiculturalism and the diminishing role of religion.

I won't be gambling or shopping over Easter, although I wouldn't mind a few beers at a pub on Friday afternoon, as is my habit throughout the year, and I am irritated that I may be denied that by religious customs I don't share, don't accept and don't want. And I can't see how my freedom of choice reduces or offends anyone else's reasonable beliefs. So let's bring it on in one big challenge.

Or is there a justification still, if there ever was, for having the beliefs and customs of Christians imposed on my life?