Tuesday 15 April 2008

Let us gaily tread the measure

A prize for recognising the quotation in the title, without Googling!
Any way, I am confused.
Some will not be surprised!
Channel 9's Today Show this morning was going into orbit and making much of the fact that Brisbane's "Churchie" school would not allow boys to take same sex partners to their formal. Even the good Archbishop Aspinall allegedly had weighed in saying the school had the right to uphold its values.
The pompous Cameron Williams kept reiterating that Churchie had the right to insist on its 'Anglican values'.
He seemed to to think that such a value includes the right to discriminate against people on grounds of their sexuality.
Not without controversy according to Williams' Wikipedia entry (here) he kept insisting that that was his viewpoint and blow everyone else.
The man is a sport's commentator for heavens sake.
In valiantly wanting to preserve Churchie's right to do what ever it likes (I wonder where he went to school) he kept insisting that 'such people' can always go to another school if they don't like this sort of discrimination.
Apart from the fact that that argument is obviously riddled with holes, I would maintain that the Anglican position is not that boys are not allowed to have friends of the same sex.
And indeed I would think that whilst most boys might want to take a girl to the formal, some wouldn't...and why should they?
It is of course one of those things about which there is a lot of wind.
Thank goodness the Courier-Mail has a much more measured account of what might be taking place (here) [and it' s really interesting to note that they have 873 comments on this story so far ...10 a.m. CST)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

From one maiden who has not Googled, I'd say this quote is from the Pirates of Penzance.
When do I collect my prize....maybe a free coffee???

Anonymous said...

As I have pointed out on my blog, I would support Churchie's right to uphold its "Anglican values" by discriminating against same-sex couples, if the government was prepared to uphold liberal democratic values and cease allocating tax dollars to institutions which discriminate on the basis of sexuality (or ethnicity, or religion, etc.).

Stephan Clark said...

my point is (as an Anglican) they may be Churchie's values...they are so far as I know...not Anglican

Anonymous said...

Yes, hence the scare quotes around "Anglican values."