Saying what you mean...meaning what you say

Perhaps one of the more horrifying election stories is about Queensland Family First Candidate Wendy Francis who, in the best tradition of Family First has tweeted her foot into her mouth.

She is (of course!!!) not homophobic even if she did Tweet...that allowing same-sex couples to have children is like 'legalising child abuse'.

I have only one comment to make which is that forcing people to deny their sexuality, and therefore requiring them to live the life of a lie is also abuse.

We need to recognise that there are many thousands of gay people who have children, there are many who have managed to live relatively happy lives whilst not being allowed to admit to their sexuality.

There are also thousands of people for whom this sort of deception has ruined their lives. There are many, many people who have suicided ; and speaking as a person who has experienced two suicides in their family, the victims of suicide are not just the deceased.

I just don't get Family First. Many of whom are allegedly Christian. They seem to lack the very compassion that our God calls us to have. (see the SMH's version of the story here)

I say again...we should do what ever we can to allow all people to develop stable committed relationships...it is stable committed relationships that are the best environment for the nurture of children.

Orthodox political thought

In the last week I have had a bundle of political information but only two direct requests to make 'information' available to the people of our church community.

Now, the Anglican Church (despite often being otherwise characterised ) is not politically homogenous. It has often been characterised as "the Tory Party at Prayer"...or sometimes more whimsically (referring to the Anglo Catholic section with which I identify) as "The Communist Party at Mass"!

The reality is that we are theologically, socially and, most certainly, politically a heterodox community. It's often observed that our one defining characteristic is that we are all totally different...and we respect each other's right to be so.

This doesn't always make for easy living, but it does make life interesting.

So at times of election I try to be careful to not promote the line of one particular party, though many people would know and/or guess that I lean to the left.

The two requests to make the policies of particular parties known have actually come from other religious groups. One from an agency which promotes Christian Pastoral support Workers (formerly called chaplains) in state schools. Their advice is about the one issue of funding. Though they also urge people to write to their local member (of any persuasion) about the issue. This latter action seems to me perfectly reasonable. What is not reasonable is to be seen to be promoting one or other party in particular.

Given, also, what I note above...that Anglicans cherish difference...it would be a mistake to make the assumption that we are all particularly sympathetic and think the same way.

The second solicitation comes from a party which clearly identifies itself as a Christian Party-even though when it suits them electorally they back away from that association, though it is clear that Family First seeks to draw support from mainly conservative evangelical churches.

Such churches probably do not tolerate theological diversity in the way that the Anglican Church does!

It would seem that they also have a fairly narrow conservative political agenda. I don't have any particular problem with people being conservative. What I do object to is the use of descriptors that seem to claim there is only one Christian viewpoint.

Thus when they put out a Christian Values Checklist (see here for similar information) it is for me some what problematic.

Of the 15 points on this particular document, which seems remarkably like the document put out for the recent State election...even though it claims to relate specifically to the Federal parliament..I don't have problems with some (possibly 6 of the 15....) but I would take exception to the bland statement that some points clearly represent "Christian values"

Item 3 for example : Support parental choice of schooling with education vouchers is clearly not a specifically Christian value at all

Of more concern are those matters where I actually think the value is not Christian at all

Item 4 'Protect marriage' (quite happy with that...but it goes on) 'oppose Relationship Registers for same-sex couples'

To my mind this flies in the face of the freedom that God gives to us in the Gospel. I don't dispute that many Christian, perhaps even most won't agree with me. But while I want to protect marriage I don't think that opposing same-sex marriage is the key strategy. What about providing adequate childcare, support for new parents etc. etc?

In fact I want society to stop acting prejudicially against people simply because they are gay. Where is that Christian value.

Item11 also want to prevent same-sex couples from having access to IVF and adoption

There is an agenda here. But to my mind it is not a Christian agenda. It is an anti-gay agenda, and I find no Christian value on this 'checklist' about protecting gay people from discrimination.

Quite the reverse. Items 12 & 13 promote narrow religious privilege with regard to vilification laws and anti-discrimination legislation....that is they want religious groups to have the right to be intolerant and discriminatory in a way that no other sector of society can be allowed to be so. I just think this sort of narrow seeking of privilege is so against the spirit of Paul's teaching about being responsible citizens that it is shocking.

So, I won't be issuing their narrow political advice in the name of "Christian Values"

A

On not being a dummy

Family First Senator, Steve Fielding, protests he is "no dummy" because he mispronounces 'fiscal' as 'physical'. (here) Indeed mispronounciation (sic) is no reason for dismissing of a senator, his ideas, or his policies.

His scepticism about climate change, his failure to appreciate the nuances of economic argument, and his difficulty understanding that there are many members of the electorate who have more complex understandings of social order than the narrow Christian rightist position. These may be some more significant reasons.

Striking the balance

While by and large I am happy that the Senate is acting as a House of Review because no one party has an absolute majority, I can't help but feel that Senator Fielding of Family First has made a serious error of judgment with regard to the alcopops tax. 

(see one story here about the liquor industry allegedly not wanting tax already taken back!!! 

I'll believe that when I see it).

The issue about "alcopops" is not just and/or only about how alcohol products might be taxed, but also about whether we are the sort of society that wants to make the 'acquired taste' more readily and easily 'acquired' by those who presently have no stomach for it and who by and large are young, immature and at risk.

This is just bizarre. Why would you actually want to encourage those who don't like the taste of alcohol (basically because their palates are too immature) to start drinking by making it available in disguise.

Fielding is right on one level to say that the issue is bigger than alcopops but not taking this small step will not actually address that larger issue.

Lightweight Soft Cell

In an amazingly lightweight analysis of recent SA crime statistics Family First  MP Dennis Hood "blasts"the Government because as an Advertiser article puts it:

NOT a single rapist, child pornographer or killer driver received a maximum sentence in South Australia last financial year

If you were to look at this as glass "hall full" rather than "half empty" then perhaps we should give thanks for this. If we assume that the court system works (not that it is perfect but that it works) then we recognise that a "maximum" sentence should not be the "usual" sentence.

The court system does not simply rubber stamp verdicts, but rather expects to take circumstances into account. 

I am always deeply cautious when there is an outcry against particular sentencing, few of us are in the court to hear the circumstances. Newspapers and television necessarily abbreviate the reporting and habitually miss the complex detail out. Circumstances are often and inevitably complex and often "boring" detail.

So outcry is often based on an incomplete reading of the evidence...hardly justice. The trouble is (and the cause of outcry) that we disagree about how circumstances should be weighted.

Isn't that why we have judges and magistrates? And why in the free world we do not allow (by and large) politicians to imprison people.

Not much to pick

The much awaited Boothby electoral forum, put on by the group of tired-old lefties who form the remnants of Action for World Development in the Blackwood area was last night. And all six candidates turned up. I am as unsure as ever about who I am supposed to vote for.
Craig Bossie - Australian Democrats, Was quite impressive and coherent, but frankly admitted that the Dems were after a Senate seat. The same is true, of course of Andrew Cole -Family First who nevertheless made a good fist of it, and was probably the most realistic of the lot of em. I am in no way drawn to Family First, and none of their invidious social policy was aired last night, (is it perhaps being moderated as they face political realities. To have my daughter whisper in my ear...'well it's Family \First then' was quite instructive. I think little-old-left leaning-she was saying that the he was the only one of that bunch who wasn't either a loony or a party hack.
Nicole Cornes-Australian Labor Party, who has been much criticised was OK but light on. She is obviously a nice person, but iot is difficult to see her not just doing what she is told if she gets toi Canberra. Jodi Kirkby-Greens, was to my mind good, but again they are after a Senate seat too. Very little serious environmental policy was discussed though she did askthe sitting member Andrew Southcott-Liberal, how the Government could give Indonesia $200 million to stop chop[ping down tress and then give Gunn's in Tasmania $100 million to chop them down! To be fair to Southcott he is probably at the most unpopular he has ever been. He is perceived as doing nothing much, and there became an increasing titter each time he was asked a question (and he fielded most) and said "Well thank you for that question...." and people would laugh, and you began to hear "well why don't you answer it", because for sure he is a politician and has made an art form of seeming to answer questions whilst saying nothing.
The wildcard is popular TV journalist Ray McGhee -Independent who is well-liked. But he oscillated between buffoonery and sheer impatience with both major parties and a sense of frustration with Southcott's ineptitude. He is, I suggest, inviting the protest vote but does not seriously think he will get to Canberra.
He lacks the credentials, I suggest, of other journalists like Smart Money Editor, Anthony Keane of the Advertiser who has a good economic grasp and a strong commitment to family values. I would vote for him, the parties would do well to try and woo him. But he would not be so silly as to leave my niece and my two great nieces at home in Adelaide while he had to waste time in Canberra. Woops did I just declare a bias.
My serious point, there are quality candidates around most have good reason to be suspicious of the dysfunctional nature of the political system.

Curiouser & Curiouser

It is curious to receive communication from the Family First Party about maintaining Eccelsiastical privilege in legislation.
Belonging to a denomination which has often been accused of exercising undue influence in the Parliaments of this land in a quasi-established-church way I sometimes detect from some of these newer groups a sort of influence envy. Indeed this would seem to be a major dynamic in the formation of Family First...a wish to influence the politcial process. This is so obvious that it doesn't need to be spelled out.
The Anglican Church should remind these folk of that which it needs to periodically remind itself, something to do with cutlery required for supping with the devil (hence the cartoon).
The particular matter that the Honourables Evans & Hood put before us is the seeming removal of the church's right to vilify whomsoever it likes in the name of preaching and "Biblical" teaching.
To be sure they name these issues rather differently "REMOVING" the right to preach and the right to counsel.; which is I sufggest something of a furphy.
There is a real question to be asked here of whether anyone should be allowed to say anything they like in the name of religious faith. I just think this is not on.
While they are particularly citing (surprise, surprise) the right to call a spade a sodomite; if this is to be taken to its logical conclusion then would they be so keen to allow a Calathumpian to say that Pentecostals are narrow-minded bigots, or that Christians in general are polytheistic cannibals, or that Jews add the blood of children to the Passover loaf. [Students of history will note that I use those examples because they represent real accusations of the past]
My problems is that I think it is a very selective exegesis of how Christians are supposed to practise their faith and live as responsible citizens. My reading of (particularly Paul's) teaching about citizenship is that we should be exemplary in complying to the laws of the State, and require at least as much, and probably more, compliance and obedience as the general populace.
Surely when it comes to decrying vilification we shouldn't be reserving the right to vilify who we like, we should be at the forefront of compliance.
I do not want to stifle public debate, or give permission for the sermon police to be formed. But being religious does not give me, or anyone else the right to insult, demean or diminish the rights of anyone else.