After Kevin Rudd’s gay-hatin’ sister Loree declared today that she was going to QUIT THE LABOR PARTY when it eventually decides to stop supporting discrimination against gays and lesbians (nobody really understanding what she was doing in a party which has “social justice” as part of its aims in the first place), Jim Wallace of the Australian “Christian” Lobby had this to say:
In a democratic society there must be freedom to support and advocate for marriage remaining between a man and a woman without being accused of inciting hatred, being ‘homophobic’, bigoted and now anti-Semitic.
Of course. In exactly the same way as in a democratic society there must be freedom to support and advocate for black people being sent to different schools, just as it was in decades past, without being accused of inciting hatred, being ‘racist’ and bigoted. And there must be freedom to support and advocate depriving women of the vote, just as it was for centuries, without being accused of inciting hatred, being ‘sexist’ and bigoted. And there must be freedom to support and advocate prohibiting Roman Catholics from having any role in government, just as it was a few hundred years ago, without being accused of inciting hatred, being ‘religiously intolerant’ and bigoted.
Why should someone advocating for discrimination against gay people on the grounds that their relationships are only second-class be accused of contempt for gay people? What’s bigoted about that kind of bigotry? Why should someone who suggests there’s some kind of DIABOLICAL GAY CONSPIRACY coming to OPPRESS CHRISTIAN FOLK be accused of inciting hatred?
It just doesn’t make sense.
ELSEWHERE: Fred Clark (yes, him again) on how it came to be that opposition to homosexuality – not even mentioned by Jesus – came to be a defining characteristic of the modern “Christian” Right.
UPDATE: The NSW branch of the ALP appears to be the problem, last weekend at their state conference refusing to endorse marriage equality despite their colleagues in other states doing so.
UPDATE #2: I doubt it’ll be approved, but left this comment under the Wallace piece:
Yeah, you don’t “hate” gays. You just see them as inferior people with second-class relationships who need to be discriminated against by law.
By SECULAR law.
There is no way that removing the gender specifications from the Marriage Act that Howard put there in 2004 will affect you Christians in the slightest. You’re not going to have to marry gay people in your churches any more than you presently have to marry Hindu people or Muslims. You’re not going to have to get gay married yourself.
Basically, it’s got nothing to do with you. There are tens of thousands of non-Christian marriages that take place around the country every year: the Marriage Act is for all Australians, not just Christians.
And frankly, there’s no argument you can run against marriage of gay people being equally recognised by the law that you couldn’t also have run against any previous civil rights issue. All you have is “tradition”, which is the same argument run against women having the vote and ending racial segregation.
Just leave gay Australians alone. Let them have the same protections under the law the rest of us enjoy. And concentrate on the stuff that Jesus actually talked about.
Moved On 
The problem is that whether gays can marry or not has nothing to do with any church.
It was the churches that adopted the civil ceremonies of marriage.
All cultures appear to have marriages regardless of religion.
I don’t think Jim Wallace knows what “democracy” means. His right to advocate against gay marriage is in fact the exact same right other people have to call that advocacy bigoted.
And thanks for the link to the great Fred Clark post.
(P.S. WordPress, as well as not working at all for IE, seems to swallow at least one of every comment, silently, when I use Chrome. So forgive me if this is a double post.)
Thanks for the link to the Fred Clark article, Jeremy, which took up several hours of my life on a Friday morning.
But was well worth it … 🙂
Catching up – you muddle the issue with facts.
😉
“The NSW branch of the ALP appears to be the problem,”
On pretty much every issue – not just this one. Kick the NSW Right out – they obviously want to be Liberals, so let them go be Liberals.
One underlying problem is the loathing for homosexuality ingrained in some people. Humans are like that, particularly for groups that are identifiably different. This kind of prejudice has proved hard to eradicate in other areas. It is not that long ago John Howard wanted to insert race as a criterion in migration decisions. Sadly he was elected PM after having proposed this. Since then public opinion has changed so much that he was eventually forced to acknowledge he was wrong. Once enough people speak out others think about it and allow reason to overcome prejudice.
Fortunately the end is in sight on this issue. The majority of Australians are in favour of equality, not the “different but equal” reasoning of the ACL, but real equality in this area. It is essential for the majority to act now to pressure politicians to do the right thing. After the next election the prospects for justice may well diminish if the Coalition gets in.
Much responsibility lies with people in conservative electorates letting their members know that they won’t lose their seats if they stand up for justice on this issue.
Shorter Jim Wallace: Tolerate my intolerance!
Congratulations on getting your reply posted at the ACL site, Jeremy. No offence meant but you must be the ‘token’ opposition 🙂 because for the rest of us our comments remain in purgatory for evermore.
buns3000 beat me to it. The ACL’s ongoing tone of “help, help, I’m being oppressed!” while they lobby government to actively discriminate against others is hypocrisy on an unbelievable scale. People calling you bigot? Oh, you poor, poor man. Life’s especially hard for you. Someone orta make a law against it.
I wish the ALP would just bloody get on with it. Then we can all kick back and watch the opposing arguments crumble in the face of a society that stubbornly refuses to break once teh gays start getting married (as has been proven repeatedly overseas).
Jeremy – I think it was irresponsible of you to link to the ACL website. I’ve never been so incited to violence in my life – not from you, but from the outrageous claims by the ACL and their posters. It was entirely masochistic experince that made me feel like punching something.
For example, one of the comments starts like this:
<em? Let me pose this question. Am I as a married hetrosexual Christian women allowed to state that I am a married hetrosexual Christian women and speak honestly about my lifestyle or would that be offensive to you or anyone who is not married, hetrosexual or Christian??
And I’m like, yeah damn right. Me too (except the Christian part) but hell yeah (yes I note the irony in my cuss). But then she goes on to sprout all this BS that the world should pity her, (my paraphrase) ‘poor me I’m being called out for endorsing discrimination just like racists get called racists’.
And then I feel my fingers curl into a fist.
It is as insulting as the ignorant pricks that think rape trials/process are ‘anti-male’. You know what is anti-male? You tell me if you go into a bar looking for sex, does that mean that ANYONE in that bar can fuck you at will? Or, should you have a say in the matter? Well, if you are a woman, the former applies, but no one would dare suggest a male should be a target for rape just because he went out looking to hook up.
Wow. Here’s part of the response to Jeremy’s post at the ACL website:
“The redefinition of marriage has absolutely everything to do with other people, including Christians, since marriage is a public institution and the whole point of revising marriage is to publicly recognise same-sex couples as married. There is very strong evidence that changing the definition of marriage has dramatic consequences for the free exercise of fundamental human rights to freedom of belief and conscience, freedom of association, and the right of parents to raise their children in a way that accords with their values.”
What do you suppose they’re on about? “Dramatic consequences”? Such as?
So Loree Rudd quits the Labor Party? Boo fucking hoo…
We’ll see if they publish this response:
“Homosexual couples already enjoy the same protections under the law as the rest of society, except”
And of course the “except” is the big one. Why should there be ANY missing protections in a secular institution like marriage?
You’ve still not given one. Don’t pretend that this is some sudden “redefinition” of some long-standing understanding of marriage. Marriage has been revised many times already – it is no longer a property transfer of one man’s daughter to another man; it’s no longer something that has to be between people of the same race or religion; people regularly get married with no intention (or ability) to have children… modern marriage already has little in common with marriage five hundred years ago. Most Australians now understand marriage to be when two consenting adults commit their lives to each other out of love.
There is no reason those two adults must be of opposing gender. You certainly haven’t provided a single one that doesn’t immediately contradict a whole host of existing marriages.
(Which is why, of course, it’s now a majority of Australians who support full marriage equality.)
It’s about time that the law treated those committed relationships that are in all respects marriages as marriages regardless of the gender of the participants.
“There is very strong evidence that changing the definition of marriage has dramatic consequences for the free exercise of fundamental human rights to freedom of belief and conscience, freedom of association, and the right of parents to raise their children in a way that accords with their values.”
No there isn’t. Absolute rubbish. Canada lets same sex couples marry; many US states let same sex couples marry; many other countries (including very religious ones) do not prevent same-sex couples from marrying, and it doesn’t oppress religious people at all. They’re still free to abuse their children by teaching them to discriminate against gay people. Nor has it ruined heterosexual marriages.
Does your faith really depend on stopping gay people marrying? Because failing some kind of disaster and the establishment of a theocracy in Australia (and I wouldn’t cheer too hard for that; you never know if it’ll be your particular mob in charge), surely you can look at the numbers and realise this is a fight that you will inevitably lose. All you’re doing is making a generation of gay people suffer discrimination in the meantime, and for what? Spite?
Seriously, how about concentrating on the stuff Jesus did talk about, eh?
/hug Jeremey’s response.
…they deleted it.
Oh well – the fun had to end sometime. 🙂
SB from above:
…Then you can all read the rest.
It’s funny to consider that if SB had come out against the issue of Gay Marriage, we would have all (rightly) jumped down his throat and called him all kinds of horrible names.
Instead, SB has written a well considered comment in support of ending discrimination against same sex marriage and we all ignore it.
Well, not me!
Well said Splatters!
My only disagreement with your take on the issue would be that I believe that it’s not up to the (movement) Conservative electorate to convince their politicians, but, rather, for the politicians to convince their electorate.
We’ve had enough of political followship, we now need some leadership.
Cheers.
Marek – SB often provides well thought out responses to things, regardless of whether the rest of the commentators agree or not. For that, I appreciate his continued visits here. I am thankful for everyone here that further provokes us to think. Nevertheless, I tend to respond to issues (I agree and disagree in my responses), not to individuals.
Thank you Marek and Narcotic. You two are so sweet :-).
Marek I think we will shortly see much more momentum in public opinion. People now understand that this is not a big deal and that there is no real argument against it. Once the politicians understand this they will then become “courageous”. Sadly that is the nature of the organised prostitution we call politics. The Greens are an exception to this as they are more inclined to stick to their policies than chase votes, which is why I still have a soft spot for them.
Jeremy
opposition to homosexuality – not even mentioned by Jesus
Is it in bad taste to mention that this Jesus hippy used to wear a dress and sandals… and spend all his time with twelve blokes in suspiciously fitting circumstances?
No wonder Fred Clark and that Wallace character are filthy on him.
Oh… and Fred Nile… and Danny Nalliah… and Mel Gibson… and that Hillsong character… (recites more names under breath… fade to black)…
Sorry – long night
I have no idea why you’re mixing in Fred Clark with those others.
sorry – typo.
Should’ve been Fred Phelps.
Thanks for picking that up Jeremy.
As a married heterosexual Christian woman, I’m continually appalled by the ACL. They certainly don’t represent me.
SB: great comment. 🙂