Dwight A. Randall, Director, Life Ministries, WA and endorsed Parliamentary candidate for the Christian Democratic Party, ‘Commitment to partisan politics’, 14 Feb. 2005 -www.cdpwa.org.au :

I am puzzled as to why some Christians stubbornly refuse to vote for the Christian Democratic Party … I wonder how God feels about Christians who refuse to vote for Christians, and instead vote for socialists, secular humanists, agnostics and atheists whose objective is often to de-Christianise Australia.

[I don't know how God feels about them, Dwight. How does he feel about sanctimonious twerps who ask silly questions?]

Maryse Usher, letter in National Civic Council’s AD2000 Dec. 2004-Jan. 2005, 16:

… As a new parishioner in an indult [i.e. specially authorised] Latin Mass congregation, not only have I found peace, beauty, heavenly Gregorian Chant and blessed periods of silence after Communion, but Latin Mass-goers all seem to be unashamedly and naturally pro-life.

[As Homer said to Marge: 'Here's another bombshell for you: I like beer.']

Australian Family Association ‘Australia is dying’ - www.family.org.au/Fertililty/Australia_is_dying.htm - accessed 27 Feb. 2005:

Australia’s fertility rate is well below replacement level and continues to fall according to the latest census statistics … The Australian Family Association believes that Australia’s abortion rate should be drastically cut or eliminated as a matter of priority. Australia MUST increase its fertility level.

[Yes, the sky's falling down all right. Funny how Australia's population keeps rising though. Ever heard of 'immigration'?]

Warwick Marsh, Founder, Fatherhood Foundation, Newsletter no.131, 28 Feb. 2005, 2:

I actually met Tony Abbott at a conference almost 18 months ago where we were both speaking. I would describe him as a really decent sort of bloke, very much without pretension and in my book, one of the bravest men in our parliament today …

[Hmm. Using the adjective 'bravest' to qualify 'Tony Abbott'. Has to be a first.]

Bill Muehlenberg, Vice-President, Australian Family Association, letter in New Life, 17 Feb. 2005:

[Nicholas] Kristof … raises the fanciful speculation that David and Jonathan were involved in ‘gay affairs’ … [But] as one New Testament scholar puts it, ‘Whatever feelings David and Jonathan had for one another, both were definitely heterosexual in behaviour, for both were married and fathered children’.

[Bill, surely you know that many male homosexuals are married and the fathers of children. Maybe the government should start running sex education classes for the AFA.]

Selena Ewing, Research Officer, Southern Cross Bioethics Institute, ‘The insidious censorship of pro-life women’, Melbourne Age, 16 Feb. 2005:

[P]ro-abortion commentators continue to push the lie that only men want an abortion debate, and that women uniformly support abortion.

[Completely absurd. No-one with any knowledge of the field has ever made such a suggestion. These 'straw man' arguments are sadly typical of the anti-choice brigade.]

Helen Woodall, Editor, New Life evangelical weekly, 17 Feb. 2005:

‘New Life’ took a straw poll of some people working in evangelical ministry regarding a list of the top Australian 25 evangelicals. The list included: Jim Wallace [Australian Christian Lobby]; Fred Nile [Christian Democratic Party]; Andrew Evans [Family First]; Steve Fielding [Family First]; … Warwick Marsh [Fatherhood Foundation]; … David van Gend [anti-abortion activist]; Ros and David Phillips [Festival of Light]; Melinda Tankard Reist [anti-abortion activist]; Andrew Lansdown [Life Ministries, WA] …

[Rev. Tim Costello made the list, but on the whole this collection of names bears witness to the near-eclipse of the evangelical social conscience in Australia. Half of these characters wouldn't know the 'poor and downtrodden' if they fell over them.]

Andrew Bolt, Melbourne Herald-Sun commentator, approvingly quoted on the Australian Christian Lobby website, 5 Feb 2005:

There’s no mystery to the huge success of ‘Desperate Housewives’. It’s scented tissues and Lindt chocolate for the self-pitying modern woman, of whom we now have so very many … Oh, we poor women, miserable in our suburban luxury. Oh, those foul men. Just wait until they get home from earning our money.

Elaine Nile, former CDP MP and wife of Rev. Fred Nile, Family World News, Feb. 2005, 8:

No one can imagine the loss of babies swept out of parents’ arms by the tsunami except the parent. But the one doctor who aborts a babe by any one of the horrible methods available to him by the Evil One doesn’t feel any pain - he feels only the dollars paid to him by Medicare.

[Inescapable logic, don't you agree?]

Charles Colson, convicted Watergate conspirator and now an evangelical pin-up boy, New Life, 10 Feb. 2005:

[Many people] want to believe that human nature is basically good. It’s not. Forget the excuses.

[OK Chuck, we'll stop making excuses for humanity if you stop making excuses for God. Is it a deal?]

Peter Stokes, Salt Shakers CEO, letter in Melbourne Sunday Herald Sun, 12 Dec. 2004:

Men renovating in their Y fronts and endless pirouetting down Oxford Street at the Mardi Gras do far more to ridicule homosexuals than passing comments made by John Laws or [Sam] Newman.

[So, Peter, if the Mardi Gras just makes gays seem ridiculous, why do you keep campaigning against it?]

Peter Stokes, Executive Officer, Salt Shakers, New Life, 3 Feb. 2005:

… Legitimate public debate is now dead, especially when it comes to religion.

[Don't tell us, Pete, tell Tony Abbott, Ron Boswell and the rest of the super-Christian, anti-abortion crew.]

Judith Reisman, American anti-Kinsey fanatic, approvingly quoted by Babette Francis, National Coordinator, Endeavour Forum, New Life, 3 Feb. 2005:

‘Kinsey was not a scientist. He was a barbaric criminal sexual psychopath …’ [Francis goes on to draw the conclusion that] … in Australia, more parents of young children should be on our Film and Literature Classification Board and reviewers need to do background reading about the films they review to ensure Hollywood stops glamorising child sexual abuse. The abortion industry is also complicit in the abuse because many girls under the age of consent are aborted without any investigation of who their rapist/abuser is.

[Babette herself should do some background reading about Judith Reisman and some of the other American ultra-conservatives she loves to quote.]

Rev. Nigel Fortescue (NSW), Melbourne Age correspondent, 4 Feb. 2005:

How long will it be before that old chestnut ‘keep religion out of politics’ is laid to rest … A religion is a system of thinking or world-view based on your understanding of God. So, if you think God does not exist, you are still religious and you argue your case from the atheistic religion you embrace …

[Gosh, Nigel, I think you might have fallen for a fundamentalist furphy. The OED and most other dictionary definitions of 'religion' regard it as 'the belief in a superhuman controlling power, esp. in a personal God or gods entitled to obedience and worship'. Hardly looks like an atheist's belief system, now does it? But full marks for wishful thinking.]

C. Heyward (Vic.), New Life correspondent, 3 Feb. 2005:

Christians are offended continually, specially by the ABC swearing and insulting Christ and Christians. So where is our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, that any but a Christian can enjoy apparently?

[I'll be careful to watch only commercial channels from now on. Let's see, Desperate Housewives looks pretty good.]

Filed in: Their Own Mouths