I keep reading that Labor frontbencher Kevin Rudd and some other ALP personalities are trying to draw closer to bodies associated with the Religious Right – for a detailed account of this go to www.abc.net.au/compass/s1362997.htm. Presumably the idea is to wean some conservative Christian voters away from the Peter Costellos and Tony Abbotts of this world and in that way regain some marginal seats lost at the last election.

In my view this policy is both doomed and counterproductive. It reminds me of Latham’s Tasmanian forests gambit, but it’s far worse.

Despite their protestations to the contrary, Religious Right leaders such as Jim Wallace and Bill Muehlenberg despise Labor. Their standard pre-election line is that ‘although we’d never tell you how to vote, when you examine the policies of the major parties, the Coalition is superior to Labor in almost every respect, so … we’ll leave it to your conscience’. Muehlenberg, who has worked for many ultra-conservative Christian groups, writes in one such item:

It may well sound that [sic] I am being quite pro-Coalition and anti-Labor in this article. I do not mean to be so. Indeed, I know it is possible to vote Labor and still go to heaven! (Salt Shakers Newsletter, Apr. 1996, 16)

He follows up this ‘humorous’ piece of moral blackmail with some outright chicanery:

It seems to me [that there] are areas where Christians can agree to disagree. The Biblical position on enterprise bargaining, for example, is not so cut and dried, whereas the Biblical stand against abortion is much more unambiguous. (ibid.)

Most sensible people would argue that the Bible takes no discernible position on either enterprise bargaining or abortion – indeed, anti-abortion arguments drawn from scripture are conspicuously feeble – but Christian readers are left with the clear impression that they should on no account vote for the pro-choice ALP. This is the typical approach of virtually all Religious Right leaders.

Here is my central point. Unless the ALP makes a very large number of social policy changes, it can never expect to receive Religious Right endorsement. Among other things, the party would have to start opposing abortion, increasing censorship, rolling back the rights of women and minorities and encouraging the teaching of creationism in schools. Any minor electoral gains from these policy reversals would be swamped by substantial voter and membership defections, not just to the Greens but also to the more progressive wing of the Liberal Party. And even if Labor made these changes, groups like the Australian Christian Lobby would simply paint the party as opportunistic and untrustworthy. As it stands, the ALP at both state and federal levels is essentially disqualified from receiving political support from this source.

I can see where people like Kevin Rudd are coming from. Drawing on their Catholic, Anglican or Uniting Church backgrounds they are trying to convince Christian voters that Labor shares their social justice aspirations and deserves support on that basis. But Rudd and Co. are simply not talking to the right kinds of Christians. They don’t appreciate the enormous gulf which has recently developed within Australian Christianity between the vaguely ‘liberal’ majority and the fanatical ultra-conservative minority.

Far from cosying up to these people, Labor should be relentlessly exposing the outrageous nature of many of their beliefs and policies. They have the ‘whiff of extremism’ about them, generally associated in Australia with political disaster. Fortunately they lack the electoral base here that they enjoy in the United States, but I hope never to see something like this written about an Australian election:

Bizarrely, the 2004 US presidential election was decided by voters who oppose the theory of evolution or await the Rapture or speak in the ‘unknown tongue’ or seek faith-healing or send money to television preachers or think Satan is a real spirit stalking America. (James A. Haught ‘Fundamentalist Political Power in America’, Free Inquiry, Feb.-Mar. 2005, 12)

Filed in: Christian Right, Politics