Senator Bill Heffernan, quoted in Katharine Murphy, ‘Bill of the dead’, Melbourne Age, 29 Mar. 2007:

When I was a kid at boarding school, I told on a teacher for saying ‘bloody’.

[Well, you certainly were a precious little nark, weren't you, Bill?]

Anonymous letter to editor (headlined ‘Encouraging Letters’), Creation News, (John Mackay’s Creation Research), Mar. 2007, 2:

Just watched your … new DVD speaking to the UK parliamentarians. And (in my humble opinion) this is the best DVD you’ve done in regard to clearly explaining the philosophy behind these issues. The only down side was we couldn’t see the face of the politician who was ‘aghast’ that someone might mention that the Bible teaches that homosexuals should be stoned to death.

[Straight out of the Christian Reconstructionist handbook. Thanks for sharing.]

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Filed in: Their Own Mouths

An ‘Australian Christian Values Checklist‘ has been published by a number of Religious Right groups in order to assist prospective voters at the NSW state election to be held on 24 March 2007.

The introduction to this checklist claims that:

In the 2001 census, 68% [of] Australians identified themselves as Christians. This summary of the positions of major parties on issues of concern to Christians is provided as a service to the Christian community.

This statement disingenuously implies that 68% of Australians support an extensive Religious Right political program involving, for example, a crackdown on abortion, prohibition of embryonic stem-cell research and voluntary euthanasia, and the introduction of a draconian censorship system. As you can see, the only parties who allegedly support a majority of these positions are the National Party (by a whisker) and Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party, which promotes all 27 listed policies.

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Filed in: Christian Right, Family Values, Politics, Stem Cell Research

Beware of anyone telling you that you need to adopt a ‘biblical world view’. Such a person is likely to be some sort of ‘dominionist’, an ugly word for the uglier idea that countries should be run according to strict Christian standards. If you’re not quite sure what these standards are, don’t worry – just ask your friendly dominionist and then do as you’re told!

There are a couple of dominionist gabfests held in Australia every year, one of which was recently conducted in Canberra by the American-based Summit Ministries. About 150 people attended and a good time was had by all.

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Filed in: Evangelicals, Theocracy

Every now and then – well, actually, about six times a day – I see something that makes me think the Christian fundamentalists should just pack it in. This comes from a piece called ‘Unholy Alliance‘ by Roulla Yiacoumi and it appeared in the Melbourne Age Green Guide of 8 Feb. 2007:

Richard Cohen is chief executive of Hotmovies.com, a website that allows you to watch selected scenes from porn movies streamed to your PC. Each night, between 38,000 and 60,000 video clips are viewed.

‘I couldn’t believe those figures when I first heard them’, Mr Cohen says. ‘I got our people to check them several times. But they were correct …’

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Filed in: Christian Right, Sexuality