Peter Stokes, Salt Shakers, email to supporters, 19 Dec. 2007:

IVF and surrogacy for same-sex and single people will indeed create a STOLEN generation … [Some] children … will be raised by two mums or two dads living in unnatural, dysfunctional relationships. Children [will be] born with three mums and a dad … or any other combination that surrogacy and/or infertility treatment social engineers can dream up!

[Speaking of dreaming things up, Pete, you seem to be doing a pretty good job yourself.]

More Peter Stokes, ibid.:

When [Salt Shakers] appeared on Ch. 9’s ‘Sixty Minutes’ program some years ago, one scenario involved a very immature homosexual who ‘desperately wanted a baby’.

['Immature', eh? Glass houses, Peter, glass houses.]

(more…)

Filed in: Their Own Mouths

The remarkable victory of Kevin Rudd’s Labor Party in the 2007 Federal Election brings to an end 11 years of conservative rule under John Howard. Much of the Howard government’s rhetoric revolved around claims of growth and national prosperity. But for many Australians there was a sense of unease during the Howard years with its singular emphasis on economic expansion and rampant consumerism which somehow failed to acknowledge our need for humanity and compassion in government.

We have published an article that explores the role and effectiveness of the Christian Right in lobbying for its political agenda, and the failure of Christian parties to make any significant inroads with the Australian electorate.

Read the full article: Righteous Indignity: Musings on The Christian Right and the 2007 Election

Filed in: Christian Right, Family Values, Politics

Women’s Forum Australia (WFA) is a conservative Christian lobby group, although it would strongly resist this description. Its leadership is and always has been drawn largely from conservative Catholics like Katrina George and Louise Brosnan and conservative Baptists like Melinda Tankard Reist and Johanna Lynch.

WFA is vehemently opposed to women’s access to abortion and other technologies that enable women to control their reproductive lives, e.g. access to RU486 and therapeutic cloning. They also campaign actively against voluntary euthanasia. When the organisation was first launched it described itself as ‘pro-woman and pro-life’, though in recent times this slogan seems to have been abandoned.

In recent months, WFA has deviated from its central anti-choice message by undertaking ‘motherhood’ campaigns against the sexualisation of young girls. This anti-pornography message is consistent with the attitudes of the religious right and does not disguise WFA’s fundamental objective: to restrict women’s capacity to make choices about their reproductive lives, in line with the most conservative Christian religious doctrines.

This article explores the group’s objectives, policies and personalities.

Read the full article (PDF): Women’s Forum Australia - policies and people

Filed in: Abortion, Voluntary Euthanasia

Margaret Court is unquestionably Australia’s most successful tennis player. Playing in the 1960s and 1970s, Court amassed over 60 Grand Slam titles including eleven Australian Opens, five US Opens, five French Opens and three Wimbledon singles victories. In 1970 she won the Grand Slam i.e. all four major singles titles in a calendar year.

Court is now a ‘Word of Faith’ Pentecostal minister in Perth. Preachers like Margaret Court think that if you sincerely believe in God’s Word, i.e. the Bible, and you claim what you take to be the promises of God with your mouth - yes, you have to speak your prayer out loud, as well as basing it on ‘the Word’ - God will most certainly grant your desire.

This article explores Court’s odyssey and the strange world of Pentecostal ‘healing’ ministries.

Read the full article (PDF): Margaret Court’s Word of Faith

Filed in: Christian Right, Pentecostalism