Jim Wallace’s Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) likes to portray itself as moderate, reasonable, and generally a cut above the other groups comprising Australia’s Religious Right. But slice through the holier-than-thou attitude and all you really have left is a bunch of 1950s-style wowsers.

Let’s have a look at ACL’s recent media release entitled ‘Access to Sex Videos in Prison Highlights Wider Social Problems‘. Wallace is at his most po-faced:

People [What people? How many people?] are rightly concerned that sex offenders in Ararat [Vic.] Prison have been repeatedly watching films that could feed into their problems and encourage deviant behaviour.

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Filed in: Censorship, Sexuality

Several media outlets recently ran readers’ and viewers’ polls regarding the future of Channel 10’s Big Brother program. Many Australians up to and including Prime Minister Howard had been scandalised by an incident involving unsolicited sexual horseplay, and renewed calls for the show to be banned.

The poll questions generally required a yes or no answer e.g. the Melbourne Age asked its readers, ‘Should Big Brother be axed?’, reporting the next day that the relatively large number of 11,990 votes had been received. 69% voted Yes and 31% No. (Age, 4 Jul. 2006) Most similarly-worded polls in other sections of the media produced comparable results.

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Filed in: Censorship

Today, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) handed down its decision on the long-running religious vilification case Islamic Council of Victoria v. Catch The Fire Ministries Inc. The case concerned a seminar, newsletter and website article promoted by Catch The Fire Ministries Inc., a Christian fundamentalist group affiliated with the Assembly of God. The case was brought by the Islamic Council of Victoria on a representative basis under the Victorian Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001. The judge found that all of these presentations breached the Act by “inciting hatred against and serious contempt for people who are Muslims” and has reserved sentencing.

I have mixed views about this case. On the one hand, freedom of speech is a cherished and fragile “right” in Australia and the Victorian legislation can have the effect of stifling religious commentary and criticism. On the other hand, inciting hatred towards those of another faith is not something that should be encouraged. Much of the history of the last two thousand years is littered with bloodshed justified by religious zealotry. We should learn from that history and promote tolerance of all religious beliefs, while remaining free to constructively criticise any particular belief system. The tricky part is to do that without deliberately or inadvertently inciting hatred.

Filed in: Censorship, Islam