Could it be that moderate Coalition MPs are finally starting to see the Christian Right for what it is? The RU 486 ‘abortion pill’ vote earlier this year stripped conservative Catholic Health Minister Tony Abbott of his power to keep the drug out of Australia. Now Prime Minister John Howard has decided to allow a conscience vote on therapeutic cloning in the teeth of opposition from evangelical Protestants like Tasmanian Senator Guy Barnett.

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Filed in: Abortion, Christian Right, Politics, Stem Cell Research

Self-selected readers’ and viewers’ polls were all over the place when it came to the ACT gay civil unions law. When Christian Right groups ran concerted campaigns, the polls they targeted indicated strong opposition to the legislation, while other (less tainted?) polls showed majority support.

A scientifically-conducted ACNielsen/Age survey indicated that 45% of those polled supported the ACT laws while only 34% opposed them. This support peaked in the 18-39 age-group with 56% of the sample backing the legislation.

Religious Right groups continue to squabble among themselves about how best to proceed in their ongoing campaign against gay unions. Some want the ACT Government to settle for a form of civil registration while others want the Feds to obliterate all state laws that recognise gay unions in any way whatsoever. But Canberra doesn’t seem interested in taking the matter much further. A spokesperson for Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock said recently that the Government now believed ‘that the definition of marriage is quite clear and enshrined in the common law …’ (Annabel Stafford ‘Poll finds half say “yes” to gay unions’, Melbourne Age, 20 Jun. 2006)

Filed in: Politics, Sexuality

The Australian National Secular Association in association with the Rationalist and Humanist Societies ran a very successful conference in Melbourne last weekend. The topic was ‘Keeping God out of Government’ and among the participants was one Barney Zwartz. Zwartz, a conservative Presbyterian who doubles as religion editor of the Melbourne Age, told us a few ‘home truths’ the most coherent of which seemed to be that, like Christianity and Islam, we had our fair share of ‘fundamentalists’.

I don’t think this is right. A central feature - I think the central feature - of humanism, rationalism and freethinking (I don’t know about ’secularism’, often used as a comprehensive political swear-word by people like Zwartz) is the provisional nature of knowledge, and I mean all knowledge. The only thing I’m pretty sure of is that I’m not sure of anything - and I’m not even quite sure of that. To characterise this as a species of fundamentalism - to class it with Christian and Muslim fundamentalisms - is to deprive the term of meaning.

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Filed in: Fundamentalism, Islam, Morality, Politics, Secularism

If you want to see Peter Costello making a stirring, keynote speech you should hurry along to the Australian Christian Lobby’s (ACL) ‘Building a Nation of Character’ conference in September. Costello was a big hit at Brian Houston’s Hillsong church in 2004 and 2005 and is doing all he can to maintain his image as a Religious Right poster boy.

Fundamentalists and Pentecostals love being courted by Coalition frontbenchers and quickly forget about little lapses, like voting to strip Tony Abbott of his veto power over the RU486 abortion drug. You know, like Costello did. Because his conscience told him to. Nothing to do with most electors supporting the availability of RU 486, and safe, legal abortion in general.

But that’s water under the bridge. After all, Costello says he likes the Ten Commandments and the Judaeo-Christian heritage and young happy-clappies and all the right things. It hardly seems to matter that he’s a … POLITICIAN.

Filed in: Politics

Religion-based parties like Family First (FFP), the Christian Democratic Party (CDP) and the rump of the old Democratic Labour Party (DLP) command a small share of the national vote, perhaps about five per cent. Most FFP and CDP votes are pinched from the Coalition, a fact not lost on John Howard who keeps throwing these electors crumbs from the table - a heterosexual marriage law here and a bit of internet censorship there. (Howard’s good at this - remember Pauline Hanson and the Tampa?) If he can’t recapture the primary votes at least he snags most of the preferences.

So why don’t these little parties amalgamate or at least cooperate much more closely than they do? Same god (well, more or less), very similar policies, economies of scale, unified voice and all the rest of it?

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Filed in: Christian Right, Politics

In 2004, Warwick Marsh’s Fatherhood Foundation banded together with the Australian Christian Lobby and the Australian Family Association (a National Civic Council front organisation) to form the National Marriage Coalition. This little-known group successfully persuaded the federal government to amend the Marriage Act so as to exclude same-sex partners from marrying.

According to a Foundation email newsletter of 21 May 2006:

The Australian Government has now recognised the Fatherhood Foundation as a registered Harm Prevention Charity by granting Tax Deductible status to it. This means that all gifts of money, or in some cases property, can become a tax saving to the giver. This level of recognition as a Harm Prevention Tax Deductible Charity allows us to help the children of Australia in an even greater way than ever before.

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Filed in: Christian Right, Politics

I don’t like this. Senator Guy Barnett (Lib., Tas.) seems very confident that the Federal Government will shortly move to overturn the ACT Civil Unions Act. In a recent media release Barnett claims that the ACT legislation institutes ‘marriage by another name’ and hence should be struck down.

I don’t think that Barnett would be so optimistic about his chances here if a certain senior someone hadn’t tipped him the wink:

I predict there will be amending of the Federal [Marriage Act] to defend the institution of marriage as the community knows it … If the Howard Government did nothing there would be nothing to stop every State and Territory in our nation from passing a law similar to the ACT legislation. Along with others I will be lobbying my Government to introduce laws to strengthen, uphold and protect marriage, for which the Australian Government has proper constitutional authority.

Elsewhere in his diatribe, Barnett asserts that ‘marriage is a rock solid institution’. Why, then, does it require so much protection?

Filed in: Politics, Sexuality

It was inevitable that the Parliamentary debate and conscience vote on removal of the RU-486 veto would turn into an argument over the availability of abortion. And so we had the unedifying spectacle of politician after politician proclaiming their own personal stance on the matter. Although commonsense won out in the end, there is something vaguely uncomfortable about decisions on matters of personal morality being decided on the whims of politicians. After all, the debate was concerned with removing approval of RU486 from the personal whim of the Health Minister, Tony Abbott.

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Filed in: Abortion, Politics

A few months ago I pointed out that many evangelical pastors and numerous members of their flocks often succumb to the lure of internet pornography [Pastors and porn, 30 Apr. 2005]. Newspapers still carry regular reports of child sexual abuse by priests and ministers, crimes which often date back decades. ‘Christian schools’ are supposed to be safe havens from these perils, but just a few weeks ago a male teacher at a Victorian Christian school was banned from teaching after inappropriately touching female students and manipulating them into sexually explicit conversations (Chee Chee Leung, ‘Teacher banned over sexual remarks’, Melbourne Age, 20 Aug. 2005).

For many years, Rev. Graham Capill of New Zealand’s Christian Heritage Party was an honoured visitor at Australian Religious Right conferences. Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party (CDP) was particularly eager to welcome Capill as a speaker at its functions. In 2002, for example, he headed a star-studded list of ‘leading pro-family and pro-life activists’ at the CDP’s International Christian Political Action Convention in Sydney. He shared the limelight with personalities like Babette Francis (Endeavour Forum), Gail Instance (NSW Right to Life), Bill Muehlenberg (Australian Family Association) and Peter and Jenny Stokes (Salt Shakers) (CDP media release, ‘Successful International Convention’, 9 Oct. 2002).

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Filed in: Evangelicals, People, Politics

3. Andrew Evans

Andrew Evans, founder of the Family First Party (FFP) and since 2002 a Member of the South Australian Legislative Council, looks and talks like anyone’s grandpa. It’s hard to believe that this friendly old gaffer is a senior player in Australia’s Religious Right - but you’d better believe it.

Evans was born in India to missionary parents about 70 years ago. When he was 11, the family moved back to Australia and after a period of time, Andrew ‘came to an absolutely undeniable conclusion that the Bible was true’ and decided to become a pastor. You can read all about his career in his maiden speech to Parliament, delivered on 9 May 2002 - but suffice it to say that he rose to become the National Superintendent of the Assemblies of God (AOG) in Australia and held that position from 1977 until 1997. He was then appointed World Secretary of the AOG and also became a member of the World Executive of the Pentecostal movement, which has a total following of around half a billion people.

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Filed in: Pentecostalism, Politics