My friend Ray at the Australian Christian party is a bit sad that no one is taking him seriously!

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Australian Christian Party has been bobbing around a bit hoping to win a few seats at the next election – I wrote about them here.  On their Facebook page they posted this comment, let me just pull this apart a bit for you:

When Ed Husic was sworn in to parliament the regular options to do so on a Bible or with an affirmation – representative of our Judeo-Christian and secular heritage

Well no, it’s not true.  The bible or the affirmation are a personal choice of the person taking the oath.  It is not representative of our heritage.  We really should just leave it there as already we know where  this lot is heading.

– were dismissed and the incorporation of the Quran

Nothing was dismissed.  There is nothing to say a quran can’t be used.  Husic could have sworn on a bible if he really wanted to.

was celebrated by our Governor-General as ‘a great day for multiculturalism’.

Well it is.  How terrific that a bunch of citizens have been able to elect a representative that they want.  Isn’t that the whole idea of democracy?

Those who were upset at this have been deemed ‘racist’.

Well yes, I’m not surprised. If you think about why you are upset it’s because your precious bible was replaced with another book from another culture that you hate. I can see how that view is arrived at but I guess ‘racist’ doesn’t really describe what’s going on here.

The Bible is engraved in our culture; in our parliamentary prayers, speeches and even on the floors of our parliament.

So is the Chinese culture that’s been here since  before federation  or the camels brought over with the first Afghans to explore the interior. They’ve been part of our culture too. Let’s not forget the indigenous culture that isn’t jewish, christian or islamic.  It’s been here for well over 40,000 years.  How crazy do you have to be to claim some special status.  Not so much crazy as… arrogant.

It is engraved on the headstones of our forebears and finds its way into our common language.

Common language?  You ever heard “the die has been cast” Greek from 49BC, or this old saying, “Respect yourself and others will respect you.”  Perhaps even some of our forebears have muttered Eureka! Another word from ancient Greece and all pre-christian.  You christians can’t lay claim to a common language any more than you can disrespect all the dead who have come from all nations on earth and are buried under their own headstone, graved in languages that have no judeo-christian origin. Just what planet are you living on?

Even the irreligious among us know the Golden Rule and what it means to bear our cross.

Is that the golden rule developed by Confucius from China, maybe the Babylonians or the Indians?  I hope you don’t think jesus thought it up all by himself. But I’ll give you the bearing of the cross thingy – you can have that.  It’s a horrible image of a man being tortured, dying, bleeding, broken, not the sort of thing you’d want to expose the kiddies to.

But for those who reject its core message, there is freedom to do so and our parliament doesn’t insist on respect of the Bible or its message for elected representatives; it accommodates difference with an option of affirmation.

And apparently the koran. Because as you rightly suggest, there is no insistence to use the bible.

That’s Australian culture and it has produced a freer, happier democracy than is evidenced in many other cultures. What it has produced, freedom of conscience, belief, association and equality before the law is why people come here.

That’s right, that’s why we have muslims. Freedom to be who you want.

With all the cultural sensitivity being promoted in Australia, have the people’s elected representatives ever considered that a little sensitivity towards Australian culture may be warranted?

Of course, you may notice that Husic has been sent to the parliament by this wonderful quaint little thing we call an election. He did it of his own free will. Remind me again about a little sensitivity towards our Australian culture.

While the Bible or affirmation have been used as validation for commitment to the rule of law and serving Australians, the Quran is the source of Islamic sharia law;

The bible that you so proudly hold up is a very vile book. You know it even calls for the stoning of adulterers, homosexuals and sheep buggerers.  It may have escaped your notice, but in Australia we don’t actually stone people, even though its written in your precious book, and look we don’t allow muslims to stone people either.  Go figure.

something that has produced very different outcomes in societies plagued by human rights abuse and totalitarianism.

Oh right, like the christians in Africa wanting to kill the gays? Or those in Central America that oppose abortion and would sooner that their young people die from pregnancy complications.

Perhaps Australians who desire to see a commitment to freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law are not racist in their expectation that elected representatives uphold the options given in recognition of Australian culture.

This sort of suggests that somehow Husic doesn’t have a commitment to those key things of our democracy.  You seem to be suggesting that a fellow Australian, because that’s what Husic is, is somehow not worthy to hold the office that he has been duly appointed to.  This rather vague notion that he isn’t capable of that because he is of muslim background seems to be racist to me.  Not racist as in you hate black people, but racist in that you hate anyone from a different background.  Perhaps your more xenophobic, although that’s more hatred for strangers or foreigners and Husic is not either of those to his electorate.  So you tell me, what word would suit your rather narrow view of his abilities?  Redneck perhaps?

Or will we soon see people sworn in with the Kama Sutra, Tipitaka, Rig-Veda, or the Zend-Avesta?

And so what if they do? We ask that they take their oath of office and provide a way of swearing-in that oath. For some that’s to hold the bible, others it’s by affirmation or the koran, it should seem self-evident that you need to do that on something has a deep meaning to you.

If I had my way we wouldn’t use any of this fancy rubbish. The bible swearing didn’t make Howard a good PM, he still lied and it certainly didn’t stop Rudd from doing unto others as he had done unto him or turn the other cheek or some such rubbish. Oh, I know, any eye for an eye, a top job for a top job.

In fact the whole oath thing is a bit of a silly concept. It gets changed all the time depending on who’s in power. Kevin Rudd said in 2007 (that’s the first time)

I, Kevin Rudd, do swear that I will well and truly serve the Commonwealth of Australia, her land and her people in the office of Prime Minister. So help me God!

Then Julia came swanning in on her new found top job she said:

I, Julia Gillard, do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I will well and truly serve the Commonwealth of Australia in the office of Prime Minister.

Then the really interesting bit is this observation:

There is … no constitutional or statutory prescription of the oath of allegiance to be taken by Ministers of the Crown, and its use for this purpose was governed by nothing more than custom and tradition.

You’ll find all this wonderful delightful information here on the Australian Parliament Website.

So while this Australian Christians are silly enough to think that the oath of office is important, the reality is that it’s not.  In just over 100 years of Federation it’s been changed and twisted and pulled this way and that.  It’s not written in the constitution and it’s not reflective of the judeo -christian heritage.

This is nothing more than an attempt to drive fear and loathing of a group of people into the hearts of Australians, trying to undermine the multi-cultural society in which we peacefully live.

Feel free to share this blog on their Facebook!  They’d love the feedback. Oh and be sure to read the comments if you have any doubts about the fundamentalist nature of these rednecks.

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A big day in Australian politics.  The PM thrown out by her own party and the former PM thrown in.  Really it’s enough to make your head spin.

Who should we turn to to work out what’s going on.  Oh, I know, Grandpa Billy.

There is really only one bit of commentary which is needed here: Has this nation ever seen a more inept, incompetent, dysfunctional, reckless, immoral, disunited, egotistical, contemptuous and brainless government? Utterly mind-boggling. What a circus!

Yes, Howard was pretty fucking horrible.

A choice between dumb and dumber. A choice between a pro-homosexual egomaniac and a pro-abortion socialist atheist. Delightful.

This is better than the homophobic “I don’t hate woman” alternative.

We don’t want any of these losers. A pox on both of them. They have caused enough damage and carnage already – no more!

Carnage?  How so?  Just the sort of rubbish you’d expect from a religious nutter.  Rudd and Gillard are both winners, they won their last elections in their own seats.  They both have a good solid following around the nation.  To say otherwise is to have your head buried so far up your own arse you can watch the sun rise through your own eyelids.  So much has been done in the last three years, in a hung parliament.  Have you been asleep?  Oh, that’s right, you just hate them because they are Labor, therefore evil.

Let’s be clear on what exactly has happened here. Rudd is elected; he is then assassinated by his own party; he engages in a destabilisation campaign resulting in a hung Parliament; he spends the next three years being a thorn in Julia’s and Labor’s side; and then gets back in! What a bizarre scenario.

Yes, I agree with that summary.  It is bizarre and shouldn’t ever have happened.  I will never again agree with Grandpa Billy.

This is simply a party of liars: Julia Gillard insists, “There will be no carbon tax…” Kevin Rudd insists, “I have no plans to challenge…” Shorten insists, “Julia has my full support…” How can anyone trust any of these clowns? They have so undermined their own credibility that they have simple become a very stale joke.

No it’s not.  They are not simply a party of liars.  No more than any other politician who does so for their survival.  We have come to expect it.  It’s how politics works.  Your sense of outrage is unfounded and unnecessary.   Under Howard we had broken promises, that is promises became either core or non-core.  In any other language that’s called a lie.

How many times do we have to endure all this? It is like a bad dream – worse than groundhog day. Does anyone seriously believe Kevin will make one bit of difference? He is still hated by so many in his own party and on the front bench that any talk of a newfound Labor unity is just a joke.

The Labor party seem to differ with you Grandpa – they put him back in.  It seems that he has the support of more people than you give him credit for.  Another silly billy assertion.

The electorate has had a gutful of the sheer idiocy of all this. They are fed up, and can’t wait till September 14.

Rubbish.  You don’t know the mind of the electorate.  Another silly billy assertion.  There are those who are cheering that Rudd is in and Gillard is gone.  The nation will actually be split on this.  To some what you consider idiocy makes a great deal of sense.  Start with the Labor party, it seems that a majority of them think this is sensible.

The truth is, it really did not matter who won the ballot tonight. Both these despicable characters have mortally wounded their own party. They will be slaughtered in just under two and a half months, and they both can take full credit for this.

I reckon they are ever so grateful to you Grandpa Billy.  You alone know what the truth is.  I can hear the glee in your voice and I suspect you probably did a little wee.

It will be a long time before Labor can recover from these last few years of chaos and disintegration. They should have learned their lessons at the last few state elections, especially the Queensland wipe-out. But political ideologues are notorious for blindness and self-deception.

You really are pathetic Billy.  At least half the population supports the political party that is elected.  The parties that are really blind and full of self-deception never get anywhere.  One Nation, Family First and Rise Up Australia.

Of course today we also heard from the two sham Independents, Oakeshott and Windsor who said they will not stand at the next election. Good riddance as well. Those two are directly responsible for this whole debacle, casting their voted with Labor even thought their own electorates expected them to side with the conservatives.

More silly assertions. The two ‘shams’ were elected as independents.  That’s neither Labor or Liberal.  Only they know the terms of their agreement with Abbott and Gillard.  They have done great things with a minority government for their local communities.  That seems to me to be what the local members should do.  They took the best deal.

Billy never gives an objective opinion.  His whole world is so starkly conservative, he has no time for any thing that is a bee’s dicks width away from the far-flung right.  I can see him jumping from leg to leg, stroking his beard and doing his best to not wee with excitement.

LCS = Liberal cocksucker.

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Senator Barnaby Joyce represents Queensland, and recently stood up in the Senate and delivered this speech to show how backwards Queenslanders are the reasons why he voted against marriage equality.

I’m amazed people like Joyce get re-elected.

Let me pick this apart for you

Senator JOYCE (Queensland—Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) (20:25): This issue around the Marriage Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2012 is extremely pertinent to the structure of everything that our nation is and has been built on. If you go to the core of the issue, a child has the right to know who their biological parents are. They have the right to know who both their mother and their father are: who the people were who were the component parts of the initial stages of their life.

Really, he should have stopped right there.  Our nation is built on the back of invading the land, killing the locals, bringing in criminals from England and establishing a nation.  It’s built on the hard work of millions of people who cleared the bush and built cities.  It’s built on the men and women who worked for a living, fought in wars and died.  Yes, the family is important and knowing who your parents are is important. There is no connection between the structure of everything and children knowing who their parents are, not forgetting of course is that very few children know.

Marriage is an institution, a custom, that surrounds itself with trying to reinforce the reality of nature. It is a process that has been created in so many cultures and in so many religions over so much time. Some say it is merely a construct of legislation, but it is not. It is actually a construct of the reality of who each one of us is. Family is the most effective policy that any government can stand behind. The family is the greatest aged-care policy. The family is the greatest law and order policy. The family is the greatest housing policy. The family is the greatest education policy. The family is the greatest health policy. The ramifications of going into that institution of marriage, which is at the centre of what the family is, are way beyond merely a statement of what a person wants and desires.

It is also really important to understand that it is just another reality of the world that you cannot have everything just because you want it. Everybody has to make sacrifices. We all want so much, but marriage itself is a statement. It is not the gaining of rights but the acquiescing of rights. It is basically about stepping away from rights. If you want to keep all your rights then the best way to do it is to not get married, because then you have all the rights. It might not be the ideal set-up. You can have children if you want. You can do whatever you want; there are no real bounds. But the statement of marriage is a statement that you are prepared to acquiesce your rights and to go into a situation where all those rights that you had formerly are not there.

In trying to get to the centre of this issue, it is also important to try not to offend or belittle other people. We live in a time now where there is no novelty in knowing people who are gay. They are around everywhere; they are in everybody’s family. That is the reality of the world. But it takes courage to say, ‘Just because there is a familiarity and there are so many people I know who are gay, that does not mean I have to agree with everything that everybody wants.’ That is another reality. In trying to draw a picture, without trying to belittle it, I might be a Buddhist who wants to call myself a Christian. Well, I cannot. If you are a Buddhist, you are a Buddhist; if you are a Christian, you are a Christian. You cannot say, ‘I demand my right as a Buddhist to call myself a Christian.’ It is just ridiculous. It is not what you are. It is a terminology that does accept that you can be both.

If you want to be married, because of the requirements of nature, it involves a male and a female connection for the hope and possibility of having children. You cannot do it with a male and a male. You cannot do it with a female and a female. It is just not possible. The institution of marriage stands ultimately behind the reality of nature. It does not matter what piece of legislation we pass; you cannot change nature. You cannot change that reality.

But what we can do is go down a path of a new form of social engineering—about which really have no idea of the consequences. If you believe in conservation, then conservation of the structure of society that has sustained us for so long would be a pretty good place to start.

This is the slippery slope argument I think.  Joyce seems to forget that we already have a mix of families, allowing people to marry regardless of gender won’t change the structure of marriage.  To try to paint two mums and their kids living together as some sort of social engineering is just rude.  To suggest we have no idea of the consequences is to ignore the fact that plenty of kids have already grown up with same-sex parents and have gone on to lead full lives, some of them even getting married and having children.  It’s a furphy to suggest something bad will happen to the kiddies because their gay parents got married.

If we redefine the institution of marriage by legislation we must remember that we are not only redefining it for those of us who are here now but also redefining it for those who were here before us. We are redefining it for our parents, for our grandparents and for all those who have gone before us. We are redefining the relationships that they went into and the sacrifices that they made with some legislative recalibration of the process from this point forward. I think most people whose parents are married would say, ‘I know what that was and I know what it wasn’t.’ We do not want to diminish the relevance of our history and the legacy of who we are.

I understand the concerns that are held by other people who say, ‘I feel that if I do not have the capacity to call myself married I will feel diminished.’ There is not much that we can do about that. The reality in life is that there are always things that you cannot have. There are things that I cannot have. I think it is really important that in this debate we try to respect everybody’s views.

Stacy Aronson and Aletha Huston, in their article, ‘The Mother-Infant Relationship in Single, Cohabiting, and Married Families: A Case for Marriage?’ in the Journal of Family Psychology, found that children in married homes demonstrated more positive behaviour and scored better on a range of demographic variables. In this study, attitudes about child-rearing, income and social support failed to explain variations in living arrangements, suggesting that the make-up of the family before conception and birth was vitally important.

A growing number of studies have found that children who experience changes in their living arrangements suffer worst development outcomes on average. A study in 2006 by Shannon Cavanagh and Aletha Huston found that:

Children who experienced instability had higher teacher and observer reports of problem behaviors than those from stable family structures.

That is not to say that every marriage works out—we know that about 40 per cent of marriages do not—but it is the aspiration of what people go into. Nobody goes into the act of marriage hoping to get divorced; they go into the act of marriage hoping to stay married. To be honest, I have never seen any person who is happy with the fact that they have had an unsuccessful marriage. I have always seen people who wished that their marriage had worked out, who wished it had been better, who wished that they could have had their time again.

So there is a huge weight on the institution of marriage and what goes into it. To say, ‘I’m going to compare a dysfunctional marriage with a successful relationship between same-sex people,’ is not a fair comparison. Anyone can go to any anecdotal analysis and find same-sex people who are cohabitating happily and you can find lots and lots of families who are very, very happy. And you can certainly go to lots and lots of gay relationships which become bitterly unhappy and you can go to lots of marriages that become bitterly unhappy. But the undisputed reality is that children who have been brought up in a stable relationship with a mum and dad have the best chance—not a perfect chance, but the best chance—to get their best development environment surrounding them.

Other studies show the importance of children, particularly male children, having a positive relationship with their father. In 2006 an article in the Journal of Family Studies used a nationally representative sample of adolescents in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. This article found:

Consistent with our initial hypothesis, a more positive father-child relationship is associated with a reduced risk of delinquency and substance abuse above and beyond the effects of the mother-child relationship. These results remain consistent even after using controls for various aspects of mother-child relationships, maternal monitoring and other maternal characteristics, family and household-level characteristics and child-level characteristics.

We interpret this as meaning that fathers matter. Likewise, a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 2006 found that living in a broken home at age eight increases the chances of children committing criminal offences in late adolescence. These findings are confirmed by a study in the Journal of Pediatrics, which found that children and families without a father are more likely to be in fair or poor health.

Once more, this is not a statement that every child who is in a broken home ends up in poor health or ends up with a criminal record. It is not saying that at all. It is just talking about the realities of the probabilities. Stability in structure that confirms and reaffirms both a mother and father figure is the best environment for a child to grow up in—and, the closer that mother and father figure is to the genetic make-up of the child, the better it is.

Behind all this stands the nature that underpins the reality of what a marriage is. Cultures in so many different areas have reaffirmed this. Cultures with no interconnectivity between each other, which have come up with their ideas independently of each other, have all come to the same conclusion, that a marriage is between a man and a woman, and they have always signified the importance of it with ceremony, with commitment and with a whole range of laws that surround it. Some are backed by law, some are backed by religion and some are backed by custom, but they are all there. And we cannot now just say that we are going to deny the reality of thousands of years of human custom because we choose to, because we are desirous of it, because we want to, because it is our wont—and, because it is our wont, we demand that we ignore all that goes before us because we are desirous of this outcome.

You cannot do that. You have to basically take the unselfish position that you cannot have everything you want in the world just because you want it. The statement of marriage itself is not a statement of getting what you want; it is a statement of giving up what you want, and it is a statement of commitment to the purpose.

What is this almost overwhelming political movement to go into every form of tradition and corner and change it, just because there is some group, or some section of a group that is desirous of that? Don’t we have to also take into account the possible greater offence to the larger number of people who also stand behind the statement that they are married? Don’t their views have some weight in this debate? What about every person who says, ‘What about my parents? They were married.’ Doesn’t that memory, and that legacy, have some weight in this debate? What about the people who say, ‘My grandparents were married’? Doesn’t that have some weight or legacy in this debate? Why are we always in such a rush to diminish everything else rather than to simply say, ‘In this instance I am prepared to make the sacrifice. I can’t have everything I want. I am prepared to make the sacrifices.’ It is one of those sacrifices that you make in life and that is it. There does seem to be a desire of selfishness that says, ‘For me to attain every desire I want, I am prepared to sacrifice the legacy, the aspiration and the structure of what so many more people, and other people, want to keep.

All of the studies that I have referred to have clearly confirmed that there are great risks if we re-engineer marriage away from being about the family. There are grave risks to the children’s developmental outcomes, and surely such outcomes are just as important as anything else. I hope that this debate shows that in Australia, when we need certain things to be evident, to draw us together, when we see the disturbances that have happened on television and we want some communal values, something that basically draws different faiths together, that draws different groups together, that draws different societies together, if there is one linking principle when there are so many other things that divide people, then marriage is it. Marriage is one of those commonalities that reach out across so many ethnic and religious divides. We say that we are a multicultural nation and it is absolutely imperative that there be some linking ethos, something that links all these disparate groups together. If we are going to say, ‘No, we won’t even acknowledge that,’ we will go into that space as well and destroy it, and remove it. What is a linking principle? Has it just become the vibe, the hope—the hope that there is some connection? Or will we make up some grandiose, flowery statement of what links people together, but the statement will have to say that it means absolutely nothing because it might offend some group or somebody? But there is one area which has the potential to draw so many people together because there is a common view across religions, across faiths and across ethnic groups, and that is marriage.

This is a piece of legislation that says, ‘Because we have found our way into this building, we can now redetermine the path of history because we are desirous of it. We can now put aside the cultural clique that has been formulated in so many different areas but has done so in a parallel manner. Whether you are in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, or in Renaissance Rome, or on the plains of America, or in Ireland, or in Africa, all these groups have all come to one conclusion. They have all basically found that one of the key structures of society is the family; and the ceremony that underpins the family, that is the inception of the family, is marriage, under a whole range of different names, and despite all of that we are going to say, ‘No, because we are now so modern, so clever, that we can put all of that aside, even though we really do not know what the ramifications are.’ That is the other thing: we do not really know. You want to tear down the structure that underpins society, but you really have no clue what the ramifications are. It is unwarranted.

In closing, it is not a statement about trying to offend anybody. As I said before, every person in every walk of life has to make sacrifices and has to make choices. You make the choice. If you want to get married, then you have to find someone of the opposite sex for that ceremony called ‘marriage’. If you want to be in a relationship with someone of the same sex, that is fine, but it is just not marriage. It is something that you may determine and it may have worth, it may have depth, but it is not marriage. I think that if everybody thinks about it logically, it is yet another sacrifice you make which you can put aside and say, ‘If you’re not prepared to make that sacrifice, then that in itself is a statement that the sacrifice that you would have to make of marriage is probably something that you are not prepared to accept.

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There’s 16 candidates lining up for a crack at the seat.  Others standing include 10 independent candidates, 3 christian type parties and the Sex Party.   Guess which ones I want to focus on?

In particular there is Maria Bengtsson.  She’s standing for the Australian Christians.  The party itself has been in the news the last week or so because of their name.  Some of the christians are upset that they use the name Australian Christians because it gives the impression that they represent all Australian chrisitans.

I’ve blogged on this lot before.  They ran a candidate in the Niddrie by-election back in March 2012.  In that blog I said this:

The Australian Christians think they have a chance of being the third force in Australian politics.  I think the electorate will stay clear of anyone who claims to represent judeo-christian values.  They’ll flounder and make minimal impact and be added to the growing pile of defunct Australian political parties.

They’re clearly not so defunct just yet, but looking at the results of that poll back in March we see that they barely managed 6% of the vote getting just 1,588 of the 36,808 primary votes.¹.  Considering that the Liberals didn’t run a candidate in that election either I’m not surprised that they got 6%.

AC’s candidate for the Melbourne by-election is also a Pastor with the Assembly of God, she is an assistant pastor at the City West AOG church.

Ps Maria and Oke have three beautiful children and two equally beautiful grandchildren.They love seeing families grow together in church; they’re extremely friendly and would love to meet you.

Bengtsson was interview on the ABC’s PM program and she has this to say:

Well I’m not racist but what we don’t like is another religious like Islamic people pushing their religion, their Halal food, their culture, their Sharia law.

We’re against this as a Christian living in a Christian country and I represent 60 per cent, over 60 per cent of Christians in Australia.

She’s not racist but?  She probably doesn’t mean racism, but we can let it slide.  Here’s a candidate running for government under the guise of religion telling us she doesn’t like religious people pushing their religion.  Last time I went into a supermarket I was still able to buy plenty of non-halal food and as far as I know Sharia law is not part of the Australian legal system.

And her reason is that she thinks she represent 60% of christians in Australia?  Pardon me while I chuckle.

Let’s see what other delights Pasta Bengtsson has for us on the Australian Christians website:

To date this year in Victoria, over 8,000 babies have been aborted, some of these at full term.

No, full term babies are said to be born, you can’t abort a born baby.  Abortion is not an issue in Victoria.  It’s really only the christians that keep harking on about it.

In some instances, given another day or so these full term babies would be able to exercise their own voice to plead for a fair go but in Victoria the womb does not provide this protection.

Apart from the fact that the baby can’t talk for a couple of years, and then another decade or so for them to comprehend abortion, the law if Victoria allows for abortion up to 24 weeks and then after 24 weeks you need the nod of two doctors.  Sounds like simply emotive talk from another rabid fuck knuckle to me.

And neither do vulnerable young women have the real freedom of choice to know the health risks or alternatives to abortion.

The alternative to abortion is birth.  To even suggest that young women don’t have freedom of choice is just wrong, again.  just simply emotive language to make an issue that’s just not there.

While premature babies are viable and survive from about 20 weeks, there is no requirement to provide medical assistance for babies who survive abortion.

You don’t survive abortion.  That’s the whole point.

The most vulnerable extend to our elderly, who we hear are too often being denied hydration, the basic provisions of food and water, and referred to hospices instead of hospitals when all they may require is life saving antibiotics.

We hear all to often that old people are denied water?   Where?  Who?  Sounds like you just made that up.  Sure some people don’t  get the right amount of food and that needs to be addressed, but our nursing homes are not full of starving and thirsty people.  As to the antibiotics comment…

Australian Christians is compelled to be a strong voice for these most vulnerable in our society. And we are compelled to protect the basic freedoms many Victorians agree are being eroded.

Many Victorians agree?  Perhaps in the City West AOG church out west they do.

We need to be on guard to ensure that our basic freedoms are not eroded, but I don’t reckon some whacked out christian wannabe is the best person to deliver it.

Pasta Bengtsson is a born again christian who is only interested in keeping out anyone who doesn’t love jesus.  She has no interest in representing anyone but christians.

She’ll be lucky to get 1,000 votes.

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So, would be Treasurer blasts our entitlement attitude.  Too much social welfare!

Arsehole.

It seems pretty clear to me that this is another swipe at those less able to fend for themselves, find a job, get a start in life, help in their old age, those with a disability and many other ways that we as a society look after each other.

He said a lower level of entitlement meant countries were free to allow business and individuals to be successful. ”It reduces taxation, meaning individuals spend less of their time working for the state, and more of their time working for themselves and their family.”

That’s right, kick those needing help in the guts so those earning lots can work less and spend more time with their families.  Fuck everyone else.

Perhaps he should have said a more equitable taxation system that allowed all citizens to live good and productive lives is what we should be aiming form.  Taking care of each other is how societies grown

Do people rip the system off?  You bet.  Whether its attempting to get more money from a government benefit or attempting to reduce the amount of personal income tax some people will always attempt to subvert the system for their own gain.  They are dishonest and selfish.  We need to create a society that actually does care about each other.

Hockey needs to address the imbalance, while they can’t control how much huge corporations pay their executives, they can control how much tax they pay.  Lets talk about that tax reform, so that we can get a balanced budget.

It’s way to easy to kick the people on low incomes than it is to pick on the big earners.

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After a couple of decades of Labor rule in Queensland, the voters have tipped them, well more like ejected them, from office. The Liberal National Party have won and will now run the state of Queensland with absolute authority. (Queensland only has one house, so no checks on power as such)

I don’t think there was ever any doubt about the result.  The polling clearly indicated that the Labor party would be thrown out.

In the lead up to this state election, the Australian Christian Lobby, a small group of fundamentalist christians who pretend to represent all Australian christians, do what they normally do, they held Meet the Candidates Forums about the issues they think are important.  You know, religious indoctrination in schools, banning abortion, stopping the horrible homosexuals from getting married.

The then Premier Anna Bligh said no, she wouldn’t attend.  The ACL was livid.  The soon-to-be Premier did go along.

I’ve seen more people queue up for food at McDonald’s than attend one of the ACL’s events.  Clearly Bligh could see there was no need to attend, no votes, or at least, not enough votes in it.

That didn’t stop Wendy Francis¹ the face arse of the ACL in Queensland and failed politician, from claiming victory that Bligh had lost because she didn’t attend one of their meetings!

Ms Bligh and the ALP leadership’s decision to disregard such a large constituency would have only compounded the loss.

Oh, Wendy is so moist.  She so much wants to sing “na, na, na na na.”

It was well known in the Christian constituency that most Labor MPs had voted to deny children the chance to at least begin life with a mother and father through controversial surrogacy laws allowing singles, two men or two women to acquire babies.

Is it? You sure about that?  They actually voted for a civil union scheme, nothing about denying children anything.  Surrogacy laws help create families.

It was also obvious that Labor’s high-profile championing of marriage-mimicking civil unions did not win it any votes, particularly as it was clearly rushed through as a political stunt to support gay activists campaigning at the ALP National Conference in December last.

You seem pretty certain.  When watching the leaders debate recently, neither issue was actually raised.  Perhaps it was clear to the ACL who were probably sitting around a table at the local McDonald’s sharing some fries.

The importance and swinging nature of the Christian vote, which would have almost completely abandoned Anna Bligh in this election is well documented

Well no, this is the ALP, if they even thought there was some votes in getting along to one of the ACL’s little chats with the christians, they would have done it.  You see, that’s the way it works.

The ALP minders would have said “Go!”

Bligh would have said “How many votes?”

Minders “Not many”

Bligh “Will it change the outcome?”

Minders “No”

Bligh “Fuck the christian lobby then”

I may have made the last line up.

The consequences of ignoring a major constituency in the community should be a lesson to politics as a whole

Major constituency?  That’s a laugh, by the ACL’s own admission:

Mrs Francis conducted 24 Meet Your Candidate Forums attended by 1500 people throughout the State during the election campaign.

So, a couple of things.  There are 90 electoral divisions in Queensland, the ACL only got to 24.  Queensland’s population is about 4.51 million, some 2.7 million are voters².  Out of that pool of voters 1,500 attended an ACL candidates forum.  Which really is slightly more than the number of wombats having sex with rocks.

Perhaps the ACL could explain its relevance to the electorate, because, like the wombats dry humping an odd rock, they’re fucking useless.

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The Australian Christians have this quaint notion that somehow they will get all those little Aussie christians to vote for them.  They estimate that there are 2.7 million christians who can vote.  They reckon if they can get them to vote as a block that the party will become the third political force in Australian politics, knocking the Greens out as there are more christians than Greens – or so they think.

The party was ‘launched’ in Perth this week.  Ray Moran is the National Director of AC and said this:

We also have a commission to be salt and light in our nation and to make disciples.¹

Nice, that’d be a commission from their god, although it’s not made clear how they got this commission – or why they think it applies to them.

They had Dave Hodgson of Paladin Corporation, his corporation is a funding body that deals in financial stuff, as the keynote speaker.  He said this:

Disinterested Christian voters unwittingly enable evil to prosper in our land when they vote for parties without knowing what policies these parties promote.

Get that.  The disinterested christians are letting the devil in.  That’s a hell of a thing to say about people.  He’s blaming all those christians that vote for the Greens (as that’s who they really mean) for the evil in the world. How dare they not consider this when voting!  How arrogant is it to assume that they vote without knowing the polices of the parties.  Hodgson would sooner that they vote for the christians, however, their website is devoid of any real policies.

Their values are all based on the bible, whatever that means.  They go on about the judeo-christians values.  They talk about how Australia is based on those values.  Not that they actually articulate that very well.  Reading between the lines, I think it’s clear that they want to ban abortion, they want to deny equal rights to the minority groups, you know, the usual crowd of gay, lesbian, muslim.

They talk about a ‘fair go’

Drawing on colloquialisms, our values include such things as being ‘fair dinkum’, and the value of a ‘fair go for all’. Our society’s values are based on our Judeo-Christian heritage, which are ultimately outlined within the Bible.

Australian Christians recognise this. We are unapologetic about basing our policies, and core values upon this, our heritage.

I’d be keen to see how the AC will be fair dinkum at giving same-sex attracted people a fair go when in comes to marriage equality or protections around employment and family.

There’s a by-election brewing in Victoria.  Standing is Frank Papafotiou candidate for Niddree by-election, he’s standing as an independent supported by the AC.  Franky poos says that the electorate has 75% christans.

My main focus is to address the long standing discrepancy between the values shared by the Niddrie electorate and the values promoted by the previously elected Labor representative.

The values of the Niddrie electorate seem to have been shown at the last election, where 50% of the vote went to the Labor party, 40% to the Liberals and the remaining 9% to the Greens (it’s rounded).  The ‘christian party’ at the last poll was Family First, they managed just 4% of the vote primary vote.².  Basically the message from Franky Poos is that evil people vote for the Greens and Labor, about 60% of the electorate.  There is no Liberal candidate standing for the by-election.  Clearly they don’t think it’s worth the effort and the Labor party will win.

I’ll be keen to see where the Liberal votes go.

The Australian Christians think they have a chance of being the third force in Australian politics.  I think the electorate will stay clear of anyone who claims to represent judeo-christian values.  They’ll flounder and make minimal impact and be added to the growing pile of defunct Australian political parties.

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I just love reading what everyone’s hopeful pastor is up to, he regularly posts his activities on the church blog.

Dan babes is hoping to get into parliament next time around as part of his new political party called Rise Up Australia – I’ve blogged about it before.  Think about what his written here before you even think about voting for him or any of his candidates:

My heart goes out to these beautiful children who have not experienced a father’s love. Our nation is full of fatherless children.

No it’s not, it’s probably more accurate to say that Australia mostly has fathered children.  In fact in 2004-2006 22% of children under 15 where in single parent families¹

We desperately need real fathers standing up in the gap to be willing to help these young men and woman who are desperately looking for a father’s heart  of love.

What the hell is a ‘real father’?  Who of the 486,000 single parent families are desperately looking for a fathers’ heart of love?  What does that even mean?

Unfortunately, they are looking for it in all the wrong places.

It’s still not clear who is looking and for what, perhaps if we knew we could point them in the right direction.

Looking for love, many young woman turn to drugs, alcohol, etc. and very often get pregnant. Then they go on to have abortions. This is so sad, as many of them are now suffering with depression and suicidal thoughts.

Right… where are you drawing the information from to reach your conclusions?  Where are the stats on their suffering, depression and suicidal thoughts?  Is it only the children of single parent families that are having the abortions?

Many young men who do not know their fathers, lacking their father’s love, turn to drugs and alcohol.  Many become involved in homosexuality. This is destroying a whole generation of young men, as they too are suffering with depression and suicidal thoughts.

Now you seem to be suggesting that because a child hasn’t got a father they turn to drugs, alcohol and many become ‘involved’ in gay things.

Oh Lord, please help us the church to repent and pray to see our nation healed.

And your answer to all of this is to have the church repent and pray?  Magic words will give a magic solution to a problem that doesn’t seem to exist.

It’s so much easier to make broad and rash generalisations than it is to identify the real issues and do something to actually help.

Faith wouldn’t be enough to save Australia if these jokers got into power.

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It seems that the new political party has registered enough supporters to be recognised by the Australian Electoral Commission.  I’m sure that’s exciting.  In the blurb about the new party Pasta Dan says:

We want to restore to Australia the common sense values and traditions which have made this country one of the best and most stable democracies in the world

That sounds fine, except that Pasta Dan is really a born again christian and writes things like this:

• I have cast demons out of many born again Christians in ministry across the nations and seen them move into complete freedom in Christ Jesus our Lord and Saviour…
• Another young boy who had recently rededicated his life to Jesus was standing at the altar and worshipping Jesus. Then suddenly he started screaming and rolling on the ground. He was set free of many demons. This young man had deliverance for almost 3 hours…
• All I can say is that thousands of demons were cast out of dozens of people…
• Demons are real. Do not under estimate them. But glory to God we have more power than demons…

That’s just some of the highlights from this blog entry at Catch The Fire website.

There are some other statements that are just as whacky here:

Very often when a marriage breaks up, there are so many children whose hearts are terribly broken as they do not want to see mum and dad separate. Unfortunately, these broken hearts of these children very often become big doors ways through which satan enters their lives.

So, because the parents break up, satan gets in, through big doors, and causes the kiddies to have demons?  And your god allows this because?

A major door way was opened for demons to get in when she had an abortion. The young lady repented and through God’s grace was set free!

Oh great, some arsehole left the door open again, that’s how the bastards get in.  Consider that idea that he thinks demons get in when a woman has an abortion, to the manifesto of his new political party:

14.  We wish to make abortion history by providing those social conditions that support women in their lives so they are not forced into situations where they feel there is no option but to have an abortion.

No doubt the devil is forcing women to have abortions so that the demons can invade.

And to think that this guy, the good Pastor Daniel Nalliah, is serious about trying to get to parliament!

No doubt we can expect the opening of every session to be him parading around casting out demons!  I can just see Tony the Rabbit or KRudd rolling around spewing out green stuff and letting the demons out.  Gillard will be very lady like, cover her mouth and just give a burp, coz she’s a traditional woman, don’t you know.

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