ACL Watch

[DanDare]

Bizarre ACL racist claim

“This is just the latest example of intolerance from the gay marriage lobby,” Wallace said.
“At a time when the federal Government is reaffirming the virtues of multiculturalism, Mr Hunter labels as racists those who for religious and cultural reasons affirm marriage as between a man and a woman.
“The South Australian Premier, Mike Rann, must act to distance his Government from these statements.
“Where is the evidence of tolerance and understanding of diversity which is so essential to multiculturalism?
“It is appropriate to have a debate on gay marriage but it cannot be conducted in the atmosphere of intolerant rhetoric where emotive labels are too often used to suppress debate and intimidate people into silence.”
In 2009 Wallace told a shocked audience that pedophiles were overwhelmingly gay while attempting to explain pedophilia in the church during a function in the NSW Parliament.

[wearestardust]

Here's the actual ACL statement in it's disgusting full horror:

http://australianchristianlobby.org....rriage-debate/

A South Australian Labor MP should be disendorsed by the Party for his intolerant remarks about people who support natural marriage.
Ian Hunter reportedly claimed that a failure to support the gay lobby’s ambit claim to redefine marriage was akin to supporting the racist White Australia policy.

“This is just the latest example of intolerance from the gay marriage lobby,” Australian Christian Lobby Managing Director Jim Wallace said today.

“At a time when the Federal Government is reaffirming the virtues of multiculturalism, Mr Hunter labels as racists those who for religious and cultural reasons affirm marriage as between a man and a woman.
“Where is the evidence of tolerance and understanding of diversity which is so essential to multiculturalism?

“This attempt to bully natural marriage proponents out of the debate on gay marriage should not be tolerated by the Labor Party, which claims to support the religious and cultural values of all Australians.”

Mr Wallace said Mr Hunter’s attempt to silence debate follows the shutting down of debate on gay marriage at the Internet journal On Line Opinion after gay activists ‘attacked’ and ‘intimidated’ the owner, Graham Young, forcing the withdrawal of advertising from IBM and ANZ Bank after the site published just one pro-marriage article.

“The South Australian Premier Mike Rann must act to distance his Government from these statements,” Mr Wallace said.

“It is appropriate to have a debate on gay marriage but it cannot be conducted in the atmosphere of intolerant rhetoric where emotive labels are too often used to suppress debate and intimidate people into silence,” Mr Wallace said.

Note the casual slide from 'opposing gay marriage is intolerant, like in the past supporting the white racist Australia policy', to 'opposing gay marriage is racist' (which is clearly nonsense).

I'm rather nonplussed by the assertion that, somehow, not agreeing with imposition of Christian values on non-believers is anti-diversity.

[djarm67]

http://australianchristianlobby.org....ool-chaplains/

The Australian Christian Lobby is encouraging churches to support the National Day of Prayer for School Chaplains on Sunday, May 1, organised by Scripture Union Queensland.

[RealityRules]

A majority of Americans now support gay marriage

A slim majority of Americans now support gay marriage, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The results underscore the nation’s increasingly tolerant views about homosexuals, and parallel a string of recent legal and legislative victories for gay rights advocates.

Five years ago, at 36 percent, support for gay marriage barely topped a third of all Americans. Now, 53 percent say gay marriage should be legal, marking the first time in Post-ABC polling that a majority has said so.

“This is very consistent with a lot of other polling data we’ve seen and the general momentum we’ve seen over the past year and a half,” said Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, a leading pro-gay-marriage group. “As people have come to understand this is about loving, committed families dealing, like everyone, with tough times, they understand how unfair it is to treat them differently.”


www.washingtonpost.com/ [slim]-majority-back-gay-marriage-post-abc-poll-says

[Goldenmane]

Re: the polygamy thing.

Properly speaking, that should be polyamory, btw. My question is, what the hell is wrong with it? I've yet to see any substantive arguments against it being allowed, rather it seems to be nothing more than a cultural hold-over. I'm not even sure where it came from, but that's largely irrelevant anyway.

Mind you, I'm still of the opinion that our cultural narrative contains quite a large amount of absolute bollocks, including the rather ridiculous notion of people "being made for each other" and similar bullshit, which seem to me to be pretty fucking damaging. I mean, we are raised with the notion that we will fall in love and marry, and that's it. Much of our literature and popular culture still perpetuates this ridiculous mythology, even in the face of enormous evidence to the contrary, including the fact that "falling in love" is essentially the same (speaking in regards to the brain-chemicals involved) as getting extremely fucking high and staying that way for roughly three months, which is in general terms quite long enough for a couple to become pregnant (or at least make serious investment in the relationship) before the arguments start.

Basing a society's prevailing attitudes on fairy tales strikes me as... fucking childish, actually.

[DanDare]

Goldenmane, I would like to respond to your cultural narrative post but it would be a derail. Care to start a thread about it? It would make a very interesting topic.

[DanDare]

Originally Posted by The Irreverent Mr Black

Dan, we've got Polygamy / Polyamory, thoughts? - want to shuffle the poly filler over there?

More interested in this bit of the discussion:

Mind you, I'm still of the opinion that our cultural narrative contains quite a large amount of absolute bollocks, including the rather ridiculous notion of people "being made for each other" and similar bullshit, which seem to me to be pretty fucking damaging. I mean, we are raised with the notion that we will fall in love and marry, and that's it. Much of our literature and popular culture still perpetuates this ridiculous mythology, even in the face of enormous evidence to the contrary, including the fact that "falling in love" is essentially the same (speaking in regards to the brain-chemicals involved) as getting extremely fucking high and staying that way for roughly three months, which is in general terms quite long enough for a couple to become pregnant (or at least make serious investment in the relationship) before the arguments start.

Questions about love, being a family, the bonds of companionship etc.
The polyamory think is sort of "meh". I had a threesome going while I was in high school and it was fun and intriguing but also harder work than one on one. I didn't find anything "wrong" with it otherwise.

[wolty]

Originally Posted by DanDare

More interested in this bit of the discussion:

Questions about love, being a family, the bonds of companionship etc.
The polyamory think is sort of "meh". I had a threesome going while I was in high school and it was fun and intriguing but also harder work than one on one. I didn't find anything "wrong" with it otherwise.

Pics or it didn't happen.

[Logic please]

Jim Wallace has just become a "Page 3 pinup"!!! Well, he was quoted at length there, anyway...

Page 3 of the Melb Herald-Sun 18/3/11 was given over to articles about the use of IVF technology by single women and lesbians (their words, unfortunately ) - LINK to main article.

There was also an associated Yes/No question "Do Kids Need Dads?". The "Yes" answer was provided by Jim W (no link available, so reproduced in full):

Originally Posted by Jim Wallace says YES!

Single women and lesbian couples accessing fertility treatments is a "violation of every child's natural right to have both a father and mother", a Christian group says.
"This is a fundamental right given by nature," said Jim Wallace, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby.
"IVF and surrogacy shouldn't be about the right of the adult, but about the rights of the child.
"I find it absolutely amazing that in every area of life we are trying to be as natural as possible, but we are violating this natural requirement, this fundamental family relationship.
"We seem to blind ourselves as to the consequences of this for children."
Mr Wallace said that it was one of the most fundamental laws of nature that children need both mothers and fathers.

Oh, I see - we'll look forward to all those enforced marriages and adoptions for all xtian single-parent families, then...

Interestingly, there were a couple of words that didn't make it into Jim's diatribe - "god" and "bible".

They used "nature" and "laws of nature" almost exclusively instead. I wonder why? Is their focus group polling telling them that people are turned off by The Religion Thing^TM? Do they think their bigoted views sound more cuddly if they use the language of, say, deism? Or are they trying to tap into some imagined "nature" movement?

[DanDare]

Originally Posted by wolty

Pics or it didn't happen.

Anyway they were both in Catholic high school and the nuns put an end to it. That must be why I am an atheist of course, because I'm mad at god don't you know.