Cheap emotionalism stymies sensible Christian debate on homosexuality

THIS week I received a very excited press release from a very excitable lady representing an organisation called Equal Love which, she is "thrilled" to inform me, is preparing a mass illegal wedding in Melbourne, as a protest against the present marriage laws.

"We want to get the message out loud and clear at our upcoming protest that homophobia and discrimination is not welcome in Australia and therefore the laws in place that perpetuate this homophobia should be gotten rid of," Equal Love's spokesman Ali Hogg said.

The protest is to be held on August 13, marking the seventh anniversary since the Howard government amended the marriage laws to state that marriage is between one man and one woman.

Curiously I was one of the people who spoke at the rally of more than 2000 at Parliament House which precipitated that change. I certainly had no idea I was perpetuating homophobia by supporting ordinary marriage as we know it. Rather I thought I was perpetuating common sense. But apparently, according to the inclusivity demanded of New Think, if you are against gay marriage, then you must be homophobic.

And of course we all know who are the worst homophobes. They are the Christians, and particularly Catholics. Why? Because of a belief system which incorporates very clear and unified teachings on sex, marriage and the family, which can articulate the fundamental and bedrock values from which Western society has derived its laws on the family and marriage.

This reasonable position is dangerous to people who are not interested in reason but who use common ad hominem insults and, above all, cheap emotionalism to get away with irrational foolishness. So when I have discussed the complementarity of the sexes as a natural, fundamental element of both the sexual marriage relationship and the parenting that goes with it, I have been branded a bigot, and Christian bigot at that.

There is now a new Christian persecution; it disguises itself in the "inclusivism" which is demanded of multiculturalism. The not-at-all persecuted GLBTIs have tacked themselves on to the persecuted minority wagon train, and consequently have gotten away with framing the debate in purely emotional terms.

I talked about this emotionalism in relation to the lack of ability of parliamentarians to properly formulate moral positions in my last column. I quoted Margaret Somerville, the noted Canadian ethicist, who gave a lecture at the University of NSW last Wednesday where she talked about religious influence being negated, or in fact driven out of the public square in many liberal democracies, where secularism no longer means freedom of religion but freedom from religion.

Then lo and behold, this week came the news that a debate at the University of Tasmania between state Liberal MP Michael Ferguson, representing the Christian viewpoint, and Rodney Croome, representing the pro gay marriage lobby, had been cancelled because Ferguson had been falsely accused of being implicated in "gay bashing" after an anti gay marriage rally that he didn't even attend. He has since received an apology.

Ferguson's decision to cancel the debate was a result of anti-Christian hysteria, a hysteria which replaces rational argument with random attacks. It is justified by nothing but the right think, which has woven itself into the multicultural agenda.

And it doesn't just affect various public loudmouths. In places where it has taken hold it can have tangible tragic effects on ordinary people's lives.

Take the notorious case of the Johns, a married couple of 40 years in Derby, England. Their application to foster a child was denied, and not because of anything that in the benighted past would have been considered a moral failure, sloth, drunkenness, whatever.

On the contrary, the council which oversees these services said they would be eminently suitable and would provide "a warm welcoming home". No, the reason the Johns were knocked back as foster parents was because of their orthodox Christian beliefs on homosexuality.

They don't hate homosexuals. They made a point of saying that they would respect and support children who thought they might be gay, but they were not going to encourage it, or affirm it as right.

The couple were asked multiple questions about this one topic, and of course there was almost no interest in anything else they believed or intended to teach the children in their care. They could have told them the earth is flat and sits on the back of a turtle or been into pagan rituals with horns and dancing around monoliths at the full moon, for all the social services would have known.

Indeed, that might have been quite OK in Derby, where pagans are probably considered an excluded minority in need of a bit of inclusivism. No, it was their church-going, orthodox Christianity which assumes that homosexuality is neither natural nor good that was definitely not OK with the authorities. And more importantly they would not lie about it.

The really heinous thing about this case is that the law was too intimidated by ideology to support these plainly good people. The council cited the ideology of secular multiculturalism. Of course by doing that they were not acting inclusively at all. In the Johns' case a secular multicultural society, incorporating some phony notion of inclusivity, trumped the mainstream religious culture, for a sterile notion of no-religion secularism. What is more, it will actually exclude people from most other religions from fostering in Derby. In truth, inclusivity is just brain-washing to elevate a new value system above others, but importantly, they have deprived some poor children of a loving home.

If religious voices want to be heard in the public square then they have to make sure that they are not driven out. They have to make themselves heard by the quality of their argument.

But it seems that we don't want to hear argument, just gush like this from the woman chosen to MC the August 13 rally, fittingly, a comedienne called Tracy Bartram: "Personally, I've had two husbands and three marriages, and marriage for me has lost its lustre. But I don't see why the GLBTI community should be excluded from marrying just because it's 'always been that way' ... And let's face it: nobody does 'wedding' better than a gay or lesbian couple!" Gosh , what a great argument for gay marriage.