The Fundamental List 20/5/2009
This week was a bit of a rerun of last week, most of the stuff is basically more of the same.
Charter of Rights – AGAIN
They really are going on about this. This week they go into more detail about their campaign around a Charter of Rights seeking mobilise the minions (or as they put it tens of thousands of Christians) into spamming MPs and the committee. They rather modestly is the Charter is one of “the biggest threats currently facing the Christian faith in Australia?” and continue their measured and balanced commentary telling us “at stake is freedom as we’ve known it”. One can only hope that they put such hyperbolae to the government and the people so they can exit stage right with the rest of us laughing.
They go through traditional arguments for their stance too much power to judges, alters political system blah, blah, blah; we get a bit more about their campaign site and apparently there are 1100 signatures on the online petition that’s been open a few days. They go through the talking points about what happened in Canada, (more on that in a moment) and tell us in the space of less than a minute that the Charter would be simultaneously “meaningless” and “powerful”. Nothing like a well reasoned argument!
They urge people to go to website, sign a petition, make a submission and show a propaganda video made especially by Jim Wallace in their church before closing by rehashing some of the stuff from last week from Victoria.
Spurious talking points
I want to deal with the talking points (in terms of their focus, one is major, one is minor) that they keep bringing up about a Charter.
Firstly they claim the Canadian courts have allowed cigarette advertising in schools. The general rule is if something sounds too ridiculous to be true, it probably is and in this case, it definitely is and really is nothing more than a scare campaign. It sounds as if a cigarette ad was put up near a school, challenged in court and found to be ok.
In fact the case (RJR MacDonald Inc. v Canada (Attorney General)) was about whether a total ban on advertising was necessary to prevent people taking up smoking, by a majority of one (i.e. it could just as easily gone the other way) the court said it was not and said commercial advertising was covered under the free speech provisions of the Canadian Charter. It is still lawful to restrict what forms this commercial speech may take – billboards are specifically prohibited and it is illegal to advertise around products and services targeted at young people and the tobacco industry itself specifically said they weren’t about to advertise around schools following the decision.
There’s a very simple lesson to learn from this, if we get a Charter, it should only apply to natural persons (i.e. flesh and blood human beings) and not legal persons – a term that includes both humans and corporations. There’s a contemporaneous write up on the case here and there's more on the current Canadian laws here. Also there’s nothing stopping us from saying that free speech doesn’t cover commercial speech in any Charter we might come up with.
The minor point they make – I suspect however it forms the crux of their opposition to the Charter even though they downplay it, is that equal marriage in Canada came about via the courts, specifically the cases of Egale Canada Inc. v Canada (Attorney General) and Halpern v Canada (Attorney General).
The key question here is would these guys be in favour of it if was introduced via legislation rather than by the courts? No. They’re opposed to it full stop. They reckon it’s less likely to come via parliaments than by the courts and that’s why they’re so opposed to courts having more power, the evidence for this proposition seems to be waning however, Sweden, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire (the Bill hasn’t been signed by the Governor yet but it looks likely that he will sign it) have all got equal marriage this year through their parliaments, not through their courts. The debate is not which is the right way to get something; after all do they oppose the desegregation of the schools in the US? That was done by the courts. Slavery was outlawed in the British Empire by a court, do they oppose that? No the debate is about whether equal marriage itself is a good or a bad thing, so let’s have the debate.
NRL
Another attack on Catherine Lumby. We’re told since the 60s we’ve had a laissez faire approach to sex and since she doesn’t see anything wrong with consenting adults having sex (yes the nerve of the woman, how dare she!) she has no idea why moral values are important. Again they link her scholarly book surveying attitudes of Australians to porn (The Porn Report) to the porn industry even though it was funded by the Federal Government. Again they call for her to be sacked and Jim Wallace has apparently said so on Sydney radio.
Then things get almost cartoonish as they turn into living stereotypes of Christian fundamentalists. We get ramblings about the supposed breakdown in morality and the “pornification” of our culture. We need breaks put on porn we’re told; men must not be complicit in the “pornification” of our culture. Then my personal favourite for the week – “men have a responsibility to protect women” – gold, sheer gold. We’re urged to “protect our daughters and young women” and told that Lumby’s not helping – another “won’t someone please think of the children” moment.
The Budget
There’s a little bit of commentary about the budget. They say (again) that the development funding good but we need more – I guess they have to try to sound positive about SOMETHING.
Equal marriage in New York
Jim Wallace went on Channel 7’s Sunrise this week debating two “homosexual activists” about equal marriage and we get a précis of their talking points. According to Jimmy, two human beings of the same sex expressing their love for and commitment to each other are:
• Selfish (now that really is out of left field, how can SHARING you life with someone be selfish?!);
• Making normal a minority ‘lifestyle’, because of course if you’re in a minority, you’re not normal. (The ABS figure of 1.2% is quoted as being the LGBTI population of Australia. The ABS doesn’t ask who you fancy on the census form, they ask if you’re in a relationship and even they acknowledge the figure given is an underestimate. The figure is meaningless and does even measure what they say it does.);
• Bad because children do best in a traditional family, not that they would ever quote research to show kids raised by same-sex couples do worse than kids who are raised by opposite-sex couples because there isn’t any, and;
• Weakening marriage although we’re not told why.
We’re told Christians need to be active on this issue lest Australia go down the path of New York where the Bill of equal marriage has passed the House and in that state’s Senate.
Sometimes there’s nothing like a farce to get your day off to a good start!
Charter of Rights – AGAIN
They really are going on about this. This week they go into more detail about their campaign around a Charter of Rights seeking mobilise the minions (or as they put it tens of thousands of Christians) into spamming MPs and the committee. They rather modestly is the Charter is one of “the biggest threats currently facing the Christian faith in Australia?” and continue their measured and balanced commentary telling us “at stake is freedom as we’ve known it”. One can only hope that they put such hyperbolae to the government and the people so they can exit stage right with the rest of us laughing.
They go through traditional arguments for their stance too much power to judges, alters political system blah, blah, blah; we get a bit more about their campaign site and apparently there are 1100 signatures on the online petition that’s been open a few days. They go through the talking points about what happened in Canada, (more on that in a moment) and tell us in the space of less than a minute that the Charter would be simultaneously “meaningless” and “powerful”. Nothing like a well reasoned argument!
They urge people to go to website, sign a petition, make a submission and show a propaganda video made especially by Jim Wallace in their church before closing by rehashing some of the stuff from last week from Victoria.
Spurious talking points
I want to deal with the talking points (in terms of their focus, one is major, one is minor) that they keep bringing up about a Charter.
Firstly they claim the Canadian courts have allowed cigarette advertising in schools. The general rule is if something sounds too ridiculous to be true, it probably is and in this case, it definitely is and really is nothing more than a scare campaign. It sounds as if a cigarette ad was put up near a school, challenged in court and found to be ok.
In fact the case (RJR MacDonald Inc. v Canada (Attorney General)) was about whether a total ban on advertising was necessary to prevent people taking up smoking, by a majority of one (i.e. it could just as easily gone the other way) the court said it was not and said commercial advertising was covered under the free speech provisions of the Canadian Charter. It is still lawful to restrict what forms this commercial speech may take – billboards are specifically prohibited and it is illegal to advertise around products and services targeted at young people and the tobacco industry itself specifically said they weren’t about to advertise around schools following the decision.
There’s a very simple lesson to learn from this, if we get a Charter, it should only apply to natural persons (i.e. flesh and blood human beings) and not legal persons – a term that includes both humans and corporations. There’s a contemporaneous write up on the case here and there's more on the current Canadian laws here. Also there’s nothing stopping us from saying that free speech doesn’t cover commercial speech in any Charter we might come up with.
The minor point they make – I suspect however it forms the crux of their opposition to the Charter even though they downplay it, is that equal marriage in Canada came about via the courts, specifically the cases of Egale Canada Inc. v Canada (Attorney General) and Halpern v Canada (Attorney General).
The key question here is would these guys be in favour of it if was introduced via legislation rather than by the courts? No. They’re opposed to it full stop. They reckon it’s less likely to come via parliaments than by the courts and that’s why they’re so opposed to courts having more power, the evidence for this proposition seems to be waning however, Sweden, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire (the Bill hasn’t been signed by the Governor yet but it looks likely that he will sign it) have all got equal marriage this year through their parliaments, not through their courts. The debate is not which is the right way to get something; after all do they oppose the desegregation of the schools in the US? That was done by the courts. Slavery was outlawed in the British Empire by a court, do they oppose that? No the debate is about whether equal marriage itself is a good or a bad thing, so let’s have the debate.
NRL
Another attack on Catherine Lumby. We’re told since the 60s we’ve had a laissez faire approach to sex and since she doesn’t see anything wrong with consenting adults having sex (yes the nerve of the woman, how dare she!) she has no idea why moral values are important. Again they link her scholarly book surveying attitudes of Australians to porn (The Porn Report) to the porn industry even though it was funded by the Federal Government. Again they call for her to be sacked and Jim Wallace has apparently said so on Sydney radio.
Then things get almost cartoonish as they turn into living stereotypes of Christian fundamentalists. We get ramblings about the supposed breakdown in morality and the “pornification” of our culture. We need breaks put on porn we’re told; men must not be complicit in the “pornification” of our culture. Then my personal favourite for the week – “men have a responsibility to protect women” – gold, sheer gold. We’re urged to “protect our daughters and young women” and told that Lumby’s not helping – another “won’t someone please think of the children” moment.
The Budget
There’s a little bit of commentary about the budget. They say (again) that the development funding good but we need more – I guess they have to try to sound positive about SOMETHING.
Equal marriage in New York
Jim Wallace went on Channel 7’s Sunrise this week debating two “homosexual activists” about equal marriage and we get a précis of their talking points. According to Jimmy, two human beings of the same sex expressing their love for and commitment to each other are:
• Selfish (now that really is out of left field, how can SHARING you life with someone be selfish?!);
• Making normal a minority ‘lifestyle’, because of course if you’re in a minority, you’re not normal. (The ABS figure of 1.2% is quoted as being the LGBTI population of Australia. The ABS doesn’t ask who you fancy on the census form, they ask if you’re in a relationship and even they acknowledge the figure given is an underestimate. The figure is meaningless and does even measure what they say it does.);
• Bad because children do best in a traditional family, not that they would ever quote research to show kids raised by same-sex couples do worse than kids who are raised by opposite-sex couples because there isn’t any, and;
• Weakening marriage although we’re not told why.
We’re told Christians need to be active on this issue lest Australia go down the path of New York where the Bill of equal marriage has passed the House and in that state’s Senate.
Sometimes there’s nothing like a farce to get your day off to a good start!