Aussies: NSW Politicians, keeping ICAC in business

[Stubby]

9 hours ago, Paxter said:

Not to be outdone, the NSW Libs are apparently going to call a spill motion in protest against modernizing the legal framework around abortion. What a joke.

The takeover of the LNP by the religious right is complete.

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, Stubby said:

The takeover of the LNP by the religious right is complete.

The NSW branch is somewhat resistant to it, I'm far from a fan of Gladys but she's not one of them. Lacking a spine in standing up to them (and Alan Jones on other issues) is a different question. NSW Nats also help with this, their leader yesterday said the coalition agreement is with her and spilling her would be tearing it up.

But on the whole? Yeah, the migration of American style political Christianity continues to seep in.

[Varysblackfyre321]

39 minutes ago, karaddin said:

The NSW branch is somewhat resistant to it, I'm far from a fan of Gladys but she's not one of them. Lacking a spine in standing up to them (and Alan Jones on other issues) is a different question. NSW Nats also help with this, their leader yesterday said the coalition agreement is with her and spilling her would be tearing it up.

But on the whole? Yeah, the migration of American style political Christianity continues to seep in.

Such a pity. I wonder how soon and how much your country is going to be faced with substantial attempts to rescind protections for the LGBTQ community because they conflict with Conservative Christians desires to be dicks to the community. You know how else are you going to insure religious liberty/Christian supremacy? 

[karaddin]

7 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Such a pity. I wonder how soon and how much your country is going to be faced with substantial attempts to rescind protections for the LGBTQ community because they conflict with Conservative Christians desires to be dicks to the community. You know how else are you going to insure religious liberty/Christian supremacy? 

Now. They're trying to entrench the right for employers and schools to discriminate beyond what they already have. Think the Hobby Lobby decision for what some of them are looking for. Its at the national level and 1 year ago the evangelical who had just been made PM was scared of how things would play to the public and lied through his teeth saying that the Liberal party would make stop religious schools from expelling kids on the basis of sexuality. *gasp* What a twist, turned out after he won the election that he was lying and a year later they are trying quite hard to go in the other direction. And it scares the shit out of me.

[Varysblackfyre321]

20 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Now. They're trying to entrench the right for employers and schools to discriminate beyond what they already have. Think the Hobby Lobby decision for what some of them are looking for. Its at the national level and 1 year ago the evangelical who had just been made PM was scared of how things would play to the public and lied through his teeth saying that the Liberal party would make stop religious schools from expelling kids on the basis of sexuality. *gasp* What a twist, turned out after he won the election that he was lying and a year later they are trying quite hard to go in the other direction. And it scares the shit out of me.

Ok I concede that was dumb question to ask.

To the bolded that’s exactly the right sentiment for one to hold. . Too many people(even legitimately well-meaning individuals), fail to realize how precarious the state of LGBTQ rights are.

 

 

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

Now. They're trying to entrench the right for employers and schools to discriminate beyond what they already have. Think the Hobby Lobby decision for what some of them are looking for. Its at the national level and 1 year ago the evangelical who had just been made PM was scared of how things would play to the public and lied through his teeth saying that the Liberal party would make stop religious schools from expelling kids on the basis of sexuality. *gasp* What a twist, turned out after he won the election that he was lying and a year later they are trying quite hard to go in the other direction. And it scares the shit out of me.

Why not just send your kids to a non-religious school? Or a school of a different religion? Honestly, if my whole family were left handed, and there was a religion that disapproved of left handed people, why on earth would I send my kids to a school run by that religion?

It makes no sense.

[karaddin]

Yes, because gay kids clearly always have the good sense to be born to families that already know they're gay and to avoid religious schools. Protecting and educating kids is the purpose of schools, not protecting the bigotries of their parents and their peers parents, and any kid can be queer without the knowledge of their peers, their parents, their school or even themselves yet. You put that kid in an environment where they can have their entire life pulled out from them and that's inflicting trauma on them that will linger for a life time.

The bigotry is the shit that doesn't make sense, which happens to be true for your absurd hypothetical. 

[Impmk2]

There's also that almost the entirety (94%! )of the private school system is Australia is religious. So if the local public school is crap, as a gay student you're just screwed then?

[Jeor]

14 hours ago, Paxter said:

Not to be outdone, the NSW Libs are apparently going to call a spill motion in protest against modernizing the legal framework around abortion. What a joke.

It is rather stupid, but I think it died a quick death.

The only thing I'm a bit iffy about is the possibility of late-term (22+ weeks) abortions based on non-health reasons (e.g. the social or economic impact which I think two doctors can still sign off on) but as a single male I recognise I don't hold many cards in this debate compared to others, so I'm not going to die on a hill about it.

[Jeor]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

The bigotry is the shit that doesn't make sense, which happens to be true for your absurd hypothetical. 

To be honest, on this one I think the headlines are a bit more of a beat-up.

I work for a religious, independent school and we have openly gay students, and have recently enrolled transgender students who use their chosen bathrooms. From what I understand, we aren't a groundbreaking religious school in this regard. Yes, perhaps there are some more hard-line schools out there but on the ground I just don't see it. The idea that we would expel someone for being gay is absolutely laughable, and the fact that the LGBT lobby (many of who don't have first-hand experience in schools or who can point to an example of a gay kid being expelled from a school for being gay) peddle this line in the media does them a great discredit. It shows they are into whipping up misinformed outrage (admittedly everyone else does, so they aren't alone in this regard).

I'm not for a second questioning the fact that LGBT people suffer from discrimination and that teens especially in this area have very poor outcomes in terms of self-harm and mental health. That's a given. But I think tarnishing every single religious school with the same brush is, rather ironically, quite prejudicial.

[karaddin]

18 minutes ago, Jeor said:

To be honest, on this one I think the headlines are a bit more of a beat-up.

I work for a religious, independent school and we have openly gay students, and have recently enrolled transgender students who use their chosen bathrooms. From what I understand, we aren't a groundbreaking religious school in this regard. Yes, perhaps there are some more hard-line schools out there but on the ground I just don't see it. The idea that we would expel someone for being gay is absolutely laughable, and the fact that the LGBT lobby (many of who don't have first-hand experience in schools or who can point to an example of a gay kid being expelled from a school for being gay) peddle this line in the media does them a great discredit. It shows they are into whipping up misinformed outrage (admittedly everyone else does, so they aren't alone in this regard).

I'm not for a second questioning the fact that LGBT people suffer from discrimination and that teens especially in this area have very poor outcomes in terms of self-harm and mental health. That's a given. But I think tarnishing every single religious school with the same brush is, rather ironically, quite prejudicial.

If you think I'm arguing that even most religious schools would do this then I'm doing a poor job of conveying my point, which I think can be somewhat excused given the context of the person I was responding to. I don't think that most religious schools would do that, I went to a country Catholic school in the 90s and they wouldn't have done that even then. I do think that there are a handful of schools associated with the high profile assholes and they would do it.

However irrespective of whether the right to expel a kid is exercised, its very existence is harmful to queer kids and can act like a sword hanging over their head. Its a lot easier to be more detached about things from the perspective of being 30+ years old, married and in a career - teenagers have absolutely no distance and everything looms that much larger. Some LGBTQ activists may go to the point of tarnishing all schools like you feel is being done, but I think in most cases you should parse the statements as being about schools which would do that, not all schools generally. And its the most militant schools/vocal christians that do far more tarnishing of the religious communities in Australia. The hope I have that the encroachment of US style religious bigotries into this country is all of the religious people here who are much more true to the vision of Christianity my parents raised me with. A huge part of the objective of this shit is to try wedge the secular country and the reasonable Christians to try force said Christians onto the same side as the bigots.

[Jeor]

3 hours ago, karaddin said:

I think in most cases you should parse the statements as being about schools which would do that, not all schools generally. And its the most militant schools/vocal christians that do far more tarnishing of the religious communities in Australia.

Of course realistically I parse those comments, but I have the benefit of being on the ground in a school. I think the LGBT lobby has an interest in making the general public think that gay students are being expelled all over the country from these big bad religious schools in order to further their cause. Then again, as in my earlier post, they're not the only ones to try and generate and harness the power of outrage, so I guess I shouldn't expect more from them than any other organisation (religions included, who also generate outrage for their own means).

In the end I don't like how the debate is framed (and how it ignores reality in many actual cases), but I guess I can't hold them to a higher bar if the other side won't either. Oh well! 

3 hours ago, Jeor said:

The only thing I'm a bit iffy about is the possibility of late-term (22+ weeks) abortions based on non-health reasons (e.g. the social or economic impact which I think two doctors can still sign off on) but as a single male I recognise I don't hold many cards in this debate compared to others, so I'm not going to die on a hill about it.

Since we're on hot topics...what is the reasoning behind allowing abortions after 22 weeks for economic or social reasons? I understand sometimes  serious medical issues might crop up later in the pregnancy that weren't known beforehand, so I'm not contesting those. I'm just uneasy about a social or economic reason to terminate a pregnancy at a stage (e.g. 30 weeks) when we know a baby can be safely delivered and still become a fully-functioning, healthy child. As I said in my previous post, I am a single male so I realise I'm not speaking with any particular authority here, but I'm curious about how that situation might come about.

[Paxter]

3 hours ago, Jeor said:

Yes, perhaps there are some more hard-line schools out there but on the ground I just don't see it. The idea that we would expel someone for being gay is absolutely laughable, and the fact that the LGBT lobby (many of who don't have first-hand experience in schools or who can point to an example of a gay kid being expelled from a school for being gay) peddle this line in the media does them a great discredit. 

Maybe so for students, but what about staff? Is it right that my sister would be sacked for telling her colleagues that she is gay?

Also, we might want to change the thread title. Looks like the Libs are keeping ICAC in business after all with a Minister resigning ahead of an investigation.

[Varysblackfyre321]

7 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Why not just send your kids to a non-religious school? Or a school of a different religion? Honestly, if my whole family were left handed, and there was a religion that disapproved of left handed people, why on earth would I send my kids to a school run by that religion?

It makes no sense.

This is hypocritical. You cried a multi-millionaire Rugby player should be able to make a list of people he thinks are going to Hell and push it out on Social media without fear of getting fired.   Hey what happened to you’re “same should stay with same mentality there?  Why not just say if this guy’s beliefs purportedly run countenance to the beliefs and image  company wants to  convey, he stop complaining and find a company that shares his views? I’m guessing because you agree with him. 

Also Private Schools are still schools. It’s not a matter of “freedom” to segregate based on sexuality anymore than it was a matter of “freedom” anymore private schools that were legally allowed exclude children based on race was about freedom.

6 hours ago, Impmk2 said:

There's also that almost the entirety (94%! )of the private school system is Australia is religious. So if the local public school is crap, as a gay student you're just screwed then?

Apparently it should be on the table if the only private-religious schools in the area really dislikes gay people. That poor gay teenager requires less protection than that rich homophobe who thinks gay people deserve to be tortured.

[Paxter]

The new (and second in as many months!) Adam Goodes documentary "The Australian Dream" is worth a look. It certainly has a particular slant on the controversy but they did put Boult's views into the mix for a dissenting voice. 

[Stubby]

3 hours ago, Paxter said:

The new (and second in as many months!) Adam Goodes documentary "The Australian Dream" is worth a look. It certainly has a particular slant on the controversy but they did put Boult's views into the mix for a dissenting voice. 

Andrew Bolt? If so, that is not a "dissenting" voice, it is a dissembling voice.

[Paxter]

15 hours ago, Stubby said:

Andrew Bolt? If so, that is not a "dissenting" voice, it is a dissembling voice.

Whoops...got the spelling confused with NZ's left-arm opening bowler!

I think the doco is worth a watch though. 

[Paxter]

The Giants finally win a prelim! Happy to see Collingwood miss out on another GF...give someone else a go!

[Paxter]

No cigar for the Giants, but at least abortion has now been decriminalised in our nation's most populous state. 

Not sure who to go for in the NRL final...I'm not a fan of Canberra generally but seeing the Roosters win two in a row is equally nauseating. 

[Jeor]

My interest in the AFL and NRL has now lapsed, given that I have finished an unmoveable 5th in my office tipping comp both times.

5th is not bad considering there are about 50 people in the comp, but prizes only go to the first four places, of course...