Wednesday 9 May 2018

Keep Your Religion Off My Human Rights


If I said this already, sorry. If not, this is what I think about Israel Folau's beliefs on same sex attraction.

Elizabeth Farelly is wrong about Israel Folau and society is right to be outraged by his beliefs. He is wrong because he would deny a whole section of our society their human right to love and marry each other, under threat of eternal damnation.


She says that cricketers '... get well over a million bucks a year just to play, plus potentially a third of that again in bonuses. So covertly breaking the rules for unfair advantage is no different, morally, from insider-trading or slipping coal licenses to your mates. No different from electoral fraud.
Those are things people get jailed for. Yet if it’s cricket, somehow, you just have a little cry on telly and all is forgiven. Of course, the pressure. Poor you. Cheat as much as you like. ' Well that could be true and if so then there should be much stronger consequences for cheaters in sport. 


But she also says, ' None of that sympathy was on offer for Israel Folau. No gleeful parsing of rules, splitting of hairs. “Israel Folau has failed as a role model”, blared the ABC. Why? Because his sin is a personal conviction which, although entirely separate from his job, could destroy it.'



Is Elizabeth Farelly for real?

So it's perfectly feasible for people to believe that:

Polygamy is good ( Might be for men but definitely not for women! )

Pedophilia is OK,

Women should be stoned if they commit adultery ( Even though it takes 2 to tango ),

A person should have a hand cut off for stealing,

Lepers are unclean and should stay a long way from the city, in caves.

Parents should arrange the marriages of their children,

Little girls should be 'circumcised'

It's good to marry your first cousins but not second cousins

Santa Clause is real

It's OK to destroy creation because all those who believe in Jesus will be spirited up to Heaven when the time is right

The devil has horns and a tail and lives in all those countries we don't like or in those religions we don't like



Anyway...on and on ad nauseam.

It is possible to change your beliefs and sometimes it may even be crucial that you do. This is one of those times.


https://www.smh.com.au/sport/we-put-sports-players-on-moral-pedestals-then-act-all-high-and-mighty-when-they-fall-20180419-p4zamu.html

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/israel-folau-sparks-fresh-controversy-after-posting-link-to-anti-gay-video

Tuesday 8 May 2018

Anonymous pea brain.

Someone put a little book called 'The Shorter Catechism with scripture proofs' in my letter box today. Some cowardly, anonymous, silly pea brain is trying to tell me something.

Hey anonymous pea brain! I grew up in a devout Catholic family, went to Catholic school and loved the nuns,( not so much the priests) , won religion prizes, considered becoming a nun, studied the Counter Reformation and Comparative Religions and Religious Experience at Uni and went to Catholic Teachers College with George Pell as my principal.

Then I taught in Catholic schools, brought my 2 children up Catholic and went to Mass every Sunday and more for 58 years. I loved the Church....while being a feminist, environmentalist and human rights activist because that's how my Church and faith formed me. It's what my faith taught me to be. But then the Church shifted the goal posts...again.

I didn't turn on the Church. The Church went through a number of phases...The most important one for me being the post Vat 2 ecumenical stage which formed my perception of faith. After that the Church performed a huge, cataclysmic knee jerk, among other things.

So take your bone ignorant, uneducated, antiquated, sexist, sad and limited beliefs and take a long walk off a short pier. AND may God in Her mercy bless your little pea brain.