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.

Friday 12 January 2018

El Salvador Trumps the President

Even though the report is hearsay, one can imagine that Donald Trump would have called El Salvador and other countries shit holes.

Again, Trump's ignorant, inarticulate rant spurs me on to wax lyrical on education, information, compassion and care.

There has been a lot of hard work done in El Salvador since the terrible civil war of 1980-1992 but there is still a way to go. https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/After-25-Years-of-Peace-El-Salvador-Still-Has-A-Long-Way-to-Go-20170116-0026.html

That was when the Catholic Church in South America became divided over Liberation Theology as supported  by the saint and martyr Oscar Romero and those Catholic clergy conservatives who supported the military dictatorship. Needless to say the Vatican eventually supported the dictatorship. Now they say they were trying to avoid war...Pffft. The Church has always been wary of the left and still is.
https://www.csmonitor.com/1985/1205/ochurch.html
http://countrystudies.us/el-salvador/82.htm


The war was disruptive and catastrophic for El Salvador, with many thousands of perceived dissidents being dragged out of their beds at night, tortured and murdered. The dictatorial regime destroyed El Salvador's beautiful environment, trying to rid the country of rebels by burning all the land, travelling the country destroying people's farms and the jungle and planting land mines EVERYWHERE.

https://videosenglish.telesurtv.net/video/636159/the-bloody-involvement-of-the-us-in-el-salvador/

Here is a satellite image of what such an event looks like.



An El Salvadorian man, Juan Rojas, escaped that war and came Australia to study permaculture in the 80's in order to help rebuild his country when the war ended. After the war, he returned home and slowly helped to rid the land of mines and travelled throughout the countryside helping communities of traumatised farmers restore their ruined land.


I have nothing but admiration for those wonderful people who lost everything,including their families but found the strength to begin to rebuild under such very difficult circumstances.

Juan was the bravest of men and inspired me to become involved in politics.

We had a different kind of slash and burn policy here in Australia that involved ripping out all the trees and poisoning the land. Thankfully now there are good people in Australia and worldwide who have started a movement to restore/regenerate food land as well as trying to restore indigenous landscapes.


Shitful things happened in El Salvador but the people and the country are further from being a shit hole than the USA or even Australia! Bad things often happen to good people and there but for the grace of God go we.....

Which is why I try to encourage everyone to vote GREEN!   https://greens.org.au/policy

Haiti and the African Nations are in the same situation. Many African Americans are now relocating to Africa, largely Ghana and the people of Haiti have survived many disasters. WE must have compassion for and help each other or there is no hope for any of us.

https://www.arresteddevelopmentmusic.com/single-post/2016/03/08/Many-Blacks-moving-from-the-US-to-Ghana