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Displaying items by tag: australia

Thursday, 31 August 2017 18:36

The Marriage Plebiscite – A Pastor’s Resource

Brian Houston set an example to follow for many church leaders recently when he issued a media release outlining his teaching on Biblical marriage and encouragement for Christians to vote against its redefinition. He reiterated the literal interpretation of the Apostle Paul’s position on homosexuality, and called for respect from both sides for the other, clarifying that disagreement based in faith convictions is not bigotry. He encouraged Christians to participate in the voluntary vote, and to refuse to be the silent majority, in effect surrendering to aggressive voices seeking to dominate the future of our society. Christians are already being discomforted by cultural Marxism‘s advance in Australia. Just ask Tasmanian Archbishop Julian Porteous how free he feels to teach on marriage after being punished by the process of an anti-discrimination complaint against him for doing so. Ask Bernard Gaynor how free he feels to privately blog about the injustice and offense of Christian vilification and public indecency at the Homosexual Mardis Gras after the court ruled his employer could unjustly fire him for disagreeing with their workplace anti discrimination policies.

Published in Gender Mainstreaming

Australia is a multi-faith society. The 2016 Census shows that, while the mix of beliefs has changed over the years, Australia remains a pretty religious place. In the last census, nearly 70% of Australians self-identified as religious. The number of Australians who have self-identified as Christian in the census has fallen from 88.2% in 1966 to 52.1% in 2016. The number of Australians identifying as being of another religion has grown from 0.8% to 8.2%, with Islam (2.6%), Buddhism (2.4%) and Hinduism (1.9%) being the largest non-Christian faiths. The number who self-identified in the category of “no religion” has grown from 0.8% to 30.1%. This category includes having secular beliefs, other spiritual beliefs or having no religion. This makes it hard to be sure what these Australians believe.

Published in Religious Freedom

Let me open with a few home truths: -Those demanding the complete redefinition – and thus destruction – of marriage do NOT want a debate on the matter. -They want it rammed through without the agreement of the public. -They do not have facts and evidence on their side, which is why they despise debate. -They therefore do not seek to win the debate – they seek to shut down the debate. -If they must engage in debate, the best they can come up with is ad hominem attacks, mud-slinging, name-calling, hate and hysteria. All this is easily enough documented. As to the other side preventing genuine debate from taking place, and shutting down the ‘No’ voice on homosexual marriage, consider a few recent articles.

Published in Religious Freedom

What do abortionists talk about when they get together? Well, judging by the lengths some abortion providers go to - they don't want the public to know about it. But the 2017 Children by Choice conference was recently held in Brisbane, and we can get some idea of what goes on behind the scenes by looking at their conference schedule and speaker list. Children by Choice is a Queensland abortion business that is notorious for offering finance to disadvantaged mothers so that they won't miss out on the essential 'reproductive care' enjoyed by their wealthier counterparts. So, if you can't afford a baby and can't afford to have it killed, Children by Choice will loan you the money for an abortion. [It's not known if they also loan money to women who want to keep their babies. Presumably not.]

Published in Right to Life
Thursday, 22 December 2016 09:02

Reminiscence from a Veteran Pro-lifer

Les Jones is a veteran pro-lifer with decades of experience. Here he shares some memories of activism at a former abortuary in Carlton, Melbourne.

Following the example and inspiration of people like Joan Andrews, Right to Life tried a few Operation Rescues in the late 80s.  
One was at the facility of Christine Healy in Swanston St, Carlton. 
About 12 people blocked the entrance, while others witnessed outside and did not break the law. I was one of the latter group that day.
Those arrested were fined varying amounts, and accepted imprisonment for periods ranging from 12 hours to 6 days for a re offender.
The magistrate also banned Right to Life from witnessing within 50 metres.
The late Mary O'Connor, grandmother of Veronica Corboy's husband, was in a waiting room several months later and admired a baby.
The baby's mother told Mary that she had gone to the facility that day, but changed her mind and kept the baby, a decision that she was grateful for.
There is a young person walking around today as a result.
We had similar witnesses outside abortuaries in Wellington Pde and St Kilda Rd. Because of the ruling of the magistrate mentioned above, the idea of rescues was abandoned: Right to Life did not want to cause problems to Richard and his team of Helpers
Christine Healy moved to a new location near the University. We know of one baby saved through the witness of a young mother.
Published in Abortion

Melbourne Young Liberal member, Stephanie Ross, recently wrote an article for The Age, in which she was highly critical of the work of the Australian pro-life movement. (Click here to read the article.) Richard Grant responds:  

In her article entitled"Burning Men at the Stake not the Answer" (The Age, 7/11/2016), Stephanie Ross denigrates the wonderfully successful life saving work of longstanding pro-life groups such as the Helpers of God's Precious Infants and the Victorian Right To Life Association. She blithely implies that these groups have been abject failures and makes the amazingly misguided observation that "the focus of modern pro-life advocates should not be about criminalising abortion". In so doing, Stephanie has suddenly switched from being potentially a champion youth pro-life advocate to the ignominy of becoming a dangerously misguided arch-enemy of the unborn. Stephanie contends that pro-life advocacy had gradually "become out of touch at the best of times and extremist at worst". I'm sorry to disappoint you Stephanie, but I am one of the people who has been heavily involved for many years in the very same pro-life groups that you are obviously pointing the finger at.  
Published in Right to Life

CMP, or the Centre for Medical Progress is the organisation started by David Daleiden which exposed Planned Parenthood's illegal baby-parts trafficking business. Among their many undercover videos is a series taken at the 2014 National Abortion Federation conference held in San Francisco. Topics at the conference included self-care for late-term abortionists, as well as how to dispose of those pesky surplus fetuses - presumably the ones that aren't sold - very profitably - for research purposes. (You can read about how aborted fetuses are legally used for research in Australia here.) Planned Parenthood temporarily stopped the CMP from circulating this conference series.

Published in Right to Life
Tuesday, 20 September 2016 21:30

A Good Act is Condemned as Immoral

 If a woman is about to enter an abortion facility and a person praying outside the facility offers her help, is this person acting immorally? I have just been told of a lecturer in a Catholic institute who stated that such a person is breaking the moral law. His reasoning was that the action of this pro-lifer will do no good but only harm. Why? Because the woman seeking the abortion has already made up her mind – otherwise she would not be there. So the pro-lifer offering help won’t achieve anything. But she will do positive harm, because her action with be upsetting to the woman about to have the abortion. The situation, then, according to this lecturer, is that no good will be done and the woman who is already under stress will be further upset.

Published in Abortion
Wednesday, 31 August 2016 10:36

Are We Free to Disagree?

Another week, another encroachment on our freedoms - that's how it feels in Australia these days. The latest outrage is that there appears to be some doubt as to whether or not a plebiscite to decide the marriage issue will be supported in the Senate, or if we citizens will be deemed too ignorant to vote on it, and be made to leave the decision to our parliamentarians. 'Marriage Equality' Ammunition I was fortunate to be able to see Brendan O'Neill speak in Melbourne last week. For those of you who haven't heard of Brendan, he is an online journalist with Spiked Online, and an atheist libertarian. Brendan gave his Christian audience some fresh insights into the marriage debate and proved, yet again, that this isn't a religious issue, but a natural law (and common-sense) one. Brendan has been ostracised and publicly vilified for his stance on marriage, simply because he doesn't agree with the fashionable ideology of marriage redefinition.

Published in Freedom of Speech
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