Weekend Wrap for 12 June 2022

Rodney Croome – Hot Button Dutton: LNP’s culture war against inclusive schools: "The Federal Opposition under Peter Dutton is about to launch a full-scale anti-LGBTIQA+ culture war against school inclusion. I predicted this before the election. Because contemporary far-right anti-LGBTIQA+ culture wars go in cycles. They start with attacks on discrimination protections in the name of a fake threat to ‘religious freedom’. They then move to attacks on transgender rights based on false claims about ‘women’s safety’. Or attacks on inclusive schools under the misleading banner of ‘parental rights’." (5 Jun 2022)
Read more at Q News

Kaye Lee – As the world turned to shit, the Coalition turned to religion: "With all that’s going on in the world – a pointless war, a global pandemic, rampant global heating leading to increasingly severe and compounding natural disasters, superpowers competing over our region, soaring cost of living, rising inflation, unaffordable housing, poverty, social unrest – the last government spent its dying days fighting for a religious discrimination bill we didn’t need and arguing over trans women playing sport." (8 Jun 2022)
Read more at the AIMN

Monica Doumit – The plan to crush freedom of faith in the ACT: "The ACT is set to crush the rights of churches in ways not seen since Christians lived under eastern European totalitarian regimes. And it’s all being done in the name of ‘human rights’ and diversity." (8 Jun 2022)
Read more at the Catholic Weekly

David Hardaker – Hillsong thanks Crikey for our service, and promises ‘no more secrets’: "Pastor Phil [Dooley] used his online pulpit-turned-performance space to push one big post-Houston message: there would be “no more secrets”. This may be a reference to the 10-year secret of Houston’s flirty text messages with a female Hillsong employee that occurred in 2012. ... Or maybe it’s the payouts that were kept secret. Or perhaps the non-disclosure agreements that Hillsong’s global board has enforced on US pastors. Or perhaps it’s the darkest secrets of all: the past of Houston’s father, Frank, as a serial paedophile. Where to end? Whatever the case, it’s all over. No more secrets. Hallelujah." (8 Jun 2022)
Read more at Crikey

Liam Getreu – How Australia’s new leaders really see Israel and the Palestinians: "In the recent election, aided by a febrile Murdoch press, the right-wing campaign to smear Australia’s opposition as ‘antisemitic’ and ‘anti-Israel’ reached fever pitch. With Labor now in power, it’s time to set the record straight." (8 June 2022)
Read more at Pearls and Irritations

Jane Caro – Why God has no place in public schools: "It is this inclusivity that demands public schools be secular, because prioritising any faith is an enrolment barrier. If you accept every child, you must create a community that is welcoming to every child. It is because of the core inclusivity of public schools that having chaplains in such schools – however nice and well-meaning – is an anathema. Worse, it is an insult. It represents the arrogance of those of a certain faith – in Australia’s case, Christianity – who regard any value that does not directly reflect their own world view as automatically inferior and suspect." (10 Jun 2022)
Read more at Rationale Magazine

Greg Lockhart – Anglicans, ANZAC and the nation: "There has been a change in the way we understand the ANZAC tradition. Since 1945, the literature on ANZAC has led us to think of its ‘classical’ and ‘stoic’ sources as a ‘secular’ national religion. Darren Mitchell’s important Sydney University PhD Thesis ‘Anzac Rituals’ (2020) more reasonably demonstrates its British imperial religious ethos." (10 Jun 2022)
Read more at Pearls and Irritations

Mike Seccombe – Collapse of the modern Liberal Party: "Katherine Deves ... was selected over the objections of local party members, at the behest of Scott Morrison, and was carefully kept away from media and public scrutiny for most of the campaign. Deves finally broke cover on that Wednesday street walk. With her was former prime minister John Howard. This raises the question of why Howard was sent out on the street with Deves, three days out from polling. The only plausible answer is that it was to ensure continued focus on the trans issue – actually a non-issue, given its irrelevance to the lives of most Australians. Howard was there to do what he always does better than anyone else in the party: foment division by escalating the culture wars." (11 Jun 2022)
Read more at The Saturday Paper

Alastair Lawrie – The worst of times: "As the dust settles on the recent federal election, and the new Albanese Labor Government settles into office, I wanted to take this short(ish) opportunity to reflect on the term of Parliament just ended, and especially its impact on LGBTIQ Australians." (11 Jun 2022)
Read more at alastairlawrie.net