This stuff I think is very revealing. Traditionally, sporting culture in Australia has not exactly been welcoming to gay players and fans. An AFL pride round is a powerful gesture that homophobia is unacceptable in all areas of life, even in sport. What a fantastic way to signal that a culture change within the league has taken place, that the days of  violence and hatred and intimidation are gone, and that gay people are accepted and embraced as equal members of society, rather than merely tolerated. That is a very good thing, for everybody. And Wendy Francis is against it.

It’s just further proof that the ACL’s crusade against the “redefinition” of marriage isn’t about protecting marriage at all, it’s about trying to push gays back into the shadows and the margins. The fact that she sees an AFL pride round as some nefarious conspiracy just makes her look more than a bit paranoid and obsessed.

RELATED: Francis has a long history of hateful rhetoric about gay people and gay relationships. In 2010, Wendy Francis ran unsuccessfully as a Family First candidate for the Senate. At the time she Tweeted – and then in a subsequent interview stood by those Tweets – that legitimising gay marriage is like legalising child abuse, though she has since changed her story and now denies having written the Tweets and the accompanying press release. A recidivist liar, Francis last year lobbied to remove safe sex advertising in Queensland which depicted two men hugging, with dozens of angry complaints sent to the advertising regulator, the Brisbane City Council and Adshel. The company removed and then reinstated the billboards after copping a massive public backlash, and Wendy was forced to acknowledge that the viciously homophobic campaign was orchestrated by the Australian Christian Lobby. Wendy Francis believes Julia Gillard is a bad role model because she is unmarried, and once compared the PM’s de facto status to being a drunk. Last year Loree Rudd told the ACL’s Queensland conference that gay marriage should be “put to death” and Francis, instead of pulling her up on that disturbing remark, replied by telling Rudd that she loved her.

Trying to finish this before I see Lincoln. Not far in b 4 influence of Christians in abolitionist cause come 2 fore twitter.com/LyleShelton/st…

— Lyle Shelton (@LyleShelton) February 24, 2013

Lucky aggressive secularists weren’t around in Lincoln’s day telling Christians to stay out of politics. 1/2 twitter.com/LyleShelton/st…

— Lyle Shelton (@LyleShelton) February 24, 2013

This kind of stuff makes me wish that saying dumb things actually caused you to feel physical pain, so Shelton and his ilk would perhaps just not in future. It’s just a lazy, one-dimensional bit of revisionism for feeble-minded people, and it’s obviously just a lame dig at those who believe – as I do – in the separation of church and state. Like Lyle, I am not an expert in the American civil war and the abolition of slavery, but I know that reality is much more complex than he wants to believe it is. The reality is that the many passages in the Bible supporting slavery were thrown in the faces of abolitionists for generations.

Take it away, slavery-era American Presbyterian preacher James Henley Thornwell:

The parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders—they are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, jacobins, on one side, and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battle ground—Christianity and Atheism the combatants; and the progress of humanity at stake.

And Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America:

“[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation…it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.”

And Reverend Alexander Campbell:

“There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral.”

And Southern Presbyterian pastor Robert Dabney:

“Every hope of the existence of church and state, and of civilization itself, hangs upon our arduous effort to defeat the doctrine of Negro suffrage.”

And just because it intrigues me so much, isn’t it very interesting how the language of people opposed to abolition sounds so similar to tbe language used by the anti-gay religious right today? All that shit about “every hope of the existence of church and state, and civilisation itself” slots so easily into the religious right’s particular moral panic of the current generation: gay people. It’s the exact same rhetoric. The tactics are the same too: paint the issue as a conflict between Christians on the one hand and atheists on the other, throw in a reference to the “aggressive secularists” among the words “atheists and socialists”, slap it on a website and you’ve essentially encapsulated the Australian Christian Lobby’s whole body of work.

Not that it’s actually important or that pointing this stuff out is even likely to convince someone living in a permanent state of fantasy. I suppose it’s just healthy to remind yourself now and again that history lessons from religious fundamentalists should be taken with a massive fistful of salt.

“Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects.”

No, Joseph Ratzinger.

A man who makes aid conditional on the prohibition of condoms, and who spreads the lie that condoms spread AIDS, is certainly not eligible for any kind of “pardon”.

A man who condemns gay people as intrinsically disordered, morally evil sinners, adding immeasurably to the reservoir of hatred and violence against gays that exists in so many parts of the world, does not qualify for a peaceful retirement.

A man who takes on the job of responding to the massive catalogue of child abuse at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church, orders that every allegation and conviction be brought to his personal attention, and then establishes as Vatican policy that those allegations of abuse be treated with “perpetual silence” is not eligible for anything but to be put on trial for crimes against humanity.

Of course we’ll get what Hitchens called the “delicious interlude” between the retirement of the Pope and the ascension of another elderly virgin claiming to be the vicar of Christ on earth, and the whole horrible business will go on. But if there’s any justice in the world at all, Ratzinger will be hauled before a court to face those charges, and eventually die in shame and disgrace.

RELATED: The title of this post comes from the comedian Dylan Moran in his episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, and it’s just about the most perfect description of the church I’ve ever heard. Watch Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens’ blistering speeches eviscerating the Catholic Church at an Intelligence Squared debate in 2009. In his song, Fuck The Pope, Tim Minchin takes down the “self-aggrandised bigot in the stupid fucking hat.” Sarah Silverman’s viral video, Sell The Vatican Feed The World.

Meanwhile, speaking of nutters with designs on holding political office, you don’t get more deranged than Pastor Danny Nalliah from Catch The Fire Ministries, and the president of the “Rise Up Australia Party.”

From his website comes this cuh-razy account of an average Danny Nalliah church service, replete with casting out demons and adults writhing on the floor speaking in tongues.

One young man who was quite drunk wondered into the meeting from off the main street. Halfway through the service he got up and challenged Pr Daniel, but praise God that at the end of the service he went up to the altar and hugged him, then gave his life to Jesus. This man was looking for love and all glory to God that he found it in church!

Then a young woman who was terribly depressed was brought to church by her friend. She came up to the altar for prayer and as Pr Daniel laid hands on her, she started manifesting with demons. As the name and blood of Jesus was mentioned, the demons started leaving her. She started screaming, rolling on the ground and then started vomiting as this young lady had tremendous deliverance!

Many who had not seen anything like this before, were amazed at the supernatural power of God at work!  After about one hour the young woman was free from many demons and then smiling she gave her life to Jesus! Glory to God.

Today Pr Daniel received a call from this young woman’s friend to say that she was doing quite well and now the young woman wants more prayer. Please pray and uphold this young woman as there is much more work to be done in her life

Pr Daniel also shared the vision of RUAP at the meetings and everyone was so excited as they heard that Rise Up Australia Party was committed to protect and ‘Keep Australia Australian’. Many took membership and we were so happy when two people wanted stand as candidates.

Rise Up Australia Party will have its party launch this weekend (with special guest climate change denier Christopher Monckton!) at the National Press Club, which is just swell. I’m eager to see whether Latika Bourke, Laurie Oakes or Michelle Grattan start screaming, spazzing out on the ground and vomiting for Jesus.

RELATED: A real winner, Pastor Danny Nalliah blamed abortion for Victoria’s 2009 bushfires and once stood as a Senate candidate for Family First, second on the ticket to Steve Fielding. His Catch The Fire religious cult has been enthusiastically courted by Peter Costello, Robert Doyle, former Governor General Peter Hollingworth, former deputy prime ministers Mark Vaile and John Anderson and former prime minister John Howard, because why not.

Homophobia is mostly just dull and boring, but sometimes homophobia is just straight-up evil. Like when you have bigots bandying about the foul suggestion that gay people represent a risk to children and shouldn’t be around them, as I’ve been reading all week from those dreadful “family” groups threatening the Boy Scouts of America for considering softening its ban on gay members. In The Punch this week I write about the nasty way the anti-gay side has conducted themselves in this argument, and about the fact that this prejudice against gay men still holds currency in some areas of Australian public life. Have a read if you like.

(Disappointingly, I read this afternoon that the Boy Scouts have delayed a decision until May.)

Family First was always a party of right-wing, gay-obsessed, porn-obsessed, God-bothering sadcases, but they at least used to pretend to be a serious party capable of holding elected office and even wielding the balance of power. I wonder if Steve Fielding, who lost his Senate seat in 2010, is embarrassed or proud that the party has managed to attract candidates even more hysterical and unpleasant than he was.

Madden is notorious for driving a truck emblazoned with anti-gay hate messages that suggest gay men are after your kids (pictures of little kids with the phrase “not my kids!”, etc). It’s not possible to list ALL the stupid stuff he’s said and done over the years (I don’t have the bandwidth), but here’s my favourite from recent times: Peter Madden singing a hilariously bad rendition of Waltzing Matilda at an anti-gay rally last year along with Mary Louise Fowler from the Australian Family Association and a few others.

Here’s a recent Tweet on his private account, claiming that gay marriage is a slippery slope to incest and paedophilia and animal-fucking.

RELATED: Peter Madden, Fatherhood Foundation spokesman Warwick Marsh and fellow former Christian Democratic Party candidate Scott Nailon are behind several anti-gay hate sites and Youtube accounts, including Stand 4 Marriage and A Sensible Man, as well as these spam Twitter accounts that just post the same ridiculous and offensive links in a continuous loop, including a link to a story that blames gay men for child abuse in the Catholic church, an argument so offensive even Jim Wallace had to put out a retraction when he was caught saying the same thing.

Of course though there’s the usual misleadingly titled “family” groups doing all they can to staunch support for the bill through any means possible – Family First New Zealand leader Bob McCoskrie is trying to make hay out of anything he can find to peddle the same rubbishy Christian persecution stories popular among religious right groups in the US and across the Tasman. There’s a fairly good reason for doing this – because twisting reality by posing as the victim when they’re very much the aggressor is a frustratingly effective tactic, and because it gives them a reprieve from actually having to present even one logical and consistent argument against marriage equality.

McCoskrie’s latest victim of bullying and intimidation by the pink jackbooted homosexual thugs is Grace Carroll, an 18 year old Catholic woman who was invited to give an oral submission at the select committee looking into the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill, who he says was humiliated and disrespected and whose views were called homophobic by members of the select committee. McCoskrie has already put out the call in an email to supporters seeking out more tales of persecution.

Click to embiggen.

Family First NZ has helpfully posted Carroll’s account of what happened, and she is exactly as spiteful, sanctimonious and judgemental as you’d expect. I’m posting here some of the more laughable and melodramatic quotes from her complaint. She paints a pretty harrowing picture – you’d think that she was recounting some horrid Guantanamo Bay-esque ordeal. What’s she’s upset about is having people roll their eyes at her alarmist, rubbish arguments, and trying to use her religion as the pretext for why gay couples should be treated as second class under New Zealand law.

I eagerly accepted the offer to present an oral submission. Extended research shed further light on the Bill, completing my argument. The list of detrimental implications grew. But I was driven. And though I felt uneasy and unwilling to continue at times, the critical nature of what this Bill proposes outweighs any sense of the enormous task ahead.

How absolutely, positively courageous! And she’s totally not just a junior bigot because she used extended research to complete her argument. What research was that, exactly? Most of it came from a website run by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (not especially regarded, I would argue, as a scientific institution), as well as work by Jennifer Roback Morse, a paid employee of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage who has publicly stated that homosexuality is a “completely shameless activity”, that marriage equality advocates are trying to force a “hostile take-over of civil society”, that marriage equality as akin to slavery and Nazi Germany, and dismissed the need for gay rights because “there is no future in sodomy.” But yeah: Research!

Complaining that the panel included four MPs who were in favour of marriage equality and only two against, Carroll describes the favourable treatment afforded to a lesbian couple and the father of a gay daughter and others making submissions in favour of the bill. She notes that two gay men made reference to their families (“though their families didn’t actually appear to be present”, she snidely remarks), and uses scare quotes to ridicule the notion that LGBT people suffer homophobic abuse and discrimination, further heaping scorn on the notion that a discussion about the definition of marriage might include mentions of – sneer – “love.“

My submission time of 10 minutes was in stark contrast. My name was called and as I walked to the table, the Chairman greeted  me  frostily, rather flippantly, and the atmosphere completely changed. The heavy air was charged with emotion and I am still astounded that I managed to walk towards that table and chair despite apphrehension and feeling sick at heart at my different treatment and the apparent hostility.

Gay people in New Zealand were routinely brutalised and criminalised until very recently (homosexuality was still considered a crime in NZ until 1986 after multiple legislative efforts to change the law),  and the Catholic Church, to which Carroll belongs, did nothing to change it. But, yeah, I bet they were never “greeted frostily” or ever felt “hostility” while this was going on.

My submission opening  sentence “The Marriage Amendment Bill is illogical” was greeted with the Chairman’s incredulous shout of “Pardon!?” followed by a brief, awkward silence that prompted me to repeat it. Proceeding to read my  carefully prepared oral submission, I was aware of intense animosity by pro-­Bill members of the committee towards me – through their facial expressions and body language.

Facial expressions and body language – the very worst kind of persecution, for sure. But it gets worse.

After a mere 30 seconds or so into my submission, Chairman Chris Auchinvole MP – who’d minutes earlier ingratiatingly welcomed the previous 18 year old female ­got up, pointedly turned his back towards me, walked to the  tea trolley at  the back wall near his seat, and made a great show of preparing himself a hot drink and rummaging for food. This lasted for over three minutes, half of my speaking time.

Yet I continued.

MP Moana Mackey rolled her eyes and pulled faces during my commentary on democracy, when addressing concerns of the need for virtue, and points about righteous discrimination.

Yet I continued.

Personally unaware, but recounted by my mother, spectators loudly fidgeted in their seats, loudly whispered, sniggered, rustled papers and loudly blew their noses while I spoke, a stark contrast to the intense, respectful silence given to previous pro­-Bill submitters. The Chairman did nothing.

At the conclusion of her submission, she says, the ensuing silence was deafening. At this point I can hear Mrs Cross, my Year 12 English teacher in my head, warning the class to avoid using cliches in our narrative assignments.

Then MP Kevin Hague addressed me in an insolent, contemptuous tone, “I think you know who I am Grace” and proceeded  with a personal individual question of “what harm would it do to you personally if I married my partner, Grace?” Pausing to think, I replied that it was a matter of perspective and of the wider consequence. Interrupting me in mid-sentence he stated, “I think you’re saying that homosexuality is wrong”. “I think you are homophobic”. I responded by stating, “No, I believe in the dignity of everyone and respect all individuals”. Kevin Hague replied, “No, I think you are” in an unsavoury and menacing manner. I ended the conversation with a final “No I am not”.

She’s not homophobic, she just happens to think that Kevin Hague and others would devalue marriage if they were able to get married, and as she says in her submission, that gay marriage is a threat to families and society. How rude of the panel to roll their eyes at such a judgement-laden bit of slander which has no relevance whatsoever to the actual bill being discussed. MP Moana Mackey rightly pointed out that nothing in her submission contained a single argument as to why secular law should treat gay people differently.

Dazed, I returned to my chair to briefly collect myself, and couldn’t remain in the room any longer.

Outside, the entirety of the proceedings started to sink in, and I felt humiliated, disappointed and frustrated at my treatment by these supposedly professional Members of Parliament who could not even give me common courtesy or respect. MPs who think that democracy, virtue, morals and the majority have – in the words of MP Moana Mackey – got ”nothing to do with this Bill” or, seemingly, their jobs.

What an incredibly arrogant and offensive thing to say, especially coming from someone demanding to be treated with respect and civility. I really do wonder how this woman is able to square in her mind the notion that gay marriage will destroy democracy, virtue and morals, and that this is a respectful and civil way to talk about people. In one sense I feel bad making fun of her – but then, she’s not 12 years old or one of those poor kids from that Kansas fag-hating religious cult, she’s an 18 year old woman making a statement to a parliamentary select committee. She’s clearly spent a lifetime being fed some ridiculous nonsense by her parents and her church, but there’s an expiry date on blaming your parents for your behaviour. If anyone used that kind of language to talk about any other group – black people, Jewish people, left-handed people – they’d get booted straight away, and they’d absolutely deserve it.

She closes her pathetic whinge by chiding the LGBT community and its advocates for seeking equality and rights but not showing respect for her views, and quoting – of all people – the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, apparently without any sense of irony or self-awareness. Because being systematically oppressed and treated as a second class citizen is exactly the same as not being able to force your religion on gay people, right Grace?

Finally, she leaves us with this stirring last statement.

I felt sick at heart. But I have never been afraid. I am never afraid. To speak the truth.

Powerful. And chilling. And not at all completely bullshit and thoroughly refuted by the people there. There’s no doubt this is something that she’ll likely wind up being pretty embarrassed about when she’s a little older and wiser and when gay people have been afforded full legal equality – what a shame these silly words, for years to come, will likely end up being the first result when people Google her name.

RELATED: Not surprising that the opposition to gay marriage in New Zealand is probably just as hysterical and absurd as their Australian counterparts. Earlier this month, Sensible Sentencing Trust leader Garth McVicar put forward a submission arguing that gay marriage would lead to higher crime rates in NZ, eliciting many LOLs on both sides of the Tasman and beyond. And look, the Australian Christian Lobby’s Lyle Shelton is already trying to pimp Grace Carroll as a victim of aggressive, intolerant homosexual activism.

18 yr old supporter of marriage humiliated, intimidated & called homophobic by NZ MPs wanting to redefine marriage protectmarriage.org.nz/archives/mps-a…

— Lyle Shelton (@LyleShelton) January 27, 2013

Last week I transcribed and posted the video of Jim Wallace speaking to an audience at NSW Parliament House in 2009, in which he argued that gay men were responsible for the decades of child abuse in the Catholic Church. Specifically, he said that the Catholic Church had been the “victim” of child sex abuse. His argument was that gay men were responsible for most of the abuse and it wouldn’t have occurred if homosexuals were more effectively weeded out from the clergy. I sent him a please explain and this arrived in my inbox this morning.

Hi Jacob,

Please find a statement below from Jim Wallace as per your request.

“On the 9^th of September 2009 I participated in a discussion organised by Fellowship of the Round Table on Censorship on the internet. During the evening I was asked a question about child abuse within a church context where I stated that 70 per cent of child abuse offences within the church had been committed by homosexual clergy. It would have been more accurate if I had stated that more than 70 per cent of child abuse offences within the church involved same-sex abuse.

Research to date shows that same-sex attraction is not related to child abuse. I apologise for any misunderstanding or offense caused as a result of my error.

Paedophilia within organisations is one of the ugliest issues our society is facing and I commend the purpose and intent of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The Royal Commission is an opportunity to expose, compensate and hold institutions and individuals accountable for child abuse.”

Kind Regards,

Katherine

Katherine Spackman

Communications Director

The Australian Christian Lobby

It’s appropriate that he admitted that he had made an error in conflating paedophilia with homosexuality. I hope this statement is sincere and that he genuinely has adjusted his views, and that it’s not just an attempt to avoid criticism and scrutiny. I’d also like to note just briefly that there is no “misunderstanding” what Jim was saying in that video and the message he was trying to convey – you’d need to be using Olympian-level mental gymnastics to get around it.

I look forward to the ACL forcefully denouncing other religious groups and individuals who attempt to make a link between homosexuality and paedophilia in the future.

The original post is linked here.

RELATED: Jim Wallace has compared gay parenting to the stolen generation. Wallace says the campaign for marriage equality is comparable to Nazi propaganda. Wallace asserted last year that a gay “lifestyle” is worse than smoking. Wallace has said that gay people are morally evil sinners on par with thieves, liars and adulterers, and that gay people suffer from “shameful lusts”. He believes he is engaged in a “spiritual battle” with Satan. A few years ago now Jim Wallace Tweeted on ANZAC Day that the Australia that servicemen and women fight for is not “gay marriage and Islamic.” Wallace has admitted to personal involvement in the harmful and discredited practice of “ex-gay therapy.” Wallace also hired Wendy Francis as his Queensland ACL director, after she Tweeted – and then in a subsequent interview stood by those Tweets – that legitimising gay marriage is like legalising child abuse.

This, for some reason that’s absolutely gobsmacking to me, has not made headlines as far as I’m aware. Unless it’s a very good fake, this clip shows ACL head Jim Wallace speaking to an audience in 2009 at NSW Parliament House, purportedly on the topic of internet censorship. What he says in it lays bare the extremism, hatred and prejudice at the core of this “Christian” lobby.

He was asked by an audience member about the Catholic Church’s history of child rape by its clergy, and he put the blame on homosexual priests and homosexuality. Wallace put the argument that if the church were more vigilant about keeping homosexual priests out of the clergy, 70% of the child abuse that took place would not have occurred. That is an actual thing that he said, in public. When challenged by the audience to prove that homosexuals have a higher incidence of paedophilia, Wallace claimed that there had been many studies showing that to be the case.

The transcript and video below:

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We’ve heard a lot of facts and figures tonight about, you know, in a sense about the moral authority between the two sides. I just wondered if Jim could answer or quickly comment on the facts and figures on around 600 church clergy who have been prosecuted for abusing young children in Australia, and yet not one person from the so-called pornography industry has ever been convicted of that in Australia. I just think that gives a lead to moral authority in a sense, and I never hear you speak about this. I think we’d all like to hear something about it.

JIM WALLACE: I’m only too happy to address this, actually, because I think it’s an issue that hasn’t been addressed adequately. Some of you won’t like this but this is fact. In Australia, in Ireland, in America, the people who are prosecuted for the sexual offence against minors, have in Australia been over 70% – and remember the churches who have been the victims of this, have had a policy where they do not accept homosexuals as part of their clergy. They do not accept. And yet in Australia over 70% of the offences have been committed by homosexual clergy. In America, the figure is over 90%, I think it is. Certainly 80-90%. And in Ireland more recently, it is again 70-something percent. As recently as the last couple of months a report that came out from the archdiocese of Brisbane, again, the figure was over 70%, in fact in the high 70s. Now, what I say to you is, yes, the church has a problem with this. There’s no doubt. But it is being perpetrated by people that the church would never put into authority in the churches. It’s not an excuse, the church still….

AUDIENCE MEMBER: They have put them into authority.

JIM WALLACE: No, no, the church would not have admitted into authority had they known about their sexual preference.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: So it’s not the church’s fault, it’s the bloody homos?

JIM WALLACE: No, no, I’m saying to you, I’m saying to you, I’m saying to you it is exacerbated by the fact that the people who have got in there would not have been there if the church… If they’d been implementing…

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I’m sorry, I thought the problem was paedophilia? I didn’t think it was their sexuality?

JIM WALLACE: Well, I’m saying to you, I’m saying to you that 70% of the problem is actually to do with sexuality, which the church never…

AUDIENCE MEMBER: They’re paedophiles.

JIM WALLACE: Yeah,  but it was paedophiles with a homosexual attraction, which the church would not have allowed in there. 

AUDIENCE MEMBER: So 30% are…?

JIM WALLACE: No, I just said to you, that the sort of figures that we’re talking about here are also replicated in schools, in all sorts of places which are not churches. I don’t know the figures of the sex industry, I imagine there is less opportunity than in a school or a church.

AUDIENCE  MEMBER: I wasn’t aware of any scientist who said there was a higher incidence of paedophilia among homosexuals anyway. I think the problem is paedophilia. I don’t think it’s to do with their sexuality.

JIM WALLACE: All right, that’s your view.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Are there any studies you can cite?

JIM WALLACE: I can actually. I don’t have them here with me now, but yes, there are, many, many. But I’m quoting you a figure to do with the question I was asked, which was about sexual abuse in the church.

If only there weren’t so many faggots in the church, the logic goes, there wouldn’t be so many incidents of children being abused by priests, because being gay makes you more likely to be a paedophile. That’s an outrageous, off-the-charts inappropriate. totally wrong, completely bigoted bit of slander – yes, bigoted. I’m not going to bow to this false Christian persecution narrative that says you’re not allowed to call a spade a spade, when what we’re talking about is pure hatred, prejudice and bigotry.

By the way, there’s absolutely no evidence to back up what he’s saying. The audience members interjecting towards the end are right. Priests who molest pre-pubescent and adolescent girls are not “heterosexual”, they are paedophiles. Priests who molest pre-pubescent and adolescent boys are not “homosexual”, they are paedophiles.

What Jim Wallace is attempting to do here is tap into one of the most heinous prejudices about gay men in order to deflect blame away from the Catholic Church and its institutional policy of cover-up and denial of paedophile clergy.

Hat tip to @GeordieGuy.

So we’re clear, Jim Wallace blames the catholic church’s lack of ability to pre screen priests for being gay for the sexual abuse problems.

— Geordie Guy (@GeordieGuy) January 16, 2013

How do I know this? He said it eight feet from me to a conservative debating society in the jubilee room at NSW parliament.

— Geordie Guy (@GeordieGuy) January 16, 2013

UPDATE: Geordie Guy left a comment on this post filling out some of the context and the background to the event that Jim Wallace was addressing. The video is in fact authentic (the whole discussion is available online here) and was taken at a Fellowship of the Round Table event where speakers were discussing the ALP’s proposed internet filter. The speakers included Geordie Guy, Fiona Patten from the Australian Sex Party, Angela Conway from the anti-gay Australian Family Association, and of course Jim Wallace. His recollection of Wallace’s “meandering anecdote” is interesting and his thoughts on Wallace’s motivations and tactics are, I think, pretty well spot-on.

Wallace’s debate didn’t reply to anything else debated and wasn’t really possible to address. It was a meandering anecdote of children behaving inappropriately as a consequence of access to material of a sexual nature (in reality probably just as a consequence of being children) and the picture he painted was of a society where children would rub up against each other having seen sexual behaviour everywhere including on the Internet. At one point he gave a broadside to the adult industry which is probably what caused the audience member – Robbie Swan from the Eros Foundation – cause to give the unfavourable comparison between the amount of harm the adult industry has done to children compared to groups like the Catholic church. That’s what set Wallace off.

Wallace is a bad person. His absolute favourite trick is one that extremists love which is to place something they don’t like on one end of an imaginary scale and something objectively nightmarish on the other end of it and illustrate a false progression from one to the other. Gay people are just less paedophillic than paedophiles, if we have marriage equality soon people will be marrying animals, etc. etc. It’s very little to do with religion (petitions have been circulated and sent to the Prime Minister from Christian groups entreating her government to ignore Wallace and the ACL) and a lot more to do with crazy. Jim Wallace and his organisation just seem to have both.

RELATED: Jim Wallace has spent the entire day today defending his organisation’s cozy association with the prime minister, after it was revealed that Wallace had received assurances from Julia Gillard that faith-based employers would be free to discriminate against women, gays and others they deem to be sinners, even if they take public money. In a few of his interviews today, he’s been throwing in a stupid line that goes “we haven’t found a gay gene yet.” We’re no closer to finding the fundamentalist dickbag gene, either, Jim.

PREVIOUSLY: Jim Wallace has compared gay parenting to the stolen generation and the campaign for marriage equality to Nazi propaganda. Wallace dug a rather impressive ditch for himself after asserting that a gay “lifestyle” is worse than smoking. Wallace has said that gay people are morally evil sinners on par with thieves, liars and adulterers, and that gay people suffer from “shameful lusts”, and he believes he is engaged in a “spiritual battle” with Satan. A few years ago now Jim Wallace Tweeted on ANZAC Day that the Australia that servicemen and women fight for is not “gay marriage and Islamic.” Wallace has admitted to personal involvement in the harmful and discredited practice of “ex-gay therapy.” Wallace also hired Wendy Francis as his Queensland ACL director, after she Tweeted – and then in a subsequent interview stood by those Tweets – that legitimising gay marriage is like legalising child abuse.

Earlier this week David Marr drew attention to the fact that Julia Gillard’s consolidated human rights and anti-discrimination law will provide exemptions to taxpayer-funded services run by religious organisations, highlighting the unpleasant reality that she is codifying discrimination against gay people and women who, like her, are living in a de facto relationship and not married. This is because lesbians employed by Catholic schools to teach or sit at the front desk or do the gardening are, on account of their lesbian-ness, physiologically incapable of doing any of those jobs, which is absolutely true and if you don’t believe me you can look it up on the Bing.

The bad news is that the intolerant, aggressive homosexual activists still won’t shut up about taxpayer money being used to fund discrimination against law-abiding, contributing citizens. Gay people, right? We let them drive cars and even vote in elections – OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF OUR HEARTS. I really do think that’s more equality than they deserve, frankly.

The good news is that Jim Wallace has sought assurances from our wicked, ensconced-in-sin prime minister, Julia Gillard, that these protections, which exist for no other organisation except religious organisations, will continue to allow decent Christian employers to practice their faith in Christ by acting in a manner that Christ would certainly have approved (ie. firing poofs).

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has assured religious groups they will have the ”freedom” under a new rights bill to discriminate against homosexuals and others they deem sinners, according to the head of the Australian Christian Lobby.

Under current law, faith-based organisations, including schools and hospitals, can refuse to hire those they view as sinners if they consider it ”is necessary to avoid injury to the religious sensitivities of adherents of that religion”.

Ms Gillard has met Australian Christian Lobby managing director Jim Wallace several times, and he says she assured him ”she has no intention of restricting freedom of religion” when it comes to religious groups’ legal rights to discriminate in hiring and firing.

I don’t know about you but I feel these “gay” activist homosexualists and radical feminazi asymmetrical hair lesbians have gotten a bit too big for their designer Louboutins/sensible shoes from Target.

“Jim Wallace says he has had many conversations with Julia Gillard”. Why do they pander to this fucking lunatic? #newsbreakfast

— CrazyCatLady (@olivewhippet) January 15, 2013

RELATED: The official, duly elected president of gay people in Australia, Alex Greenwich, has put out a statement seeking Gillard’s justification for giving publicly funded religious organisations free range to discriminate.

ALSO RELATED: Jim Wallace Tweeted on ANZAC Day that the Australia that servicemen and women fight for is not “gay marriage and Islamic.” Jim Wallace has compared gay parenting to the stolen generation. Jim Wallace has likened the campaign for marriage equality to Nazi propaganda in a debate with Kerryn Phelps on Channel 7′s Sunrise. Wallace dug a rather impressive ditch for himself after asserting that a gay “lifestyle” is worse than smoking, prompting Gillard to withdraw as the keynote speaker at the ACL’s 2012 national conference. Jim Wallace has said that gay people are morally evil sinners on par with thieves, liars and adulterers, and that gay people suffer from “shameful lusts”. Wallace believes that he is engaged in a “spiritual battle” with Satan. Jim Wallace has admitted to personal involvement in the harmful and discredited practice of “ex-gay therapy.”