Barak Obama was elected along with the promise of Change. This entirely undefined promise worked so well because the George W. Bush Administration was corrupt, immature, inexperienced and a fatal cancer to democracy.

It's not correct to claim we cared not where we went. The Bush years had taught us well that USA foreign policy had a history of, and indeed a skill in, abusing innocent millions to ensure The American Dream lived on. We finally accepted - like accepting the sting of a slap in the face - that crime and governance polluted the USA and Australia, with the UK not far behind. It is correct however, to conclude that perhaps only the deluded, deceptive and the pathologically optimistic saw only "good" in the latest USA President to do God's work. Also, simple pragmatism suggested if we chose to run we should look ahead - not over our shoulder - and by election time one was aware Bush was to be voted out much as Howard was in Australia.

Hence the sense many are trying to make of President-Elect Barak Obama's appointment of Reverand Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the January 2009 inauguration. Warren who has a knack for improvising, has likened abortion to the holocaust and homosexuals to pedophiles. In fact, as founder and senior pastor of Saddleback church, he preaches it, along with the inferiority of governments, businesses and education he hasn't approved. Rev. Debrah W. haffner, Director, Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing - an interfaith organisation wrote on December 23rd:

Well, it could be a handy way to snooker the Evangelical gangs and sooth their anger at being dismissed not just by most thinking people, but also by many previous supporters. Dr. Sylvia Rhue wonders what the values we want to see will become, whilst others are more critical. If you want Obama to "stand up for gay Americans", you can tackle a template letter here.

It pays to remember exactly what the more obvious corruption he can indeed change for ever actually is. With Bush, Creationists with child-like views of the world were hand picked and placed in positions of power. Educational madness like the silver ring thing, virgin pledges and curing addiction and immorality with prayer, siphoned off hundreds of millions. Research proved conclusively that faith based sex education failed, with participants having more sex, using less protection, taking more risks and suffering assault at higher rates than students not fed ignorance - or rings with magical bible passages. Legal retribution of sorts for violation of the First Amendment requirement to be separate from religion was secured by the American Civil Liberties Union. Evidence and education was shelved for faith, belief, ideology and abuse of the reality based community.

Lackeys appeared in other nations, perhaps meaning well but simply misleading peers and unwittingly making fools of themselves. We began to see the first chinks in the integrity of enshrining the right to religious freedom as a human right, when it was used to ultimately ruin, redirect or indeed take lives in secure democratic nations. Pure subjectivity began to buoy rapid reinterpretation of scripture using deadly subjectivity. Plus a nice dollar could be made from repeating useless programmes. "God did it", or worse, "God commands it".

Old themes of scientifically proven deviance, long since relegated to bigotry, intolerance and divisiveness began to re-emerge. The powerful evangelical lobbyists may often be dismissed around the world as liars and charlatans. But in the USA, they controlled the moral voice of the government. One piece of unfinished ignorance is redefining homosexuality as integral to pedophilia and the end of family life as we know it.

Like so much else to be proven naught but cowardly conservative cringing, "the curable disease" of "pedophile induced" homosexuality still terrified the moral terrorists. This rolled out despite the centuries of Christian backed homosexuality, pedophilia, sex slavery and outright debauchery which ironically continued seemingly unabated in modern times. It too engendered unique and offensive apologetics.

And yes, despite ongoing abuse, the Ted Haggards, scams of magical faith healing, the hard link between church identities and serial abusers, protection for same within many church communities, wonderful excuses such as "a private matter between [insert offender] and God", a backlog of Roman Catholic legal escapes and exposure of Pentecostal scams across the globe. Despite theft of welfare and enforced archaic medieval exorcisms, promotion of lifestyles that nurture HIV transmission in Africa, blatant theft of money for legal defence and insultingly tokenistic sentences, it is secular communities and those who value tolerating human beings who are to blame for a problem only a small minority can see. Or rather, they know they see "the devils work" as we hear in the sermon at the beginning and they must "strip the coat off" just as with Sampson and Delilah in the bible.

Essentially, pedophilia and homosexuality may "coexist" as aspects of sexual identity. Indeed, one must be a homosexual to be a pedophile, as evidenced by twin studies. The operative state of potential criminal predatory behaviour is homosexuality. 1/3 of abuse cases involve an adult male and a minor male we're reminded as a type of revelation. Males who abuse female children are "merely" pedophiles. Pedophilia and heterosexuality may cancel each other out in the mind of the biblical fundamentalist and right wing conservative. Many Christians disagree strongly, but can't match the media attention.

2008 saw more juxtaposition in the morality stakes between the USA and Australia. In mid 2007 legislation was passed in NSW parliament following the Premiers backflip, permitting somatic cell nuclear transfer despite threats of eternal torment to compliant Christian MP's from Australia's Cardinal Pell. In the USA in the same month, Bush vetoed legislation allowing funding for embryonic stem cell research.

In Victoria, Australia, IVF laws were improved in December 2008 to allow same sex couples and single women to conceive, drawing comment from multiple sources. Parenting rights took a democratic leap and the religious right took a deep breath. California passed Proposition 8 which added to Article One of the constitution: Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. Conservatives took opportunity to misinform and alienate further.

Religious conservatives did the thinking for you; "unsure of what to vote on prop' 8? Vote Yes" offers one Catholic "fact" page. It was a highly funded campaign and with a narrow margin of 52.5% vs 47.5% citizens had cause to be suspicious, given that California is the state most despised by conservative USA for it's homosexual decadence. Incredibly, the "debate" that homosexuality and pedophilia are related psychologically due to handpicked biomechanical similarities is regaining currency.

From Homosexuality vs Pedophilia:

On November 27th Fairfax media reported on our federal health ministers two homophobic staff who had contributed to the gallingly offensive 21 Reasons Why Gender Matters. Ironically they were referred to in her department as Health Ambassadors. A trashy piece of absurd bigotry it was defended proudly by one member and excused as a type of administrative mistake by the other who, to his credit, did insist he rejected discrimination and that people, "should be accepted the way they are born". John Howard supported the 'strategic summit' that attempted to legitimize such appalling rubbish. Health minister Nicola Roxon summed it up herself.

The intuitive thrust that masks the resurrecting pathological homophobic pseudoscience is aimed at "the family". Suddenly or intentionally being bereft of a father figure or a male role model, regardless of how one gets there, spells certain supernatural danger. Think of it as a snippet of the larger creationist rejection of "scientific materialism" and anything remotely related to Charles Darwin. The fallacious thesis is as much a call for quaint traditional - and problematic - values to be elevated to the status of essential, as much as pure bigotry. A raft of dysfunctional issues is to strike all who stray from the model of a nuclear family: referenced once by John Howard to applause at the Fatherhood Foundation's National Strategic Conference on Marriage, Family and Fatherhood in September 2007 - see video below. He managed with a straight face [bold mine];

"A properly functioning family is the best social welfare system mankind has ever devised".

So, it's for your own good when we get down to it. Forget what he did to indigenous families, immigrants, refugees, psychologically ill Australian citizens, innocent Iraqis, his own working public and indeed, poor Peter Costello. Forget the alienation and offence imposed on millions of citizens in Australia as gender bias is made up on the spot. Moral egos that justify the type of hypocrisy and suffering forced upon others are like a swipe card to areas of our nature some of us never earn the humility to fully understand. 

Despite both APA's definition of homosexuality being readily available, and facts so well known they are almost gathering dust, the type of rubbish pushed earlier this decade by Trayce Hansen, NARTH, Dougherty, the much criticised and antagonist of mainstream Christianity, Focus on the Family - who have a disturbing presence here in Australia - Christians for Truth, Catholic Education Resource Center, etc is increasing, making links to climate change seem almost wonderfully just plain old weird. The Mark Foley issue involving hand picked Christian Congressional pages apparently solicited for private rendevous helped create the media energy to re-float these intellectually repugnant themes.

In the Humble Firesnake Holeplex it is certainly hoped that evidence, tolerance and secular values of acceptance and compassion come to the fore and we gradually see the end of this 'science of homophobia'.

From The Fatherhood Foundation:

The first purpose of the National Strategic Summit on Marriage, Family and Fatherhood is to strengthen and support marriages and set a vision for the renewal of marriage in Australia that can be supported by all. The National Strategic Summit on Marriage, Family and Fatherhood is the official launching pad for the release of the 'Marriage Manifesto', a call to the nation to value and treasure the relationships that we all hold so dear. Marriage is the foundation for our families and families are the foundation for our nation.

www.gendermatters.org.au

"A properly functioning family is the best social welfare system mankind has ever devised".

John Howard - Sept. 2007

Articles mentioned are here.

Gags.
53 min, 53 sec.
23 MB.