On Wednesday the Herald Sun ran an opinion piece by former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett. It was undoubtedly one of the most silly and intellectually vacuous pieces you will ever see supporting homosexual marriage. Yet there it got pride of place in this paper’s opinion pages.
I wrote a response to this, but it has thus far not seen the light of day. I do not really expect it to either. The MSM has all but declared that there can be only one position on this issue, and the other side simply will not get a hearing. So much for freedom of speech and a balanced press.
Thus I have had to use my own website to offer this rebuttal. Until the PC zombies decide to close down the alternative media, we have at least this avenue to have our voices heard. This then is what I said in response to his piece:
Dear Jeff, can I ask you a question? If I demand that a group of vegetarians include me – a ravishing meat-eater – in their group, do you think they might have some compelling reasons why they would say no to my request? Would they not rightly argue that to admit a carnivore will not just redefine their core message, but define it right out of existence?
To accept meat eaters into a vegetarian organisation is of course to destroy it: it is no longer a vegetarian group. In the same way to claim out of the blue that marriage somehow has nothing to do with a man and a woman and should be open to any gender combination is of course to destroy marriage.
How much historical amnesia do we have to somehow think that heterosexual marriage is merely some recent invention – indeed, some construct of 1961 as you suggest? How bizarre is this historical revisionism. Basically every culture throughout human history has had a recognisable form of marriage involving a man, a woman, and any children that come forth from that union.
Yet we are now being told that marriage can be anything we want it to be. “As long as we all respect each other, and obey the laws of the country, surely that is all that matters.” Really Jeff? That is the only consideration regarding marriage – end of story?
Then what will you tell bisexual Joe who loves equally and passionately Sally and Bob? Will you simply tell them, ‘as long as we all respect each other, and obey the laws of the country, surely that is all that matters’? And what about the happy foursome who are “law-abiding citizens” whose “lives are short” as you put it?
Or the group of eight who do so dearly love each other. I guess you will be fully endorsing their “rights” as well to go for their nice group wedding? And why not, once you destroy the most essential, core feature of marriage, and insist that it can now mean whatever people want it to mean?
Indeed, a man may so love his daughter, and she him, that it would be gross discrimination to deny them their love – life is so short after all, and they really are good law-abiding citizens. And the woman who so loves her dear dog – just who are we to say that she cannot celebrate this love in a very public marriage ceremony?
You are concerned about mental health issues – as we all should be. But you simply have fallen for the mythology of the activists here. There is a very simple refutation to the unfounded claim that “homophobia” is somehow the reason for higher than average mental health problems and suicide rates amongst homosexuals.
Simply examine the data from the world’s most homosexual-friendly cities on earth, be it Amsterdam, or Sydney, or San Francisco. Guess what? The same high rates are found there as well. It really is hard to think of San Francisco as being so very homophobic.
Even the homosexual medical community admits to this, highlighting the very real physical and mental health risks associated with the lesbian and homosexual lifestyles:
glma.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageID=690
www.glma.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageID=691
Perhaps there is something about the homosexual lifestyle itself that causes these higher than usual rates of social pathologies. Why blame it on those who simply uphold the normal understanding of marriage, and are concerned about the wellbeing of children?
To say that legalising homosexual marriage is going to magically make all these problems disappear is reckless and unempirical nonsense. You really want to destroy the millennia-old institution of marriage simply because you think a few people might have a better self-image or higher self-esteem afterwards?
And we are supposed to accept this as a rational and logical argument for the destruction of the most enduring and vital social institution ever known to man? If this is the best your side can come up with, then can I simply say we just are not very impressed.
And we are “discriminating” against others by affirming the fundamental nature of marriage? Oh really. So is your beloved Hawthorn Football Club discriminating against you and me if we were to demand that they instantly accept us as players for the rest of the season and they refuse us?
Should we insist they also allow Essendon players to join in on their training and strategies sessions? It would be quite discriminatory to bar them wouldn’t it be, Jeff? And should we accept Rugby League players, rules, coaches and officials into the AFL in the name of inclusion, tolerance and anti-discrimination Jeff? If not, why not?
Clearly there is such a thing as good discrimination. Recognising a social institution which has contributed so many benefits to society, including the raising and rearing of the next generation, is not discrimination or hate. It is basic common sense.
Treating different things differently is the height of common sense and sound public policy. Homosexual relationships are not at all the same as heterosexual ones, so please stop pretending they are. If children had nothing to do with this issue, then governments would have no interest at all in the marriage question.
But the union of a man and a woman does have something to do with procreation, and that is why the state has a keen interest in recognising and endorsing heterosexual marriage. This simply does not exist with barren homosexual unions, so there is no compelling reason why governments should confer special recognition and privilege upon them.
And what in the world does the Catholic Church have to do with any of this ? I have not mentioned the R word once. The case for marriage and the wellbeing of children can be, and has been, made without any appeal to religion. And I am not even a Catholic anyway. So why all this sectarian bigotry here Jeff?
Regrettably you are so uninformed on the social science data here that it is rather embarrassing to see you even writing what you do. Indeed, you even admit that you have not read the doctors’ submission. So in complete ignorance you are bashing them. That is real sensible and fair; a great way to carry on an informed debate.
Why not try reading what you attack first? You will find in their submission a wealth of social science data, drawing upon numerous studies conducted over four decades which show that children do best, by every social indicator, when raised by their own biological parents, cemented in marriage.
Yet you think you can dismiss all this without even having read a word of it. Wow, that really does a lot for your intellectual credibility. These studies – and there are many thousands of them now – are utterly clear, and have come from all around the world; and none of them have anything to do with Catholicism. Yet you just attack a bogey man, and think you have somehow won the debate.
Sorry Jeff, but that is just not how proper debate and intellectual discourse is conducted. Attacking people’s imagined religious views without actually addressing any of the facts or evidence does not an argument make. But it does demonstrate that we are dealing with a very closed and prejudiced mind. Hardly helpful Jeff.
So please start dealing with the actual evidence, and stop setting up straw men to knock down. When we have something as important as the attempted destruction of the most fundamental social institution of human history, we really deserve some careful argumentation here, not moral and mental mush dressed up as an opinion piece.
56 Replies to “Moral and Mental Clarity Goes Missing”
Is this the former Liberal Premier of Victoria? Considering this won’t be published in a paper, have you sent this letter to his personal email address? I hope you do, well done Bill.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Thanks Ursula
Yes Kennett the Liberal Party man, who is about as conservative as Julia.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Great piece Bill, with the possible exception of the vegetarian analogy. I’m not sure what impact that would have. In my opinion, whether it be same-sex marriage or any other social issue, too many ordinary people would say that it *sounds* like good idea, without properly informing themselves on the issue.
That’s why we elect politicians, to do the hard work and inform themselves. Some of them even fulfill that role!
John Bennett
Thanks John
Hey, if you don’t like my analogy, then provide me with a better one!
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Would a political analogy work for him?
Say, invite the ALP into membership of the Coalition…
John Angelico
Thanks John A. Yes that is a great analogy, one that even John B might approve of!
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
It occurs to me – with considerable resulting discouragement – that there is absolutely no attempt by most “pro” in this “debate” to even enter into debate at all. They are not the slightest bit interested in evidence and even happily and openly admit that they haven’t even checked the evidence, as Jeff Kennett does in this case. When someone is happy to admit that he hasn’t checked the evidence yet still writes something that is published by one of the most popular written media outlets in the land, what does that say about the state of the “debate” and the state of the land?
What is there to do other than be the “messenger” and wait for the resulting disaster because you know the message will not be listed to? I am not normally pessimistic – actually quite the opposite, but the complete lack of any analysis – indeed the complete lack of any desire at all to analyse – says some rather devastating things about the people concerned and the state of the land generally.
John Symons
Yes exactly right John S. There is a near blackout on anything from our side on this topic in the MSM. Freedom of the press is thus now a myth, and the words of dissident Czech novelist Zdenek Urbanek, writing before the collapse of the Soviet Union, are worth repeating here:
“In dictatorships we are most fortunate than you in the West in one respect. We believe nothing of what we read in the newspapers and nothing of what we watch on television, because we know its propaganda and lies. Unlike you in the West, we’ve learned to look behind the propaganda and to read between the lines, and unlike you, we know that the real truth is always subversive.”
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Great response Bill.
And I thought that newspapers were interested in selling papers?
If that was the case they should be publishing your letters.
I am sure the readership of any major Australian newspaper would skyrocket if they gave someone like you Bill, a regular column?
I have suggested this to a couple of papers before but alas, to no avail.
Great work Bill
Annette Williams
Many thanks Annette
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Dear Bill. This letter you have written to Jeff Kennett is just absolutely brilliant. As Ursula suggested please send it directly to him, but, in addition, is there a way it could be circulated somehow right throughout Australia? Everyone needs to read it! I’m not aware how this could be done, but someone will have a few bright ideas. We will pray for your protection!…so necessary. “Yet who knows whether you have come to (this country) for such a time as this?” -Esther 4:14
Yours most sincerely, June Westbury
Without disagreeing with the content, on first impressions this letter comes over as something of a rant. The frustration with Kennett’s position is palpable, and that invites an quick emotional rather than thoughtful response.
For a personal letter to a politician it works reasonably well; for a public speech to a sympathetic or debate audience possibly; for a letter to an editor to a negatively biased audience I think it exudes too much frustration.
And yet, it is too well written to be easily mocked or dismissed, and also long. I can well understand an editor deciding it is better to pass it up in favour of terser posts (either true rants or careful points).
A calmer and briefer critique, perhaps focusing on just the failure to interact with the surveys and the historical revisionism, might make a better (and more publishable) case.
(Short version: I have no issue with the argument presented, but I don’t think it is in a format that makes it publication-friendly, either as a short letter or full opinion piece)
Andrew White
Dear Bill,
When the Albert Park Raceway in Melbourne was opened Jeff Kennett wanted the churches to bless it, so silly statements from that quarter are not surprising.
It’s just another case of the vacuous profane celebrity pontificating on the sacred; a popular thing with the Mainstream Media.
And to June and like-minded people, you could Email Bill’s article to all of your friends as an attachment, or if you receive it as an email use the “Forward” feature of your email program.
Donald Battaglini
Thanks Andrew
Actually the article I did send to the HS was much shorter (800 words instead of 1200), and I did tone things down a bit. So for what it is worth it in fact met your criteria, but was still rejected. This is then my longer, no holds barred version of course.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
I have started to think that the best course of action would be for the church and christian’s in general to not register a marriage with the state.
Keep marriage within the church and recognised as such. The state didn’t invent marriage and doesn’t authorise it. God did that and does that, not the state.
Let the state declare it’s version of “marriage” and let it be happily ignored.
I know the great social evils which will occur should homosexual marriage be legislated, everything from re-education of children, adoption & molestation, imprisonment of believers who express disapproval etc, and I am not saying we should just roll over and accept this.
However, should our beliefs be over-ridden, I think the best response would be for churches to refuse to acknowledge the redefinition and to refuse to register weddings with the state at all. Let the church hold weddings and get the couples to change their names by depoll. Respect and uphold marriage within the community but refuse to give the state any toehold in the process.
It is only because the state has shoe-horned into the act that it thinks that it can change the nature of marriage to whatever it thinks.
Lennard Caldwell
Bill,
As always, congratulations and thank you.
Perhaps you would know or are able to find the details, of the following: I seem to recall reading briefly in the yahoo news about a year or two ago of a man and woman revealed as living happily together, and they had children. It may have been in Victoria. The reason it was reported was that the couple were father and daughter.
It has struck me that, apart from any religious objection, it is hard to define exactly why this relationship is evil (especially if the children are not suffering from genetic problems). We all, religious or not, know it and feel it to be evil, but it is not easy to give reasons. I think God gives us an instinct that this and other things are evil, precisely because He does not demand that we all be able to enunciate reasons.
Perhaps more could be made of such instances in our argument against changing the nature of marriage: i.e. if the only criterion for marriage is that any two people say that they love each other, how can one then object to freely chosen incestuous “marriages”?
Fr Luke Joseph.
A second point:
Dr Bernard Nathanson said that when they began to fight to have abortion legalised in the US, one of their tactics was to pretend that being opposed to abortion was purely a Catholic thing. This was despite the fact that many Christians of different denominations were then opposed to abortion. The tactic was to have people resent the Catholic Church’s apparently trying to dictate to the nation.
You rightly point out the false argumentation of Kennett in this regard. All those fighting the good fight should be careful not to let the debate become sidetracked in this way.
Fr Luke Joseph
Thanks Luke – yes quite so. As to the news story, I don’t quite recall this, but will do a bit of digging around.
Yes I have been saying for years now that the arguments used for homosexual marriage are the same arguments we can use for group marriage, incest, even bestiality.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Dear Bill, I think Donald missed my point & vision!! …far beyond sending emails!! We desperately need to wake up the slumbering majority that don’t know, & don’t give a hoot anyway, about how our whole society is on the brink of negatively changing forever, & this includes the majority of churches!
Martin Luther changed the course of history by nailing his thesis to a church door. You are standing for that which is right (your thesis). How can we help your clear expressions of right & truth be heard in our country? Have you thought of personally meeting with leaders of each denomination? It could be a starting point!
Sincerely, June Westbury
Brilliant article Bill! Great analogies. I’m definitely going to pass this around. May God bless you for the stand you’re taking.
John Nestor
Many thanks indeed John.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
I had a thought recently:
Technically, gays have the right to get married: to someone of the opposite sex. Regardless of someone’s “sexual orientation” their right to marry never changed.
If, for example, the government said “only heterosexuals had the right to marry someone of the same sex (’cause they don’t want to)”, or, if they said “only heterosexuals had the right to marry at all” then they would have something to complain about.
They really, really are asking for special rights here. They want to marry someone of the same sex and to refuse them is a “human rights issue” but NO-ONE in Australia has that right. Let’s hope it stays that way.
Sian Simmons
Yes exactly right Sian. And I cannot marry anyone else of the same sex either. So we are all completely equal here. There is no discrimination whatsoever.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Is the report submitted by Professor Kuruvilla George to the commission available to read on the internet, Bill? A link to it would be great.
John Smith
I haven’t commented on your blog before, but thank you for giving such a clear and reasoned argument against all I’ve been reading in the Herald Sun regarding same sex marriage.
Keep up the good work.
Scott McPhee
Many thanks indeed Scott. Welcome aboard.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Hardly surprising: Kennett defended the so-called “art” known as “Pi$$ Christ”. But he wouldn’t have the guts to defend Pi$$ Muhammad, we can be sure; instead it would be bleats about cultural insensitivity of such a thing.
Jonathan Sarfati, US
Quite right Jonathan. As Liberal leader and Premier he did all the wrong things basically. It would be unfair to call him a conservative. Just another lefty in drag.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Here is a bit of info on the marriage license in the US. Link, Link 2
Not too sure if this is still the case, but it is interesting. I wonder how homosexuals will fair under this law?
Jeffrey Carl
Lennard,
Thanks for your post. Let me take up two matters which you raised:
1. “the state did not invent marriage”. No, but marriage is what is called a “creation ordinance”, i.e. it was laid down at creation (Gen.2:22-24), and that being the case it belongs to the sphere of the state, which is an ordinance of common grace, and therefore deals with the created order. That is, it function and sphere involves labour, care for the environment, order in society, authority structures etc. Marriage fits in here, the regulation of which is part of “the things that are Caesar’s”.
2. The state did not invent marriage – that has to do with creation, but neither did the Church, which is the agency of redemption. Marriage as such is not a redemption ordinance either. It may be, and we trust is, informed and infused with joy, purity, and genuine happiness by redemption, but that does not make it the proper sphere of the church to inaugurate marriage.
In essence, in the eyes of the state a marriage is constituted by the exchange of vows, attested by witnesses and relevant documents signed accordingly. The rest is frills – important frills perhaps as far as the Church is concerned, but in view of the civil law frills nevertheless.
So the call to take marriage out of the sphere of the state is not really being faithful to God’s ordained institution. The Church’s task is to call on the State to act within God’s mandate, otherwise judgement will come. There is our problem: neither State nor Church are fulfilling their ordained roles, to the detriment of us all.
Murray R Adamthwaite
Yes I am with you Murray. I know some libertarians are talking a lot about getting the state out of marriage altogether, but that will not help anything here, but simply compound our problems. God created both church and state, and he expects us to use both for his glory.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Lennard, do not assume that if Christians opt out as you seem to suggest, that the state will remain content with that. The state will make sure we opt out completely by banning any church that does not recognise gay marriage, or any other kind of polysexual marriage. Our churches will be shut down.
David Skinner, UK
Football is many things to many people. But they could all say that they get pleasure from holding, catching, throwing and running with the ball. Anyone is free to join an Aussie Rule club, just as long as they observe the rules.
But suppose someone comes along to Collingwood or Richmond club and says that he plays American football and that he only knows how to play this game but that his relationship with the ball is just as passionate, loving and fulfilling – perhaps even more so than that of Aussie rules players; and that consequently he demands to be allowed entry into the club but to play the game his way. OK because the player is the son of the owner of the club, they have to let him in and all his friends, who also play according to different rules. How long before Collingwood or Richmond will cease to be a distinctly recognisable Aussie Rules club? The game will fall apart.
David Skinner, UK
The weapon that the gay brigade use to disarm is “diversity.” Everyone must sign up to “diversity.”
We are told that the definition of marriage, between a man and a woman that has been recognised since history began, is contrary to 21st century diversity. What diversity, we may ask, do the 10,000 men and women in gay civil partnerships with dependent children (almost uniformly lesbian), in the UK, who make up only 1.6% of LGBT population and only 0.017% of entire UK population (Office of National Statistics) show compared to the diversity of relationships created by over 9 million men and women marriages with its husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brother and sisters, nephews and nieces, uncles and aunts, cousins and grandparents and great grandparents? This rich diversity of relationships apparently no longer qualifies as being diverse!
Diversity for the gays means not an increase but a decrease in relationships – in fact their elimination, where husbands and wives are reduced to “partners” and fathers and mothers become “progenitors A, B,C, D …..YZ”. Already in Sweden, there are moves to eliminate the words boy and girl and to replace them with a one word,”hen.” When one reads the publication from Stonewall, entitled “ Different Families” [1]we find that out of the 16 families cited, 14 are uniformly lesbian and that differences are cynically reduced to the banal such as the fact that some have pets and some don’t; some shop at Tesco whilst others shop at Asda and some have camping holidays whilst others have five star hotel accommodation, without mentioning once the fundamental difference: the need for a child to have both a father and mother. The Reverend, lesbian, Sharon Ferguson minimises the trauma that children might have at school for being brought up in lesbian households, by saying that all children are bullied for a host of reasons; but then screams ‘genocide ’ if someone even so much as dares to raise an eyebrow towards her kind.[2]
And a quote from Adelaide Now – a more informative article:
“The Liberal National Party (LNP) government on Sunday pulled $2.5 million in funding to the group, saying its initiatives to arrest HIV rates weren’t working.
Health Minister Lawrence Springborg says diagnosis rates represented the highest levels in Queensland since figures became available in 1984.
“I refuse to turn a blind eye to what are obviously ineffective campaigns at reducing HIV diagnosis rates,” he said in a statement.
The Government will create an expert ministerial advisory committee on HIV/AIDS, to review and re-direct awareness and prevention programs.”
How about a positive email to the minister concerned
Springborg, Hon. Lawrence James, MP
Minister for Health
Level 19, State Health Building
147-163 Charlotte Street
Brisbane QLD 4000
GPO Box 48, Brisbane QLD 4001 tel: 323 41191
fax: 3229 0444
I just emailed Springborg congratulating him for taking this group on especially in light of it’s supposed “intention to move the core of its activity away from AIDS/HIV to more general, political issues”. If tax payers see this group’s intention as a reason for the general public to express suspicion about the group’s commitment to the prevention of AIDS/HIV they should not be surprised. It makes a reasonable person wonder exactly what they are up to with the funding. As for Kennett, he is just another bozo who cannot make a decision for himself about an issue, especially one that has the potential to stand society on its head, when we all get flushed down the toilet, where will he be then? Nowhere to be found I’m willing to bet!
Steve Davis
Not only do we live in an age of people suffering all manner of phobias but also an age of new fascisms such as the Homo-fascism and Eco-fascism. Such people say and do whatever they can to dominate and destroy anyone that objects to their ideology.
Darryl Allen
Is this the same Jeff Kennett who, if my memory serves me correctly, stated quite recently that children raised by their own mother and father, who are married to one another, fare best on a range of social indicators? I also seem to remember that on that occasion, and under pressure from the homosexual lobby, he retracted his statement. Now it seems that in order to grovel to those who have brought him to heel, he has outdone himself in his sycophancy.
Ah well, once a politician always a politician.
Dunstan Hartley
Yes he did Dunstan. Talk about flip-flopping all over the place. I wrote up his earlier remarks here:
That makes two “silly and intellectually vacuous pieces you will ever see supporting homosexual marriage” in the same paper in one week. Rivalling Kennett’s piece for banality was one by Eddie McGuire in the Sunday Herald-Sun of last week (May 13).
Ewan McDonald, Victoria.
Yes quite right Ewan. One has to ask why it is that the Herald Sun almost seems to be in bed with groups like Planned Parenthood.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Lennard’s proposed solution may not be the wisest or the correct one. What Murray said in response is sound – marriage is a creation ordinance and therefore the domain of the State. But Lennard might be onto something important. Let me attempt to tease this out.
Once the State recognises gay marriage, the concept of marriage will have been radically re-defined, and that will affect the State’s recognition of ALL marriages – including heterosexual marriages. So, the State will look at my wife and I, and regard us having a relationship which it calls “marriage” (2 adults of any gender combination in a domestic and legal union, which may or may be to the exclusion of all others), but this does not fit the true definition of marriage found in Scripture (the lifelong union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others). This being the case, it could be argued that my marriage (biblically understood) will not be recognised by the State and nor will any other heterosexual marriage. We could say that, at this point, the State will no longer be performing one of the duties within its sphere, namely the regulation and recognition of marriage.
That would leave us in a strange kind of limbo. The state no longer properly recognises marriage (the “marriage” it recognises is not really marriage, it is just a domestic partnership) – so who does? Hopefully, the church will still recognise biblical marriage. Now, I’m not saying that we should transfer a duty of the State to the church (which is what Lennard proposes). We should keep calling on the State to re-define marriage back to its correct definition, and keep registering heterosexual marriages with the State. But, while the State goes on calling any domestic union between 2 adults a “marriage”, it will only be within the church that marriage in its true sense is properly recognised and honoured.
So in effect then, there will be 2 parallel institutions with the same name – State-recognised “marriage”, which is a union of 2 adults of any gender combination, and church-recognised marriage, which is a heterosexual union. As State-“marriage” becomes more and more meaningless (eg. if polygamous “marriage” becomes legal in the future, and incestous marriage, etc.) church-marriage would grow in significance and importance – and eventually there could be such a differentiation between the 2 institutions that we would find ourselves in a situation not unlike what Lennard proposes – where it is only the Church which is able to authorise marriage in any meaningful sense.
I’m speculating a lot here, but if the world is going to radically change, it is time to start speculating! What do you guys think?
Jereth Kok
Bill, a friend of mine is going to Disneyland soon with her 3 children and they are very exited. I haven’t told her about all the “gay” stuff going on there, I didn’t want to pop her bubble, but what do you think I should tell her in order to be faithful to my master’s calling?
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Thanks Rev Bill good sense.
Des Blight
Thanks Ursula
I would at least tell her about what they have been involved in lately. Then this family can make their own choice.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Jereth, I am not convinced by your argument. At present, in Britain at least, churches are licensed to perform the task of registering marriage. In my own marriage, after the wedding service, my wife, and our parents disappeared briefly with the church minister into his office where the marriage register was duly signed and witnessed by all. This “privilege” will be taken away from churches if they refuse to sign up to the diversity laws. Any marriage performed in church will be illegal. Our marriages will not be recognised by law. But maybe I don’t understand your argument.
David Skinner, UK
Hi David,
Yes, one possible outcome is that a totalitarian Government cracks down and revokes the licence of all ministers who refuse to perform gay weddings. I sincerely hope it does not ever get that bad.
But let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that this happens: churches lose their licence to marry people. We all have to go to a secular “marriage” celebrant to get “married”. Even in this scenario, the “marriages” that occur under the authorisation of the State are not truly Biblical marriages — because the State now defines marriage as “2 adults of any gender combination” rather than “a man and a woman”. I would argue that even heterosexual couples are not married in the biblical sense, under this system, because the State’s definition of “marriage” is not the biblical definition.
We now have 2 options in this situation.
1. Simply accept that “marriage” now has a lesser and false definition, and do nothing further. Wait until a future time, when by God’s intervention the true definition of marriage is restored by the state.
2. Accept and live with the state’s false definition of “marriage”, but create (within the Churches) a system of formally recognising and registering true (man-woman) marriage. So, when a Christian couple wishes to marry, they have to first go to the State celebrant to register their official but watered down version of “marriage”, then go to the church to register their true (biblical) marriage. The second register will, of course, be accepted only by the church — it will be ignored by secular authorities. But that way Christian couples can feel that they are “married” in the eyes of the law (the state) as well as having a genuine marriage, before God and His people, which is celebrated and honoured in the church.
Does that clarify?
BTW, I don’t personally know which of the 2 options will be the wisest way forward. We (the church) will have to decide when the time comes.
Jereth Kok
Hi all! As well as Bill’s book may I also recommend a couple of others? First “A Queer Thing Happened to America” by Michael Brown (available through Amazon) details some of the ways Gay activists, once they have their foot in the door, use that opening to further attack the liberties of Christians and others who oppose the “gay agenda”. There are some shocking examples, particularly on the part of so-called “Gay Christians” (an oxymoron if ever there was one). Also, for theological refutations of the positions of those “Christians” supporting homosexuality see “The Same Sex Controversy” by James White and Jeffrey D Neill. Both are worth reading. (James White also provides a lengthy response to a sermon by a “Gay Christian” at http://www.aomin.org/aoblog. I recommend it.)
Mick Balder
Thanks Mick
Yes both are excellent books. I did a review of Michael’s book here:
Is this the former Liberal Premier of Victoria? Considering this won’t be published in a paper, have you sent this letter to his personal email address? I hope you do, well done Bill.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Thanks Ursula
Yes Kennett the Liberal Party man, who is about as conservative as Julia.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Great piece Bill, with the possible exception of the vegetarian analogy. I’m not sure what impact that would have. In my opinion, whether it be same-sex marriage or any other social issue, too many ordinary people would say that it *sounds* like good idea, without properly informing themselves on the issue.
That’s why we elect politicians, to do the hard work and inform themselves. Some of them even fulfill that role!
John Bennett
Thanks John
Hey, if you don’t like my analogy, then provide me with a better one!
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Would a political analogy work for him?
Say, invite the ALP into membership of the Coalition…
John Angelico
Thanks John A. Yes that is a great analogy, one that even John B might approve of!
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
It occurs to me – with considerable resulting discouragement – that there is absolutely no attempt by most “pro” in this “debate” to even enter into debate at all. They are not the slightest bit interested in evidence and even happily and openly admit that they haven’t even checked the evidence, as Jeff Kennett does in this case. When someone is happy to admit that he hasn’t checked the evidence yet still writes something that is published by one of the most popular written media outlets in the land, what does that say about the state of the “debate” and the state of the land?
What is there to do other than be the “messenger” and wait for the resulting disaster because you know the message will not be listed to? I am not normally pessimistic – actually quite the opposite, but the complete lack of any analysis – indeed the complete lack of any desire at all to analyse – says some rather devastating things about the people concerned and the state of the land generally.
John Symons
Yes exactly right John S. There is a near blackout on anything from our side on this topic in the MSM. Freedom of the press is thus now a myth, and the words of dissident Czech novelist Zdenek Urbanek, writing before the collapse of the Soviet Union, are worth repeating here:
“In dictatorships we are most fortunate than you in the West in one respect. We believe nothing of what we read in the newspapers and nothing of what we watch on television, because we know its propaganda and lies. Unlike you in the West, we’ve learned to look behind the propaganda and to read between the lines, and unlike you, we know that the real truth is always subversive.”
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Great response Bill.
And I thought that newspapers were interested in selling papers?
If that was the case they should be publishing your letters.
I am sure the readership of any major Australian newspaper would skyrocket if they gave someone like you Bill, a regular column?
I have suggested this to a couple of papers before but alas, to no avail.
Great work Bill
Annette Williams
Many thanks Annette
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Dear Bill. This letter you have written to Jeff Kennett is just absolutely brilliant. As Ursula suggested please send it directly to him, but, in addition, is there a way it could be circulated somehow right throughout Australia? Everyone needs to read it! I’m not aware how this could be done, but someone will have a few bright ideas. We will pray for your protection!…so necessary. “Yet who knows whether you have come to (this country) for such a time as this?” -Esther 4:14
Yours most sincerely, June Westbury
Without disagreeing with the content, on first impressions this letter comes over as something of a rant. The frustration with Kennett’s position is palpable, and that invites an quick emotional rather than thoughtful response.
For a personal letter to a politician it works reasonably well; for a public speech to a sympathetic or debate audience possibly; for a letter to an editor to a negatively biased audience I think it exudes too much frustration.
And yet, it is too well written to be easily mocked or dismissed, and also long. I can well understand an editor deciding it is better to pass it up in favour of terser posts (either true rants or careful points).
A calmer and briefer critique, perhaps focusing on just the failure to interact with the surveys and the historical revisionism, might make a better (and more publishable) case.
(Short version: I have no issue with the argument presented, but I don’t think it is in a format that makes it publication-friendly, either as a short letter or full opinion piece)
Andrew White
Dear Bill,
When the Albert Park Raceway in Melbourne was opened Jeff Kennett wanted the churches to bless it, so silly statements from that quarter are not surprising.
It’s just another case of the vacuous profane celebrity pontificating on the sacred; a popular thing with the Mainstream Media.
And to June and like-minded people, you could Email Bill’s article to all of your friends as an attachment, or if you receive it as an email use the “Forward” feature of your email program.
Donald Battaglini
Thanks Andrew
Actually the article I did send to the HS was much shorter (800 words instead of 1200), and I did tone things down a bit. So for what it is worth it in fact met your criteria, but was still rejected. This is then my longer, no holds barred version of course.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
I have started to think that the best course of action would be for the church and christian’s in general to not register a marriage with the state.
Keep marriage within the church and recognised as such. The state didn’t invent marriage and doesn’t authorise it. God did that and does that, not the state.
Let the state declare it’s version of “marriage” and let it be happily ignored.
I know the great social evils which will occur should homosexual marriage be legislated, everything from re-education of children, adoption & molestation, imprisonment of believers who express disapproval etc, and I am not saying we should just roll over and accept this.
However, should our beliefs be over-ridden, I think the best response would be for churches to refuse to acknowledge the redefinition and to refuse to register weddings with the state at all. Let the church hold weddings and get the couples to change their names by depoll. Respect and uphold marriage within the community but refuse to give the state any toehold in the process.
It is only because the state has shoe-horned into the act that it thinks that it can change the nature of marriage to whatever it thinks.
Lennard Caldwell
Bill,
As always, congratulations and thank you.
Perhaps you would know or are able to find the details, of the following: I seem to recall reading briefly in the yahoo news about a year or two ago of a man and woman revealed as living happily together, and they had children. It may have been in Victoria. The reason it was reported was that the couple were father and daughter.
It has struck me that, apart from any religious objection, it is hard to define exactly why this relationship is evil (especially if the children are not suffering from genetic problems). We all, religious or not, know it and feel it to be evil, but it is not easy to give reasons. I think God gives us an instinct that this and other things are evil, precisely because He does not demand that we all be able to enunciate reasons.
Perhaps more could be made of such instances in our argument against changing the nature of marriage: i.e. if the only criterion for marriage is that any two people say that they love each other, how can one then object to freely chosen incestuous “marriages”?
Fr Luke Joseph.
A second point:
Dr Bernard Nathanson said that when they began to fight to have abortion legalised in the US, one of their tactics was to pretend that being opposed to abortion was purely a Catholic thing. This was despite the fact that many Christians of different denominations were then opposed to abortion. The tactic was to have people resent the Catholic Church’s apparently trying to dictate to the nation.
You rightly point out the false argumentation of Kennett in this regard. All those fighting the good fight should be careful not to let the debate become sidetracked in this way.
Fr Luke Joseph
Thanks Luke – yes quite so. As to the news story, I don’t quite recall this, but will do a bit of digging around.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Is this what you are looking for Fr Luke Joseph?;
http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stories/peteroverton/441583/forbidden-love
Annette Nestor
Thanks Annette
Yes I have been saying for years now that the arguments used for homosexual marriage are the same arguments we can use for group marriage, incest, even bestiality.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Dear Bill, I think Donald missed my point & vision!! …far beyond sending emails!! We desperately need to wake up the slumbering majority that don’t know, & don’t give a hoot anyway, about how our whole society is on the brink of negatively changing forever, & this includes the majority of churches!
Martin Luther changed the course of history by nailing his thesis to a church door. You are standing for that which is right (your thesis). How can we help your clear expressions of right & truth be heard in our country? Have you thought of personally meeting with leaders of each denomination? It could be a starting point!
Sincerely, June Westbury
Brilliant article Bill! Great analogies. I’m definitely going to pass this around. May God bless you for the stand you’re taking.
John Nestor
Many thanks indeed John.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
I had a thought recently:
Technically, gays have the right to get married: to someone of the opposite sex. Regardless of someone’s “sexual orientation” their right to marry never changed.
If, for example, the government said “only heterosexuals had the right to marry someone of the same sex (’cause they don’t want to)”, or, if they said “only heterosexuals had the right to marry at all” then they would have something to complain about.
They really, really are asking for special rights here. They want to marry someone of the same sex and to refuse them is a “human rights issue” but NO-ONE in Australia has that right. Let’s hope it stays that way.
Sian Simmons
Yes exactly right Sian. And I cannot marry anyone else of the same sex either. So we are all completely equal here. There is no discrimination whatsoever.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Is the report submitted by Professor Kuruvilla George to the commission available to read on the internet, Bill? A link to it would be great.
John Smith
Thanks John
It is here, submission #229:
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate_Committees?url=legcon_ctte/marriage_equality_2012/submissions.htm
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
If we’re talking about “silly and vacuous pieces” supporting same-sex marriage, how about this one?
I read yesterday that Mickey Mouse has now come out in favour – at least in Tokyo! (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/the-other-side/mickey-mouse-backs-gay-marriage/story-e6frfhk6-1226357854067).
Roger Birch
Yes I saw that one Roger. Yikes stripes!
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
I haven’t commented on your blog before, but thank you for giving such a clear and reasoned argument against all I’ve been reading in the Herald Sun regarding same sex marriage.
Keep up the good work.
Scott McPhee
Many thanks indeed Scott. Welcome aboard.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Hardly surprising: Kennett defended the so-called “art” known as “Pi$$ Christ”. But he wouldn’t have the guts to defend Pi$$ Muhammad, we can be sure; instead it would be bleats about cultural insensitivity of such a thing.
Jonathan Sarfati, US
Quite right Jonathan. As Liberal leader and Premier he did all the wrong things basically. It would be unfair to call him a conservative. Just another lefty in drag.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Here is a bit of info on the marriage license in the US. Link,
Link 2
Not too sure if this is still the case, but it is interesting. I wonder how homosexuals will fair under this law?
Jeffrey Carl
Lennard,
Thanks for your post. Let me take up two matters which you raised:
1. “the state did not invent marriage”. No, but marriage is what is called a “creation ordinance”, i.e. it was laid down at creation (Gen.2:22-24), and that being the case it belongs to the sphere of the state, which is an ordinance of common grace, and therefore deals with the created order. That is, it function and sphere involves labour, care for the environment, order in society, authority structures etc. Marriage fits in here, the regulation of which is part of “the things that are Caesar’s”.
2. The state did not invent marriage – that has to do with creation, but neither did the Church, which is the agency of redemption. Marriage as such is not a redemption ordinance either. It may be, and we trust is, informed and infused with joy, purity, and genuine happiness by redemption, but that does not make it the proper sphere of the church to inaugurate marriage.
In essence, in the eyes of the state a marriage is constituted by the exchange of vows, attested by witnesses and relevant documents signed accordingly. The rest is frills – important frills perhaps as far as the Church is concerned, but in view of the civil law frills nevertheless.
So the call to take marriage out of the sphere of the state is not really being faithful to God’s ordained institution. The Church’s task is to call on the State to act within God’s mandate, otherwise judgement will come. There is our problem: neither State nor Church are fulfilling their ordained roles, to the detriment of us all.
Murray R Adamthwaite
Yes I am with you Murray. I know some libertarians are talking a lot about getting the state out of marriage altogether, but that will not help anything here, but simply compound our problems. God created both church and state, and he expects us to use both for his glory.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Lennard, do not assume that if Christians opt out as you seem to suggest, that the state will remain content with that. The state will make sure we opt out completely by banning any church that does not recognise gay marriage, or any other kind of polysexual marriage. Our churches will be shut down.
David Skinner, UK
Football is many things to many people. But they could all say that they get pleasure from holding, catching, throwing and running with the ball. Anyone is free to join an Aussie Rule club, just as long as they observe the rules.
But suppose someone comes along to Collingwood or Richmond club and says that he plays American football and that he only knows how to play this game but that his relationship with the ball is just as passionate, loving and fulfilling – perhaps even more so than that of Aussie rules players; and that consequently he demands to be allowed entry into the club but to play the game his way. OK because the player is the son of the owner of the club, they have to let him in and all his friends, who also play according to different rules. How long before Collingwood or Richmond will cease to be a distinctly recognisable Aussie Rules club? The game will fall apart.
David Skinner, UK
The weapon that the gay brigade use to disarm is “diversity.” Everyone must sign up to “diversity.”
We are told that the definition of marriage, between a man and a woman that has been recognised since history began, is contrary to 21st century diversity. What diversity, we may ask, do the 10,000 men and women in gay civil partnerships with dependent children (almost uniformly lesbian), in the UK, who make up only 1.6% of LGBT population and only 0.017% of entire UK population (Office of National Statistics) show compared to the diversity of relationships created by over 9 million men and women marriages with its husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brother and sisters, nephews and nieces, uncles and aunts, cousins and grandparents and great grandparents? This rich diversity of relationships apparently no longer qualifies as being diverse!
Diversity for the gays means not an increase but a decrease in relationships – in fact their elimination, where husbands and wives are reduced to “partners” and fathers and mothers become “progenitors A, B,C, D …..YZ”. Already in Sweden, there are moves to eliminate the words boy and girl and to replace them with a one word,”hen.” When one reads the publication from Stonewall, entitled “ Different Families” [1]we find that out of the 16 families cited, 14 are uniformly lesbian and that differences are cynically reduced to the banal such as the fact that some have pets and some don’t; some shop at Tesco whilst others shop at Asda and some have camping holidays whilst others have five star hotel accommodation, without mentioning once the fundamental difference: the need for a child to have both a father and mother. The Reverend, lesbian, Sharon Ferguson minimises the trauma that children might have at school for being brought up in lesbian households, by saying that all children are bullied for a host of reasons; but then screams ‘genocide ’ if someone even so much as dares to raise an eyebrow towards her kind.[2]
[1] http://www.stonewall.org.uk/what_we_do/2583.asp (Scroll down to Attitude Research and last link of the menu, Different Families. Read experiences of children in these almost uniformly lesbian families- nothing different here).
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00bqcs2
David Skinner, UK
Some good related news
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/government-pulls-funding-from-gay-health-group/comments-e6freoof-1226361378343
And a quote from Adelaide Now – a more informative article:
“The Liberal National Party (LNP) government on Sunday pulled $2.5 million in funding to the group, saying its initiatives to arrest HIV rates weren’t working.
Health Minister Lawrence Springborg says diagnosis rates represented the highest levels in Queensland since figures became available in 1984.
“I refuse to turn a blind eye to what are obviously ineffective campaigns at reducing HIV diagnosis rates,” he said in a statement.
The Government will create an expert ministerial advisory committee on HIV/AIDS, to review and re-direct awareness and prevention programs.”
How about a positive email to the minister concerned
Springborg, Hon. Lawrence James, MP
Minister for Health
Level 19, State Health Building
147-163 Charlotte Street
Brisbane QLD 4000
GPO Box 48, Brisbane QLD 4001 tel: 323 41191
fax: 3229 0444
Health@ministerial.qld.gov.au
Amanda Simpson
I just emailed Springborg congratulating him for taking this group on especially in light of it’s supposed “intention to move the core of its activity away from AIDS/HIV to more general, political issues”. If tax payers see this group’s intention as a reason for the general public to express suspicion about the group’s commitment to the prevention of AIDS/HIV they should not be surprised. It makes a reasonable person wonder exactly what they are up to with the funding. As for Kennett, he is just another bozo who cannot make a decision for himself about an issue, especially one that has the potential to stand society on its head, when we all get flushed down the toilet, where will he be then? Nowhere to be found I’m willing to bet!
Steve Davis
Not only do we live in an age of people suffering all manner of phobias but also an age of new fascisms such as the Homo-fascism and Eco-fascism. Such people say and do whatever they can to dominate and destroy anyone that objects to their ideology.
Darryl Allen
Is this the same Jeff Kennett who, if my memory serves me correctly, stated quite recently that children raised by their own mother and father, who are married to one another, fare best on a range of social indicators? I also seem to remember that on that occasion, and under pressure from the homosexual lobby, he retracted his statement. Now it seems that in order to grovel to those who have brought him to heel, he has outdone himself in his sycophancy.
Ah well, once a politician always a politician.
Dunstan Hartley
Yes he did Dunstan. Talk about flip-flopping all over the place. I wrote up his earlier remarks here:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2011/09/09/in-praise-of-heterosexual-marriage-and-parenting/
Then he quickly did an about-face, which I wrote about here:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2011/10/06/the-pc-mafia-and-weak-leadership/
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
That makes two “silly and intellectually vacuous pieces you will ever see supporting homosexual marriage” in the same paper in one week. Rivalling Kennett’s piece for banality was one by Eddie McGuire in the Sunday Herald-Sun of last week (May 13).
Ewan McDonald, Victoria.
Yes quite right Ewan. One has to ask why it is that the Herald Sun almost seems to be in bed with groups like Planned Parenthood.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Lennard’s proposed solution may not be the wisest or the correct one. What Murray said in response is sound – marriage is a creation ordinance and therefore the domain of the State. But Lennard might be onto something important. Let me attempt to tease this out.
Once the State recognises gay marriage, the concept of marriage will have been radically re-defined, and that will affect the State’s recognition of ALL marriages – including heterosexual marriages. So, the State will look at my wife and I, and regard us having a relationship which it calls “marriage” (2 adults of any gender combination in a domestic and legal union, which may or may be to the exclusion of all others), but this does not fit the true definition of marriage found in Scripture (the lifelong union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others). This being the case, it could be argued that my marriage (biblically understood) will not be recognised by the State and nor will any other heterosexual marriage. We could say that, at this point, the State will no longer be performing one of the duties within its sphere, namely the regulation and recognition of marriage.
That would leave us in a strange kind of limbo. The state no longer properly recognises marriage (the “marriage” it recognises is not really marriage, it is just a domestic partnership) – so who does? Hopefully, the church will still recognise biblical marriage. Now, I’m not saying that we should transfer a duty of the State to the church (which is what Lennard proposes). We should keep calling on the State to re-define marriage back to its correct definition, and keep registering heterosexual marriages with the State. But, while the State goes on calling any domestic union between 2 adults a “marriage”, it will only be within the church that marriage in its true sense is properly recognised and honoured.
So in effect then, there will be 2 parallel institutions with the same name – State-recognised “marriage”, which is a union of 2 adults of any gender combination, and church-recognised marriage, which is a heterosexual union. As State-“marriage” becomes more and more meaningless (eg. if polygamous “marriage” becomes legal in the future, and incestous marriage, etc.) church-marriage would grow in significance and importance – and eventually there could be such a differentiation between the 2 institutions that we would find ourselves in a situation not unlike what Lennard proposes – where it is only the Church which is able to authorise marriage in any meaningful sense.
I’m speculating a lot here, but if the world is going to radically change, it is time to start speculating! What do you guys think?
Jereth Kok
Bill, a friend of mine is going to Disneyland soon with her 3 children and they are very exited. I haven’t told her about all the “gay” stuff going on there, I didn’t want to pop her bubble, but what do you think I should tell her in order to be faithful to my master’s calling?
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Thanks Rev Bill good sense.
Des Blight
Thanks Ursula
I would at least tell her about what they have been involved in lately. Then this family can make their own choice.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Jereth, I am not convinced by your argument. At present, in Britain at least, churches are licensed to perform the task of registering marriage. In my own marriage, after the wedding service, my wife, and our parents disappeared briefly with the church minister into his office where the marriage register was duly signed and witnessed by all. This “privilege” will be taken away from churches if they refuse to sign up to the diversity laws. Any marriage performed in church will be illegal. Our marriages will not be recognised by law. But maybe I don’t understand your argument.
David Skinner, UK
Hi David,
Yes, one possible outcome is that a totalitarian Government cracks down and revokes the licence of all ministers who refuse to perform gay weddings. I sincerely hope it does not ever get that bad.
But let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that this happens: churches lose their licence to marry people. We all have to go to a secular “marriage” celebrant to get “married”. Even in this scenario, the “marriages” that occur under the authorisation of the State are not truly Biblical marriages — because the State now defines marriage as “2 adults of any gender combination” rather than “a man and a woman”. I would argue that even heterosexual couples are not married in the biblical sense, under this system, because the State’s definition of “marriage” is not the biblical definition.
We now have 2 options in this situation.
1. Simply accept that “marriage” now has a lesser and false definition, and do nothing further. Wait until a future time, when by God’s intervention the true definition of marriage is restored by the state.
2. Accept and live with the state’s false definition of “marriage”, but create (within the Churches) a system of formally recognising and registering true (man-woman) marriage. So, when a Christian couple wishes to marry, they have to first go to the State celebrant to register their official but watered down version of “marriage”, then go to the church to register their true (biblical) marriage. The second register will, of course, be accepted only by the church — it will be ignored by secular authorities. But that way Christian couples can feel that they are “married” in the eyes of the law (the state) as well as having a genuine marriage, before God and His people, which is celebrated and honoured in the church.
Does that clarify?
BTW, I don’t personally know which of the 2 options will be the wisest way forward. We (the church) will have to decide when the time comes.
Jereth Kok
Hi all! As well as Bill’s book may I also recommend a couple of others? First “A Queer Thing Happened to America” by Michael Brown (available through Amazon) details some of the ways Gay activists, once they have their foot in the door, use that opening to further attack the liberties of Christians and others who oppose the “gay agenda”. There are some shocking examples, particularly on the part of so-called “Gay Christians” (an oxymoron if ever there was one). Also, for theological refutations of the positions of those “Christians” supporting homosexuality see “The Same Sex Controversy” by James White and Jeffrey D Neill. Both are worth reading. (James White also provides a lengthy response to a sermon by a “Gay Christian” at http://www.aomin.org/aoblog. I recommend it.)
Mick Balder
Thanks Mick
Yes both are excellent books. I did a review of Michael’s book here:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2011/05/16/a-review-of-a-queer-thing-happened-to-america-by-michael-l-brown/
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Hi Bill, your challenge to find a better analogy was legitimate, so far I haven’t had time to think about it.
John Bennett
Thanks John
I do like John Angelico’s suggestion, and I have used a version of it in one of my more recent articles:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/05/21/greens-guilty-of-gross-discrimination/
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch