Immediately after John Howard and the Liberals won their fourth-term in the 2004 election, Kevin Rudd called together certain Federal Labor members to see how they could win the next election. The main strategy was to win over evangelical Christians, who had helped to keep Howard in power for the past decade.
Rudd knew that the only way that Labor could defeat Howard was by ditching its secularism – at least outwardly – and appearing to be Christian. Thus Rudd went on a Christian charm offensive, seeking to convince evangelicals that he was one of them. He did a lot of talking and writing, hoping to convince the evangelical community that he would represent their interests.
Of course some key concerns of the evangelical community involve family and life issues. So Labor had to convince this target audience that they too were concerned about such things. And of course there was plenty of rhetoric about ‘social justice’. Rudd himself wrote a lengthy magazine article seeking to argue that Christianity is ultimately about social justice issues – issues that not surprisingly looked a lot like Labor Party ideology and policy.
Of course many of us prior to the election warned that we must be careful here. Jesus himself warned about wolves in sheep’s clothing. We knew that long-standing Labor policies which were hardly pro-life or family-friendly would not be abandoned just because Labor learned how to use Christian lingo and rhetoric to get in to power. See for example some of my warnings:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2007/11/10/how-to-vote-in-this-election/
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2007/08/09/faith-leadership-and-politics/
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2006/12/17/kevin-rudd-christian-socialism-and-the-new-labor-party/
But Rudd’s strategy paid off, and paid off handsomely: Howard lost the 2007 election, and Labor rolled into power. Of course within weeks it became clear that this was the same old Labor. Soon after the election I documented ten areas of concern about the new government: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2008/02/25/reflections-on-the-new-government/
I concluded that there was very little evidence that there was much that was pro-life or pro-family about the new Government. And that perhaps there was not much that was very pro-faith either. (Of interest is how Obama and the Democrats utilised a similar strategy in the US. They sought to win over the evangelicals. They did win a number of them, and as a result they won the presidential election. But we are already seeing plenty of anti-faith, anti-family and anti-life policies rolling out of the Obama White House.)
Early concerns about the new Rudd government were not greatly alleviated over the ensuing months. Indeed, one especially outrageous example of the Rudd government’s true colours occurred late last year. Committed Christian and tireless advocate for men, Warwick Marsh was appointed as a men’s health ambassador by the Rudd government, only to be unceremoniously dumped a few days later. His crime? He actually thought that children deserve a mother and father, and that homosexual families are not in the best interests of children.
Here was a guy who had devoted countless hours of volunteer work on behalf of men, many of whom were on the brink of despair and suicidal. Yet our ‘Christian’ government thought he was totally unacceptable for this job because he dared to take the politically incorrect line of opposing the militant homosexual lobby. To make matters worse, some Christian groups seemed more intent on placating the homosexual lobby than in defending their persecuted brother. I have written up this sorry, sordid saga here:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2008/11/28/coercing-tolerance/
Well, there remained one last chapter to be written about this outrageous case of political infamy, anti-Christian bigotry, and bowing the knee to the radical homosexual bloc. A replacement was needed for this enemy of the state, Warwick Marsh. Well, the replacement has been named. And you guessed it: Our new men’s ambassador is a homosexual.
The homosexual press is of course happily reporting this story far and wide. (You can also see “steamy” pics of the new ambassador in the homosexual press as well.) The homosexual lobby has certainly gotten what it wanted. Not only did it manage to drive out a pro-family champion, but it managed to get one of their own in.
One can ask hard questions here of course, but I won’t expect our Christian Labor leaders to take any notice of them. But I will ask a few anyway. Given that there are only a handful of these men’s ambassadors, one would have hoped that the well-being of men – not activist minority groups – would have been the top priority. Evidently not.
Indeed, given that homosexuals make up around only 1 to 2 per cent of the entire adult population, why were they singled out? Why not have other minority groups represented? Surely there must be 2 per cent of the Australian adult population that are male tennis players, or male stamp collectors, or male tuba players. Why don’t they get their own special representative ambassador?
Of course we know the reason why. The homosexual lobby is holding the Rudd government to ransom. If it dares to do anything that will upset the homosexual activists, they will simply throw a hissy fit, make a lot of noise, and the Rudd government will jump into instant submission.
Indeed, it is not hard for the Labor government to acquiesce and appease the militant homosexual minority. Labor has had long-standing pro-homosexual policies and preferences. Many of us knew this sort of stuff would happen under a Labor government.
But the tactics of winning over religious voters paid off. Labor knew that most people wouldn’t have a clue what the real Labor agenda was, and that social justice rhetoric would manage to fool many. So what we are now witnessing is simply what many of us warned about.
We are simply seeing the true colours of ‘Christian’ Labor. A tree, we were told long ago, can be known by its fruit. If the roots of a tree are basically anti-family, anti-life and anti-faith, so too will be the fruit. This latest outrage is simply another bit of Labor fruit. I hate to say it, but we told you so.
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