Doug PollardSilence = Complicity
Qui Tacet Consentit
It’s an old moral principle which translates as “he who remains silent, consents.” If you fail to speak out against an evil, you make yourself its accomplice.
There is an evil at work within faith communities in Australia – Christian, Islamic and Jewish. It is a cancer of hatred and fear, masked with a cloak of religious respectability. And people who ought to know better are keeping silent about it.
MARGARET COURT INC.
We caught a glimpse of this deceptive garment during the Australian Open, when Margaret Court astonished people around the world with her bizarre personal version of Christianty.
Still, this could always be dismissed as the ravings of an eccentric old woman, in a commercial ‘church’ of her own invention, in one remote city. Disturbing, but not exactly important, perhaps?
BACHMAN, SANTORUM ET AL
In the US this same garment is proudly displayed: serious candidates for the US presidency strut the stage waving it alongside the stars and stripes.
They oppose any further moves towards equality, they want to reverse all the progress to date and put non-heterosexuals back in jail. Or label us mentally ill and torture us into ‘normality’.
“Rick Santorum . . . . described the ability to regulate consensual homosexual acts as comparable to the states' ability to regulate . . . adultery, polygamy, child molestation, incest, sodomy, and bestiality, whose decriminalization he believed would threaten society and the family, as they are not monogamous and heterosexual.” Wikipedia
Backing Santorum and his ilk are all manner of self-styled Christians who claim gays are responsible for all the world’s evils, including, bizarrely, Hitler and Nazism.
Some of them don’t just want to torture us into heterosexuality: they want to put us to death.
They hide behind warm and fuzzy names like the American Family Association, Focus on the Family, One Million Moms (membership unknown but thought to be around 40,000).
DRESSING PROPAGANDA UP AS SCIENCE
When serious professional bodies like the American Academy of Pediatrics (membership 60,000 ) reach a well-researched and logically based conclusion the zealots don’t like (e.g., gay parenting is just as good as straight), they create their own.
The equally serious and scientific sounding but largely spurious ‘institutes’ and ‘colleges’, such as the American College Of Pediatricians (membership unknown but thought to be between 60 – 400), are simply cloaks for those who prefer to cling to their prejudices despite all evidence to the contrary.
The ACP has taken published research, cherry-picked and distorted conclusions, and falsified data to suit their agenda. Numerous respected paediatricians have demanded the ACP cease to cite their work in consequence.
As we shall see, the ACP has been cited as a credible authority by Rabbi Shimon Cowen, But more of him later.
FRAUDULENT RESEARCH
Another front organisation for prejudice is NARTH. They cite ‘research’ published by dubious figures such as Paul Cameron, who runs the Family (there’s that cosy little word again) Research Institute in Colorado.
This nifty little outfit had produced a stream of papers, none of which have withstood scrutiny, purporting to ‘prove’ that homosexuals are all promiscuous, have shorter than average lifespans, molest children proportionally far more than heterosexuals, make up fewer that 2% of the population etc etc
The American Psychological Association (APA) expelled him, the American Sociological Association (ASA) and the Canadian Psychological Association have all condemned his work, as has the US District Court of Dallas.
Supporters claim that his work is published in ‘scientific journals’, implying that it has been professionally checked and approved.
Cameron’s work has been published in Psychological Reports. The Boston Globe reports that this small journal charges authors to publish their studies, and that it has a non-standard peer-reviewing policy. It has a "low rejection rate" and that Cameron's research "would have been rejected by more prestigious scientific journals".
In short, it’s a vanity publishing outfit, not a credible scientific journal.
"Facts" culled from this well-manured garden of lies have formed the basis of many a diatribe from The Australian Christian Lobby, The Australian Family Association and yes, the aforementioned Rabbi Cowen.
NOT OUR PROBLEM?
But we can dismiss all that, can’t we? Laugh it off as the work of a few misguided fanatics. Even in the US, fewer and fewer people believe this rubbish. Nothing to worry about, surely?
Not if you live in Africa. This same ideology complete with faux-scientific underpinnings has found a successful export market. In countries like Nigeria and especially Uganda a new holocaust is being brewed, fanned and financed by these organisations and their offshoots and fellow-travellers.
A bill calling for the death penalty for 'aggravated homosexuality' is currently before the Ugandan parliament.
THE AUSTRALIAN INTERVENTION
But surely we’re safe from this contagion here in Australia?
Alas, no.
The Australian Family (there’s that word again) Association, the local branch of the US parent, is actively campaigning against government supported anti-bullying programs in Victorian schools , and Rabbi Shimon Cowen is leading the charge.
He’s a patron of the AFA, along with Margaret Court, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch and others.
ENDANGERING SAFE SCHOOLS
Rabbi Cowen – son of the late Sir Zelman Cowen, an apple fallen far from the family tree - attacked the Safe Schools Coalition, an initiative that has been shown to reduce bullying in member schools, whatever the cause, not just anti-gay bullying.
But according to the good rebbe, the Coalition is
“ (1) unethical (2) unconstitutional (3) professionally fraudulent and (4) scientifically spurious. Its protagonists, however, have been willing to sacrifice integrity on all these counts in order to achieve a tactical goal: the teaching and validation of homosexual behaviour at the early stages of child education.”
He then goes on to give a host of reasons, religious and scientific, for his belief.
USING JUNK SCIENCE TO SHORE UP PREJUDICE
I am not going to concern myself with the religious arguments: belief is an emotion, by its very nature not amenable to argument.
But the ‘science’ is another matter.
Rabbi Cowen seeks to buttress his case with the same ‘evidence’ I referred to earlier, used by all the anti-gay movements in America, and those driving the push for the death penalty for homosexuality in Uganda. Discredited, unsafe and fraudulent ‘science’ which the most cursory research will show has been debunked time and time again by reputable scientists.
I will not rehash all the evidence here but if you’re interested there’s an excellent demolition by the Southern Poverty Law Centre
MISREPRESENTING EVELYN FIELD
I want, however, to take up the Rabbi’s principal ‘scientific’ objection to the Safe Schools Coalition – that there is no need to mention homosexuality in order to tackle anti-gay bullying. He bases this contention on the work of Evelyn Field: when I spoke to Ms Field she made it plain that her work had been, on the most charitable interpretation, "misunderstood."
The Rabbi says:
“In a nutshell, if a child is being bullied because he or she is fat, the way to block the bully is to take the “wind out of his or her sails”, it is not necessarily to take up the pretext upon which the child is being bullied . . . . if a child were being bullied because he or she had stolen items, the remedy would not necessarily be to take up the issue of theft. Bullying is something which is independent of the “cause” in which it is pursued.”
Let’s try rewriting that as a recipe for tackling anti-semitism.
“In a nutshell, if a child is being bullied because he or she is Jewish . . . . . it is not necessarily to take up the pretext upon which the child is being bullied. . . . if a child were being bullied because he or she was Jewish, the remedy would not necessarily be to take up the issue of anti-semitism.”
Quite. This is rubbish, and what’s more, murderous rubbish. And you don’t have to take my word for it.
THE BACHMAN CATASTROPHE
This particular sick little social experiment has already been tried, with catastrophic consequences, as detailed in this harrowing Rolling Stone article
On the home turf of former presidential hopeful Michelle Bachmann, a zealous evangelical anti-gay “Christian”, teen suicides soared and no-one in the school could help LGBTI kids because it was forbidden to even mention homosexuality.
"LGBTQ students don't feel safe at school," says Anoka Middle School for the Arts teacher Jefferson Fietek . . . "They're made to feel ashamed of who they are. They're bullied. And there's no one to stand up for them, because teachers are afraid of being fired."
The policy resulted in “a suicide epidemic that would take the lives of nine local students in under two years . . . Four of the nine dead were either gay or perceived as such by other kids, and were reportedly bullied.”
This problem is not unique to evangelical Christian schools: we have seen how the same prejudices are now regurgitated in the Australian Jewish community and I do not doubt they are rife in sections of the Muslim community, too.
But is this what the Australian “Family” Association wants for Victorian schools? To generate a suicide epidemic? Is this genocidal outcome what the Rabbi Shimon Cowen desires?
A SOFT ANSWER
Peter Wertheim AM, Executive Director of Executive Council of Australian Jewry Inc.- “ the officially elected representative organisation of the Australian Jewish Community and speaks on its behalf” - declined my request for an interview. But he did issue a statement (which I reproduce in full below), in which he strives to distance ECAJ from the Rabbi Cowen, but still fails to confront the issue of what can only be called his falsehoods head-on. Judge for yourself if you feel his response is adequate to the situation.
Wertheim also told me:
“The question of what a rabbi should do when approached by a young person seeking assistance with sexuality and acceptance by family and friends is an extremely serious one. In a worst case scenario the wrong advice can lead to terrible and unnecessary suffering, even suicide. No rabbi (and I mean no rabbi) would want that on their conscience.
“So I agree that inaction is not an option. I have spent many hours over the last month putting together a process to address this issue. All stakeholders have agreed that the relevant discussions are to be conducted off the record so that people can speak freely.”
How very nice and polite. But now that Rabbi Cowen has spoken out so perjoratively, the time for this kind of ’softly softly’ approach - by any of our faith communities - is surely long past.
As long as there is no unambiguous public refutation of this kind of nonsense from religious community leaders of all stripes, as long they remain silent, then kids will continue to suffer and to die needlessly.
And he who remains silent, consents.
Doug Pollard
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The complete statement from ECAJ is as follows:
Executive Council of Australian Jewry Inc.
Statement on Safe Schools Program Victoria
The ECAJ reiterates its and the Australian Jewish community's strong opposition to bullying at school on any grounds including sexual orientation, and welcomes any government program designed to counter-act bullying that has the support of victims and educators.
Rabbi Dr Cowen is highly respected in our community but that does not mean that his views on any subject are representative. We note also that in his recent article, Rabbi Cowen fully condemns bullying of any child inter alia on the grounds of homosexual behaviour.
Whilst opinions differ both in the Jewish community and in the wider community about whether sexual orientation is predetermined in any sense, it is essential that any public discussion of the issue must not vilify individuals or groups on the ground of sexual orientation or gender identity, to which we are totally opposed.
The view that homosexuality is an illness does not represent a general view of the Jewish community.
The ECAJ reiterates its call for mutual respect for the human dignity of all members of the community, despite any strongly held differences of opinion; recognition that disagreement is possible in ways that do not vilify other persons or their views; and avoidance of any public or private conduct that incites hatred, ridicule or contempt of another person or class of persons on the ground of their sexual orientation or gender identity (or for that matter on the grounds of ethnic or ethno-religious background or religious belief).
We also acknowledge that there is still much work to be done to remove intolerance of and unlawful discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in the Jewish community and in the wider Australian community, and to provide adequate services and support for them and their families.
13 February 2012
Peter Wertheim AM | Executive Director
phone: 02 8353 8500
e: info@ecaj.org.au | www.ecaj.org.au
This is a problem that transcends gay rights and spills into women's reproductive choice, medical research, voluntary euthanasia, human rights and many other issues. My argument is that this strategy needs to be exposed. An alliance (whether loose or formal) of all the effected groups to 'out' this kind of intellectual dishonesty is warranted. There needs to be some kind of broad-based, grass-roots watch-dog group.
No-one should deny religious adherents a voice in the public square, but the least we can expect is that they back their arguments with credible research and a commitment to honesty.
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Numbers games tell us little: even if the Rabbi's figures were accurate it would not absolve us from the need to care for and protect our children.
Exact figures are hard to come by because in a still largely homophobic world not everyone will admit their true sexuality, but the best estimate the British government could arrive at after the most comprehensive study ever undertaken was 6-7%. The figures are unlikely to me much different anywhere in the world.
There are similar problems in totalling the numbers of Jews, but the best estimate is 0.3% - one third of one per cent - of the population of Australia.
Should we therefore cease to care for and protect Jewish children? The notion is absurd.
It's also the modern orthodox ethos that operates under the guise of being progressive that concerns me also.
They are not progressive and like Doug's article
Use the family tag to influence their arguments and pseudo intellectual arguments.
It's the year 2012 and the diaspora outside of Israel is dysfunctional in some sectors.
Buyer beware for the polity when we want to defend some religious schools ,look at the type of people these kids turn out to be in 10 years time.