Doug PollardThe Liberals Have Two Faces
A small and no doubt temporary storm has blown up over the extreme fundamentalist views of Geoff Shaw, Liberal MP for Frankston.
It’s not something he usually makes a lot of noise about, which makes his current breakout all the stranger. Until now he's kept his god pretty much under wraps.
In an interview with the Frankston Leader last month Really Long Link , he didn’t mention religion once.
Secret Religion - Silent Candidate
When asked to reveal 'secrets' people might not know about him, he offered : “I’m a third Dan blackbelt in karate, but . . . I gave it up about 15 years ago. I play footy for the Frankston District Tiger Sharks. I play the bagpipes and the drums. I love Phil Collins. I’ve seen him live. I like Hall & Oates, Tommy Walker, that sort of thing. I don’t own an iPod. I like to play my CDs out into the room.”
His other big secret was that he’s something of a technophobe. He only got his first mobile phone during the election campaign, and has since been given a Blackberry.
Nothing about belonging to a would-be world dominating Pentecostal sect, CRC Churches International, which is pledged to ‘cover the earth with churches’ Really Long Link .
Its Frankston branch, Peninsula City, says “We actively engage in reaching and renewing people through the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ seeing them equipped, empowered and released as reproducing disciples.”
Which sounds a little creepy, like a ChristaClone factory, but what it means is that members are pledged to actively convert people, plant new churches, and promote the church’s agenda.
Shaw didn’t make much of his active church membership during his election campaign, either, preferring to stress his small business credentials, footy and bagpipe playing etc. Surely, given his holy commitment, it should have been front and centre in his campaign?
In fact, he seems to have said and done remarkably little to get elected. He even failed to show up at a candidate forum hosted by John Faine, to debate sitting Labor member Alistair Harkness and Greens Simon Tiller: the party instead sent “Baillieu factional warrior” (Crikey) Inga Peulich. Perhaps his fundamentalism was as embarrassing to the Liberals then as he is now.
Ministerial Ambitions & Religious Agenda
In any case, recent events ought to have put a dent in his ambitions. When asked by the Australian if he wanted to be a Minister, he replied: "Absolutely. I'm not doing it to sit on the back benches, let me tell you."
Naturally, he supports the push by AG Robert Clarke to reinstate religious exemptions to anti-discrimination law. He also supports the right of doctors who oppose abortion to refuse to refer a woman to another doctor or service who will, backing the repeal of Section 8 of the 2008 Abortion Reform Bill. In this he is not alone in the Liberal Party Really Long Link .
The Two Faces of the Liberals
At this point, lets remind ourselves exactly why Jakob Quilligan wrote to MP Geoff Shaw in the first place.
He was protesting the legislation, tabled in parliament last week by AG Robert Clarke, that will restore the religious exemptions to equal opportunity law (you can read the exchange here Really Long Link ).
When that measure passes in a couple of weeks time, religious bodies will once again be allowed to discriminate on grounds of religion, sexuality, marital status and gender, not just in their churches, mosques and synagogues, but also in their commercial businesses, hospitals and schools.
You can sign the petition against this via Really Long Link
This will be one of the first legislative acts of the Baillieu government.
Odd, since Ted himself is anything but a bigot, and was genuinely angered and dismayed by Shaw's crass and long-discredited equation of homosexuality with paedophilia etc.
The Liberals, it seems, have two faces: the humanitarian versus the fundamentalist. And while small-l liberal Ted plays the nice comfy front man, behind his back the fundies are making all the running.
More money is being thrown at the dubious and amateurish ‘religious instruction’ programs run by another fundy missionary outfit, Access Ministries. Really Long Link
But money for maths, science and literature programs get the axe Really Long Link
This is not the way to create a ‘smart state’ – these are steps on the road to a theocratic state.
Which suddenly makes Geoff Shaw’s ministerial ambitions look a lot less silly, doesn’t it?
