Post # 11 A little bit about the Australian Prime Minister

Our current Prime Minster, John Howard, has a quite a few stances on issues that I disagree with. Some examples include supporting America's invasion of Iraq, his government's abhorrent treament of asylum seekers and refugees, the way he has ignored the problem of global warming, and the federal health minister Tony Abbott, but more about that man who cannot separate his Roman Catholicism from the health and wellbeing of Australians another day.

The issue that that I would like to take up against Howard today is his stance on gay marriage.

All of the following quotes were taken from the pm's own website, which has a record of all of his speeches and interviews.


30 March, 2006

"We’re not going to make marriage celebrants available for these (civil union) ceremonies. We will always seek to remove areas of discrimination against homosexuals, gay and lesbian people, we don’t seek to maintain discrimination but there is a special place in Australian society for marriage, the institution of marriage as historically understood, and we do not intend to allow that to be in any way undermined."

Translation: We are not discriminating against you but you can't get married like us.

http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/Interview1848.html


04 August, 2004

"But of course I don't believe the law should be changed, but because there is a possibility - some argue very remote, I don't think it is as remote as all that - but bit by bit, an attempt will be made to redefine what we understand to be the concept of marriage in this country, we should legislatively pre-empt the possibility of that occurring by changing the law."

Translation: Obviously societies change over time, I mean, who would have thought 20 years ago that we would be discussing the possibility of a dude marrying a dude? So, in order to stop change and encourage antiquated bigotries, I'm changing the rules.


"It has been suggested that in some way it is an example of discrimination against gay and lesbian people in the Australian community. I reject that, and the reason I reject it is the reason why I reject a lot of other criticisms that are made from time to time of people such as myself and others who express support for existing institutions, and that is that people often confuse concepts of endorsement and tolerance."

Translation: I'm not discriminating against you but I am.


"And the flaw in the argument that what we are proposing is discriminatory is the simple proposition is that it doesn't seek to take away from others in the community any rights they now have. Rather it seeks to reaffirm the pre-eminent place of marriage and the margin for marriage, if I can put it that way, that has always existed in our society. "

Translation: It's not discrimination if you never had the right. So, if we never allowed women to vote then it would not be descriminatory because they never had the right in the first place.


"We all know from life's experience that longstanding institutions provide encouragement, they provide hope, they provide emotional support, and they also provide a practical way of helping people through life."

Translation: Like the church. That's been pretty good in the past.


"...and I think it's very important that this country express a view, we express it simply, we express it calmly, we express it in terms of reaffirming something we had always taken for granted and something that we do so clearly owe to our Judeo-Christian heritage."

Translation: It's okay, our Judeo-Christian heritage was also pretty much cool with slavery so you can just hand over your luggage to that there blackfella. There's no need for you to carry a thing.

http://www.pm.gov.au/news/speeches/speech1051.html


22 December, 2005

"I think marriage is for men and women. That’s why we amended the Marriage Act. I don’t say that in any sense of hostility or discrimination towards gay people but I believe very strongly that marriage is exclusively a union for life of a man and a woman to the exclusion of others. That is the common understanding of marriage in the Judaeo-Christian tradition and I would be opposed to a recognition of civil unions."

Translation: Again, I'm not being discriminatory but you can't get married because your genitals are like two positively charged ions. Marriage is about individuals who aren't allowed to get married. But it's not discriminatory.

http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/Interview1735.html


8 June, 2006

I don’t see it in any way as discriminating against homosexuals, it’s not, it’s designed to preserve the special status of marriage in our community and that’s what it’s all about. When the Constitution was written, the founding fathers gave authority over marriage to the Federal Government and at that stage civil unions, sorry civil unions were not contemplated.

Translation: Marriage is my special treehouse club and you're not allowed because the founding fathers built it in 1901. This was around the time when we killed fags, I mean, same sex-couples.


"The fundamental difficulty I have with the ACT legislation is a clause which says that a civil union is different from a marriage but it has the same entitlements, now that is the equivalent of saying to somebody who’s passed the HSC and wants to get into a particular course, it’s saying to them well you haven’t got the requisite tertiary education score but we will let you go in the course anyway."

Translation: You and your partner don't have the prerequisites in your tackle boxes to join my treehouse club.

http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/Interview1970.html


9 December, 1999

"Now I know some people won’t agree with my saying it but the Government believes that there should be preserved a particular place in our society for marriages as they are commonly understood."

Translation: I don't care what you think, normal couples are special.

http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/1999/nightline0912.htm


27 May, 2004

"We’re also going to amend the legislation to ensure that same sex couples being, will not be eligible as prospective adoptive parents under any multilateral or bilateral agreement concerning the adoption of children to which Australia is a party."

Translation: We're not letting you have kids either.

http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/Interview889.html


28 May, 2004

Referring to gay man calling in to a talkback radio station: "But you could under the new laws that we’re proposing which liberalise the taxation treatment of superannuation passing between people in your relationship, you could gain a significant, your surviving partner rather, gain a significant tax benefit."

Translation: I'm just gonna leave this 100 bill sitting here and turn around. If someone should happen to take it...

http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/Interview891.html

27 May, 2004

Regarding those superannuationlaws: "The amendments to the definition of dependents will not alter the definition of a spouse, it will not specifically recognise same sex relationships."

Tranlation: Hmmm... no I think i'll just leave a fiver.

http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/Interview889.html

Just a note that I started a thread on the JREF forums on this topic.

Post #10 Corrections

Only 10 posts and already corrections are necessary.

This correction comes about from a thread I started on the JREF forums. I asked people's opinions regarding the Esoteric blog and the arguments I have had with the author in posts 5, 5.1 and 5.2. Someone posted a reply in the thread quoting from his site, "Skeptics often refer to what they call Occam's Razor. They interpret this as ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof’."

This is incorrect. He probably got this definition from me in post #2. In my defence, I think I heard it on the Skeptics Guide podcast. The link I provided in post #2 points to an article on skepdic.com, which makes no reference to extraordinary evidence. It is lazy on both our parts. Perhaps if he's going to argue against a specific term he should check the definitions and explanations from a variety of sources.

The principle of Occam's Razor (or Ockham), according to wikipedia, "states that the explanation of any phenonemon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating, or "shaving off", those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory."

Or simply, "all things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one."

I know that Wikipedia is the work of the devil but all the external links, references and sources are right there at the bottom of the page.

So, shame on me for not reading articles related to what I'm writing about. My bad.

Post #9 The 'A' word

Does the term ‘atheist’ strike anyone else as ridiculous? In what other situation would anyone describe themselves by what they don’t believe? Does the term atheist presuppose that everyone believes in a deity or deities? I deny the existence of the Greek god Zeus, the Nordic god Jofur, the Sikh god Waheguru and the ancient Egyptian god Osiris. We are all atheist in regard to some belief; a Christian denies the existence of Allah.

I am also an afairiest; I deny the existence of fairies. Yet it would be absurd to refer to myself this way, so why is religion different? People are not born with religion. They may be born into religion, but it is a meme, a virus of the mind.

If I have no way of disproving the existence of a god authority, how can I be so sure that there isn’t one?

The burden of proof is on those making the claim. From that, assuming the authority exists in a way that seems exactly like it does not, I come to ‘agnosticism’.

“Huxley coined the word “agnostic” to describe his position on knowledge and religious belief – that one cannot, and should not claim to, know things for which there is no evidence.”

If a god exists, its nature is inherently unknowable. But so are fairies and I’m still not ready to accept a position any less than afairiest on those. I am not agnostic about the Nordic gods, I choose to live my life assuming there is no supernatural authority.

Take Christianity as an example:

Why does anyone need a book that contradictorily tells us that

• homosexuality is an abomination worthy of death,
  Romans 1:31-32
  Corinthians 6:9-10
  
  
• eating shellfish is also an abomination,
  Leviticus 11:9-12
  Deuteronomy 14:9-10
  www.godhatesshrimp.com
  
  
• figs are evil
  Matthew21:18-20
  www.godhatesfigs.com
  
  
• yet be kind to others?
  Romans 12:9-10
  Romans 12:15-21
  www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
  
  

I am an atheist but I should not need to call myself one.