Alastair Nicholson, recently retired former Chief Justice of Australia's Family Law Court has written in the The Age of 20 September 2004, describing the recent Australian legislation to prevent same-sex marriage as "one of the most shameful pieces of legislation that has ever been passed by the Australian Parliament".

It was clearly intended by the Howard Government to constitute a pitch to the religious right and mirrored a similar attempt in the United States introduced by President George Bush for the same purpose. Unfortunately, it was more successful here than there.

The reason for its success reflects no credit on the Latham Opposition, which abandoned principle for pragmatism rather than hand an election issue to the Government.

[...] What the Government, with the help of the Opposition, has succeeded in doing is to turn back the clock nearly 140 years. They have done so at the expense not only of the gay and lesbian community, but quite possibly the transsexual community as well. They have passed one of the most discriminatory laws that could be imagined. They have ridden roughshod over the legitimate rights and aspirations of these citizens.

In the Anglican Communion's debate over the role of homosexual people in the church, there is speculation that disciplinary action against the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (Ecusa) and the Anglican Church in Canada will be proposed. Otherwise, there may be split or some other significant change in the relationships between the various Anglican churches worldwide.The British, Australians and New Zealanders are divided internally between the liberal and conservative views -- as indeed are a number of the other churches in this fractious international family. Resignations are possible on both sides.Stephen Bates is the religious affairs correspondent of The Guardian and author of a recent book A Church at war: Anglicans and homosexuality (London: Tauris, 2004). Bates comments on the Inclusive Church.net website that, "it is hard to see how the circle can be squared - what form of words can be adopted - to make the fudge that will keep the communion harmoniously together. Rather too many bridges have been burned for that, divisions appear too deep and irreconcilable and there has been a sense, particularly on the conservative side, of a search for a cause for schism in the name of a self-defined 'orthodoxy'."
Unlike some other issues, Bates says, the question of homosexuality is, "is visceral, irreconcilable and possibly irredeemable." There has been an entrenching of positions and little true dialogue, while other potentially controversial matters have attracted little debate."So is there hope?" Bates asks. "Well, maybe if the show can be kept on the road a bit longer [...].But it is hard to see a long-term, workable future at the moment, even if that is what a majority of Anglicans might want. Too many people have got religion over gays for that."Meanwhile, if we can't think or act globally, we can at least do both locally. The Declaration of Belief of Inclusive Church.net is:

We affirm that the Church's mission, in obedience to Holy Scripture, is to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in every generation.

We acknowledge that this is Good News for people regardless of their sex, race or sexual orientation.

We believe that, in order to strengthen the Gospel's proclamation of justice to the world, and for the greater glory of God, the Church's own common life must be justly ordered.

To that end, we call on our Church to live out the promise of the Gospel; to celebrate the diverse gifts of all members of the body of Christ; and in the ordering of our common life to open the ministries of deacon, priest and bishop to those so called to serve by God, regardless of their sex, race or sexual orientation.

Inclusive Church.net urges us to encourage own local church and any Christian organisation to which we belong to support this Declaration and to record support on the website www.inclusivechurch.net.Homosexuality is not quite the only sticking point for Anglicans. There are still few number of dioceses that do ordain women to the priesthood. (Australian Anglican law allows each diocese the option.) This weekend, the Synod of the Wangaratta diocese (covering Albury and N.E. Victoria) is to vote on a proposal by its Bishop, David Farrer. A sufficient minority of the clergy in this generally Anglo-Catholic diocese have opposed change for it be blocked thus far.These debates pose the central questions, "Which is are the greater goods, unity and agreement or justice and truth?" or "Which is are the greater sins, disunity and dispute or injustice and untruthfulness?"

Now we already own another home, we are fervently praying for the sale of our present apartment. Much, much scrubbing and cleaning, boxes of junk tossed out and surplus things stored away and the place is gorgeous. We just need one buyer who thinks the same!

Meanwhile, a Chinese-Australian friend of mine is selling these Pillow boxes for jewellery and valuables; unusual and elegant, so I thought I'd give him a free plug!

Election campaigning is underway for the Australia's federal elections and for the A.C.T. Legislative Assembly election, just one week later. Not Happy, John features Margo Kingston's book and other writing. Dear John has some fun stuff for those who want to Vote Liberal last. (Note to non-Australian readers: the Liberal Party of Australia is our conservative party. Most other parties are more liberal.) Though I am a Greens supporter, I reckon the local Labor Party government has done well in the A.C.T. and deserves to be re-elected. The election period makes for extra work for some public servants, including me, which is why I've had little time to attend to this journal.James and I attended the wedding of my brother's daughter in Melbourne last weekend. Not a parent myself, I am proud of my brother and my sister-in-law and what they have done as parents. But my hero for the evening was my Dad, John. Just six weeks after Mum's death, he came along, blessed his granddaughter and her man, danced with the mother of the bride and altogether played the charming patriarch -- even as I knew he was thinking of his own wedding day, 58 years ago.

In an earlier post, I remarked that I was attracted by the lyrics of the song "Sure on this shining night" the third of Four songs Op. 13, by Samuel Barber, taken from a 1934 poem by American James Agee. Eventually I've found Agee's poems and they're wonderful -- though some are a not an easy read. Here's the complete poem from which the song comes. It's imagery reminds me of an Ansel Adams photograph.

Description of Elysium
There: far, friends: ours: dear dominion:

Whole health resides with peace,
Gladness and never harm,
There not time turning,
Nor fear of flower of snow

Where marbling water slides
No charm may halt of chill,
Air aisling the open acres,
And all the gracious trees

Spout up their standing fountains
Of wind-beloved green
And the blue conclaved mountains
Are grave guards

Stone and springing field
Wide one tenderness,
The unalterable hour
Smiles deathlessness:

No thing is there thinks:
Mind the witherer
Withers on the outward air:
We can not come there.

Sure on this shining night
Of starmade shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.

The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.

Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wandering far alone
Of shadows on the stars.

Now thorn bone bare
Silenced with iron the branch's gullet:
Rattling merely on the air
Of hornleaved holly:

The stony mark where sand was by
The water of a nailèd foot:
The berry harder than the beak:
The hole beneath the dead oak root:

All now brought quiet
Through the latest throe
Quieted and ready and quiet:
Still not snow:

Still thorn bone hare
Iron in the silenced gully
Rattling only of the air
Through hornleaved holly.

"Description of Elysium" in The collected poems of James Agee, edited and with an introduction by Robert Fitzgerald (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968) pp. 5-7 -- first published in Permit me voyage by James Agee (Yale University Press, 1934). The picture is by Helen Levitt, from the dust cover of this book.

I'm wasting a bit of time playing with online tests, none of which I take seriously!It seems that little kiddies shouldn't be reading this site... and in the joke category, it seems that I'd make a piss-weak dictator!

As dictators go, you're kind of pathetic! Instead of military coup or systematic persecution to get power, you just happen to be the head of the only party in the UK that isn't totally worthless! While not very impressive it is none the less effective! You can do whatever the hell you like without any chance of getting voted out of office! People know that the only alternative would have them eating their children if they ever got back into power! However, you still think that you are as loved as you were when you were first elected into power. News flash for you: You're not!

"What Dictator am I?" test at PoisonedMinds.com

And since I'm really playing at nonsense. I must admit that my IQ (over 148 on Cattell Scale III, form B) qualifies me for membership of Mensa though I haven't been a member for years.

I've no idea of its validity, but according to the Enneagram Institute's free test, I'm of the Investigator type, also with an inclination to iconoclasm, reform, and idealism. Fair enough, except that I'm too busy and too lazy for such a heavy responsibility!
If only I were as intrepid as another "Investigator" from Australia's history!And while I'm at this nonsense, I may as well admit that MBTI tests type me as an INTJ