The Oxen

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
'Now they are all on their knees,'
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
'Come; see the oxen kneel

'In the barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,'
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

Thomas Hardy – 1915

All poor men and humble, all lame men who stumble, come haste ye, nor feel ye afraid; for Jesus, our treasure, with love past all measure, in lowly poor manger was laid.
Though wise men who found him laid rich gifts around him, yet oxen they gave him their hay: and Jesus in beauty accepted their duty; contented in manger he lay.
Then haste we to show him the praises we owe him; our service he ne'er can despise: Whose love still is able to show us that stable where softly in manger he lies.

Il est né, le divin enfant, Jouez, hautbois, résonnez, musettes; Il est né, le divin enfant; Chantons tous son avènement!	He is born, the heav'nly child, Oboes play; set bagpipes sounding. He is born, the heav'nly child. Let all sing his nativity.
1. Depuis plus de quatre mille ans, Nous le promettaient les prophètes; Depuis plus de quatre mille ans, Nous attendions cet heureux temps.	1. 'Tis four thousand years and more, Prophets have foretold his coming, 'Tis four thousand years and more, Have we waited this happy hour. >
2. Ah! qu'il est beau, qu'il est charmant, Que ses grâces sont parfaites! Ah! qu'il est beau, qu'il est charmant, Qu'il est doux le divin enfant!	2. Ah, how lovely, ah, how fair, What perfection is his graces, Ah, how lovely, ah, how fair. Child divine, so gentle there.
3. Une étable est son logement, Un peu de paille, sa couchette, Une étable est son logement, Pour un Dieu, quel abaissement!	3. In a stable lodged is he, Straw is all he has for cradle. In a stable lodged is he, Oh how great humility!
4. O Jesus! O roi tout puissant! Si petit enfant que vous êtes, O Jésus, roi tout puissant! Régnez sur nous entièrement!	4. Jesus Lord, O king with power, Though a little babe you come here, Jesus Lord, O king with power, Rule o'er us from this glad hour!

Lift this child to the sun,
Raise this child to the sky;
God has come from above,
Come to earth from on high.
Lift this child, lift this child to the sun.

[. . . ]

Lay this child in the shade,
Hang this child 'neath a tree;
With His hand on the wood
May this child set us free.
Place this child, place this child in the shade.

[. . .]

Lift this child to the night,
To the silence of God;
Let this child cry for us,
And the silence be heard.
Lift this child, lift this child to the night.

International Anglican group initiates 'strategy of inclusion' : Chicago Consultation celebrates contributions of gay Christians, calls homophobia 'a sin whose end time is now'

Anglicans from around the world met near Chicago December 5-7 to build international coalitions and develop a strategy for the full inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians in the life of the church. Meeting at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, the 50-member group known as the Chicago Consultation urged leaders of the Episcopal Church to permit the blessing of same-gender relationships and to remove barriers that keep gay candidates from being elected as bishops, according to a news release from the group.

"Some people call it the gay agenda, but we call it the Gospel Agenda," the Rev. Bonnie Perry, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church, Chicago, co-convener of the Consultation, said in the release. "We are asking our church and our communion to see what God has created and know that it is good."

The Consultation also called upon Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to invite New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson as a full participant to the 2008 Lambeth Conference. Robinson, a member of the Consultation, is the only diocesan bishop in the Anglican Communion living openly in a same-gender relationship.

"We wanted to affirm Gene," said Diocese of Washington Bishop John Bryson Chane in the release, "but we also wanted to affirm all of the anonymous gay and lesbian Christians who have graced the church with their God-given gifts -- even when the church has been unwilling to receive them."

Participants from Africa, England and New Zealand joined Anglicans from Central, North and South America in "pledging to work against schismatic leaders who have sought to gain power in the Communion by turning marginalized groups against one another," the release said.

"Homophobia is a sin whose end time is now," said the Rev. Canon Marilyn McCord Adams, Regius Professor of Divinity at Christ Church, Oxford University, in a paper opening the Consultation. Human institutions are riddled with systemic evils, she said. "Our calling is to discern which ones are ripe for uprooting and to take the lead in eradicating them, beginning in the garden behind our own house." Adams' paper is available here.

During the three days, punctuated by periods of silent prayer, participants heard papers by Adams, Bishop Stacy Sauls of the Diocese of Lexington, Dean Jenny Te Paa of St. John's College, Auckland, New Zealand, and the Rev. Frederick Quinn of Salt Lake City, Utah. Other papers presented at the meeting are due to be posted here in the coming days. The members also began to develop strategies to advance the cause of full inclusion at the Lambeth Conference in 2008, and at the Episcopal Church's General Convention in Anaheim, California, in 2009. Te Paa preached at a Eucharist celebrated with members of the Consultation and the Seabury-Western community. 

While developing what they dubbed a "strategy of inclusion," participants also voiced opposition to the current draft of a proposed Anglican covenant, the release said. "There was tremendous energy in the plenary sessions, and even more in the breakout groups," the Rev. Ruth Meyers, academic dean at Seabury-Western, and co-convener of the Consultation, said in the release. "It was such a talented and committed group that eventually we abandoned some of the formal presentations and started identifying our priorities and making plans."

Participants focused particular attention on building international coalitions to work against what the Rev. Mpho Tutu, executive director of the Tutu Institute for Prayer and Pilgrimage in Alexandria, Virginia, called "interlocking oppressions." Tutu described what she called a web of economic, political and social factors that determine who has access to power, resources and social approval, and who does not, according to the release. "The issue is human suffering and the attitudes that cause it," said Bishop Celso Franco de Oliveira of Rio de Janeiro.

Before adjourning, the release said, the group made plans to:

• publish several of the papers it received on the website Episcopal Café;
• establish its own website;
• hire a part-time coordinator; and
• support working groups on communications, fundraising and organizational strategy, as well as a group to identify and produce theological resources.

The consultation includes two Primates of the Anglican Communion -- Archbishop Martin de Jesus Barahona of Central America and Archbishop Carlos Touche-Porter of Mexico, who was unable to attend due to illness; 12 bishops from the Episcopal Church, including 10 diocesan bishops or bishops-elect; four members of the Church's Executive Council; numerous General Convention deputies, and representatives of groups such as Integrity USA, Claiming the Blessing and Inclusive Church.

Bonnie Anderson, president of the Episcopal Church's House of Deputies, attended the consultation as an observer, according to the release. She said she hopes other groups in the church will invite her to their meetings in a similar capacity so that she can familiarize herself with their concerns. Participants from other parts of the Anglican Communion in addition to Adams and Te Paa included the Very Rev. Victor Atta-Baffoe, dean of St. Nicholas College, Cape Coast, Ghana; Bishop Michael Ingham of the Diocese of New Westminster, Canada; the Rev. Jane Shaw, dean of divinity, New College, Oxford; and the Rev. Giles Fraser, founder of Inclusive Church in the United Kingdom.

The steering committee was convened by Meyers and Perry and included Bishop Neil Alexander of Atlanta, who was unable to attend the meeting; Chane; the Very Rev. Gary Hall, dean of Seabury-Western; the Rev. Gay Jennings, a member of Executive Council from the Diocese of Ohio; Jim Naughton, canon for communications and advancement in the Diocese of Washington; Robinson and Fredrica Harris Thompsett, Mary Wolfe professor of historical theology at Episcopal Divinity School.

The consultation was supported by several grants, including one from the Arcus Foundation of Kalamazoo, Michigan, which works to "achieve social justice that is inclusive of sexual orientation, gender identity and race." Following the conference, the Consultation received a $60,000 grant from the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation to support its future work.

Is this why Iran has no homosexuality?

Think Iran's nuclear ambitions are frightening? We now are learning that this land of lunatics run by fanatics is undertaking its own Final Solution with homosexuals.



Here's the real reason why Iran's President Ahmadinejad could say in September at Columbia University could dodge the question of executions and say that there were no homosexuals in his society. They are killing them, according to The Times on Nov. 13.

. . . I'm happy that the American intelligence services did an end run by releasing a report than Iran abandoned its atom bomb program in order to prevent Cheney and Bush from bombing Iran before they leave the White House in early 2009. But this regime of religious fanatics are hideous and Iranian people deserve all the help they can get. I'm happy that Canada's ambassador stood up to them and got kicked out. Read this piece -- Why we must not take the pressure off Iran?--from UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, in The Financial Times.

There is clearly support from the Commonwealth for recognition of same sex relationships. The issue is how that is done and it would appear to me that the commitments given yesterday are not as clear cut as they first seemed and there are more issues that need to be discussed.

The Commonwealth has indicated a range of issues of concern that they wish to have further discussion on with us. I welcome the fact that we've got a commitment from the Commonwealth for an open dialogue, a constructive dialogue. The fact that our officials are able to meet and share information, that's not something we had with the previous Howard Government.

The ACT will have the first gay unions in Australia after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gave his all-clear to the proposal yesterday. The nation's first gay-union ceremony should be performed in Canberra by the middle of next year.

. . . Mr Rudd could have used his territory powers to override the ACT gay union laws, as the previous Liberal government did. But he said yesterday it was not Labor policy to interfere with state and territory legislation. "On these matters, state and territories are answerable to their own jurisdictions," Mr Rudd told reporters in Brisbane.

"State and territory governments are elected to govern, they are accountable to their constituents."

Federal Labor has opposed gay marriage, prompting speculation the Rudd Government might quash the ACT laws. The ACT Civil Partnerships Bill which allows for formal ceremonies in which same-sex couples make a legal pledge to each other before an official is likely to be passed by the Assembly early next year. It is yet to be decided if interstate couples will be able to get hitched in Canberra.

. . . ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell, who is responsible for the Bill, warmly welcomed Mr Rudd's comments and said there was now no apparent obstacle to gay unions. Today he will meet his federal counterpart, Robert McClelland, who has expressed concerns about the unions. They will discuss whether the unions should be restricted to ACT residents, or whether interstate couples can sign up. The Bill does not contain a residency requirement but Mr Corbell has said he would be prepared to add one.

. . . Last year, the federal government struck out a similar ACT law by asking the Governor-General to disallow it. The ACT reworked its legislation into the current form, but this year the federal Liberal government said that would not pass either, so the ACT put the law on hold until now.

"I expect my colleagues federally to accept [the territory legislation] ... I have to say I will be deeply disappointed if they don't," Stanhope said yesterday. "We will do what we need to do to have it passed." Mr Stanhope said he would contact Mr Rudd's office this week to arrange a meeting.

I'm sitting down with Simon Corbell on Friday I have considerable respect for him, he's a very decent man and also an intelligent man," he said. "I haven't seen the text of what he's proposing but I'll certainly be putting to him, look it's in everyone's interest that there's a nationally consistent standard. In this area it's unseemly for there to be effectively tourism based on what state or territory has more lenient or differing registration or ceremonial processes. I don't think that is a desirable way that we should approach the issue."

"At this stage the Government doesn't intend to reduce its commitment," he said. "This is about according the same rights to all Canberrans, irrespective of who they are or their sexuality." Mr Stanhope said Mr Rudd's comments about gay unions had been made in relation to Labor's federal policy platform, which set out the ALP's agenda in Federal Parliament. The ACT was a different matter.

Having a Tasmanian-style relationships register would be a further compromise which he was not considering. It was appropriate for the ACT to follow the lead of the world's key democracies in allowing same-sex unions. Mr Stanhope said the gay union issue was not just about equal rights for same-sex people, it was also about the ACT's democratic right to make its own laws. His Government was elected on a campaign which included gay unions. The people of Canberra had the right to decide on their own legislation. "Any Federal Parliament that feels that they have the capacity to override the democratic right of the people of the ACT really aren't responding as they should to those rights," he said.

Under the Civil Partnerships Bill, which is to be debated in the Assembly next February or March, a same-sex couple can hold a ceremony which creates a legal relationship between them. They must make a declaration to each other in front of a registered "civil partnership notary" and at least one other witness.

Discrimination

10. Labor supports legislative and administrative action by all Australian governments to eliminate discrimination, including systemic discrimination, on the grounds of race, colour, sex, religion, age, sexuality, gender identity, disability, genetic makeup, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

11. Where necessary, Labor will take special measures designed to achieve equality and eliminate the effects of both historic and contemporary discrimination.
[. . . ]
15. Labor believes that people are entitled to respect, dignity and the opportunity to participate in society and receive the protection of the law regardless of their sexuality or gender identity. Labor supports the enactment of legislation prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of a person's sexuality or gender identity and will audit Commonwealth legislation to amend provisions that unfairly discriminate against any person on the grounds of sexuality or gender identity.

16. Labor will ensure that all couples who have a mutual commitment to a shared life do not suffer discrimination because they are not married.

17. Labor will take action to ensure the development of nationally consistent, state-based relationship recognition legislation that will include the opportunity for couples who have a mutual commitment to a shared life to have those relationships registered and certified. This legislation will:

• Be based on the scheme that has existed in Tasmania since 2004 and that the Victorian government has announced its intention to introduce;
• Not create schemes that mimic marriage or undermine existing laws that define marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Dear Brian,

Thanks for your feedback.

Labor supports the removal of discrimination against gay and lesbian Australians in federal legislation, and we have pledged to address this issue--as well as committing to a new scheme of state-based relationship registers--if we win government.

Despite previous promises they would amend discriminatory laws, the Howard government has been in power for nearly twelve years, and has still not begun to move on the removal of discrimination against gay and lesbian Australians and same-sex couples. If elected, Labor would move to amend federal legislation to remove this discrimination.

Good government and a just society is not about ensuring that everyone is the same, but ensuring that they have the same opportunities. Labor does not support the proposition of equality of outcome. Instead, Labor supports equality of opportunity. That is why Labor has proposed to remove practical, day-to-day discrimination.

Labor will systematically move to end discrimination against gays and lesbians across federal legislation, and will provide for the legal recognition of same-sex relationships via a state-based relationship register. These are measures which the Howard government has not even attempted to undertake in their nearly twelve years in power.

In addition, Labor does not believe that the current method in the federal system of providing for these relationships through definitions of 'interdependency' is sufficient, for the reasons outlined in the HREOC report:

• An 'interdependency' relationship may impose different criteria than a couple relationship;
• An 'interdependency' relationship mischaracterises a same-sex relationship;
• A federal 'interdependency' category creates inconsistencies with state and territory laws.

Regards,

ALP Campaign Information Services

New Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson has backed equality of economic treatment for homosexual couples, ramping up pressure on Labor to carry through on promises to remove discrimination. However Dr Nelson ruled out supporting gay marriage, adoption or access to fertility services. His remarks drew praise from gay and human rights lobbyists--along with some disappointment for not going all the way.

Dr Nelson said he believed very strongly that the economic and social injustices faced by homosexual people needed to be addressed, including taxation, social security and superannuation. "Our challenge is to say to ourselves, how would I feel if that were me? How would I feel if I had a son, daughter, brother or sister in these arrangements," he told ABC television. "Every Australian, as far as taxation, social security and those things, should be treated equally."

But he rejected going further, declaring marriage as only between a man and a woman. "It is the foundation of our society. I do not support gay marriage. I do not support gay adoption. I do not support gay IVF," he said.

30 November, just gone, was the feast day of Andrew the Apostle, a day for me to remember and honour my Scottish heritage, as Andrew is, of course, the patron of Scotland, his feast is the Scots national day, and his symbol is the Scots flag, the Saltire, with its diagonal cross.

Just as Andrew was the first of the Apostles, so his feast signals the beginning of the church year, the first Sunday of Advent being the Sunday on or nearest Andrew's feast. St. Andrew's is also the day for ordinations in our diocese, Canberra and Goulburn, and the Saltire is flown above the cathedral.

Last night, James and I celebrated with some very un-Scottish food, at this table in our favourite Indian restaurant, and talked of plans for 2008. Each year, Advent, the new year season, is a time for me to assess my priorities and make plans for the next year. As always, I must prune, chopping off some of my too-many task and commitments, to make room for more important things--more time for contemplation, prayer and writing.

Today, 1 December is World AIDS Day, with its red ribbon symbols, first devised by the Visual AIDS Artists Causcus in 1991. In Canberra, the red ribbon particuarly relates to the Trevor Daley Fund, which helps local people living with HIV/AIDS.

So often the challenge of HIV/AIDS intersects with other current issues of sociual, economic and political justice. In just one very recent example, the Myanmar junta has shut a Yangon monastery which has been a hospice for HIV/AIDS patients and expelled its monks (Reuters 30 Nov 07), apparently becqause of their reputation of supporting pro-democracy campaigns.

Rudd needs moral score

If John Howard were to summarise his legacy, he would emphasise economics. ... The coalition also undertook important structural improvements. ... There is a bevy of other beneficial, though not startling, economic reforms. … This economic legacy is commendable. But Australia is more than an economy.

And it is in non-economic matters where the Howard government was wanting and where it failed to convince voters. There were good moments, including the removal of the East Timor canker and the gun reduction program after Port Arthur. But the overwhelming mark of Howard's government was the supremacy of pragmatism over principle, politics over morality.

To achieve political mastery, Howard engaged in sophistry: providing soothing words instead of answering questions and accepting responsibility. He danced around the government's apparent illegality in the waterfront dispute. He denied the government's inept eagerness to wage an unjust war in Iraq. He never accepted responsibility for the government's false claims about children overboard.

Howard also diminished institutions important to democracy, He required his backbench to place the government's political needs above parliamentary democracy and only a few resisted him. He preferred ambition to propriety. If the government could prevent an inquiry, there was none. If the government wanted to keep information from the public, it was kept secret. The Howard government did not invent this behaviour, but it honed the style to a razor edge.

Although the coalition introduced a model public service act, one that requires public servants to act apolitically, it perverted the public service. The government taught officers to identify with its political goal. Ministers trained public servants to keep embarrassing information to themselves. The government ensured that departmental reports anticipated government preferences.

Oddly for a government whose philosophy was meant to emphasise individuality over the state, the Howard government reduced the rights of individuals. Asylum seekers who arrived by boat were imprisoned as a matter of policy. Contrary to worldwide practice and the spirit of the refugee convention, the coalition tried to deport uninvited refugees.

The Howard government granted sweeping anti-terrorism powers to police and security agencies, but it failed to ensure those powers were fairly exercised. And its agencies abused the law. There is a suspicion--hopefully to be explored by a foreshadowed inquiry into the Haneef affair--that political pressures caused illegal and unjustified treatment of Australians.

Finally, the Howard government diminished democracy by encouraging undisclosed political donations and by reducing the time available for new enrolments after an election is called.

The test for a Rudd government is to sustain the economic legacy it has inherited from the Howard government while repairing the damage done to Australia's important institutions and to democracy, It won't be long before we can measure its attempts.

• achieved over one million votes: the final count will near 1,080,000 compared with 917,000 in 2004;
• supplanted the coalition National Party as Australia's third largest political party;
• will go into the next Senate with 5 to 7 seats (1998 : 1 seat; 2001 : 2 seats; 2004 : 4 seats) and will hold or share the balance of power;
• passed the Senate quota with first preferences in a state (14.2%) for the first time, in Tasmania, with 17.74%;
• scored a new high national Senate vote (9.02%);
• scored a new high percentage Senate vote in any electorate (ACT : 22%);
• gave Labor the preference flow to win 21 seats, including Bass, Braddon, Bennelong and Bowman;
• may pass the Liberals in in the electorate of Melbourne to score over 22% (with candidate Adam Bandt); and
• increased their Northern Territory vote to 9% from 7.7% after opposing the Howard government's intervention laws (which Labor supported).

We the undersigned wish to show our support for an end to commercial whaling. We believe that the slaughter of whales for so-called 'scientific reasons' is wrong. We wish to add our voices to the global campaign to protect these precious mammals from extinction.

Why it's great to see him go
Phillip Adams Blog (The Australian 27 Nov 07)

Spare me the sentimental tosh about John Howard. Here's why his departure is a joyous occasion.

The scene: The Great Hall at the University of Sydney. The grand opening of a conference for the Centre for the Mind. Crowds have gathered to see Nelson Mandela cut the ribbon. As chairman of the advisory board it is my duty to welcome our patron, the Prime Minister. That long-time opponent of sanctions against apartheid South Africa will then welcome Mandela. When I complain bitterly about my chore, the vice-chancellor murmurs, "Protocol."

A last-minute phone call from a protocol officer in the PM's department.

"Do you really want to introduce the PM?" he asks.
"Of course I bloody well don't!"
"Yes, it would be a bit hypocritical."
"Not as hypocritical as the PM introducing Mandela."

The resolution? The Vice-Chancellor will introduce Howard. I'll move the vote of thanks. When I explain the change, Mandela isn't fussed but asks me: "How's Paul Keating getting on?"

This backstage kerfuffle is nothing to Malcolm Fraser's loud performance in front of the gathering dignitaries, including the PM. He tells of a crisis early in his prime ministership involving Vietnamese close to the Australian embassy. They are understandably desperate to be allowed into this country. Fraser phones Gough Whitlam, who agrees they should be welcomed. "So did my entire cabinet, except for one person. Guess who!" And he points the finger at Howard.

The scene: John Laws's 2UE studio in 1988. Anticipating One Nation by many years, Howard warns the nation of the dangers of Asian immigration. So outraged is the response to his statement that Howard loses his job as Opposition leader a year later.

The scene: A new prime minister manipulates Hansonism in the mid to late 1990s. Forget dog-whistle politics. In a campaign as deafening as any air raid siren, Howard declares war on multiculturalism and political correctness. White Australia rises from its grave. Bigotry is unleashed via an epidemic of racist graffiti, schoolyard attacks and shock-jock broadcasting. Thanks to the main parties' accommodation of One Nation, Australian racism is world news.

The scene: A few thousand refugees flee the Taliban and Saddam Hussein in 2001. Howard brands them queue jumpers, illegals and has cohorts hint that they're terrorists. The Tampa sails into view and our detention of decent people in concentration camps becomes an international disgrace. Kim Beazley rolls over. The ALP is complicit in this political pornography, this immense stunt. Kids overboard. The Australian Navy is appalled by what it's ordered to do. More than 350 die on the SievX. All this wins Howard another term.

The scene: 9/11. Howard jumps the queue to sign up for the misconceived war on terror and the horror story of the Iraq invasion. Immense numbers of Iraqis are killed. We are complicit in hundreds of thousands of deaths, in Abu Ghraib, in torture, in rendition. It isn't democracy that blossoms in the Middle East. It's terrorism. To this day Howard insists that the fiasco of Iraq is a success.

The scene: Guantanamo Bay. Howard permits the monstrous treatment of David Hicks.

The scene: The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission prepares Bringing Them Home, the tragic account of the stolen generations. Before publication date in 1997, Howard's bovver boys not only deride the document but slander Ronald Wilson. Historical revisionism kicks in. Reconciliation is rejected. The black-white divide deepens. Quadrant crows. Pauline Hanson is pleased.

The scene: The Kelly gang--the husbands of retiring member Jackie Kelly and her would-be replacement--are caught distributing a piece of crap designed to press the hot buttons on anti-Muslim bigotry. We're told this attempt to throw fuel on the world's most inflammatory issue is a prank. The PM promptly denies any knowledge of this dirtiest of dirty tricks, yet it sits within the culture of bigotry he has encouraged over many years.

The scene: As the election gains pace, Howard's immigration minister Kevin Andrews targets the alleged criminality of Sudanese refugees and immigrants. Déja vu all over again.

The scene: A few days before the election, Howard is asked to list his proudest achievements. Right up front he says the destruction of--yes--political correctness.

Is Howard a bigot? His support of apartheid South Africa, his long-term indifference to the issues of Aboriginal Australia, his exploitation of the refugee issue and his on-the-record hostility to Asian immigration would suggest so. Or is he a main-chancer, a cunning manipulator of other people's fears and racism? If the latter, isn't that morally worse? That's why I'm not shedding tears at Howard's departure. Because his fondness for the Menzies era involved the revival of too many aspects of White Australia. No other modern PM on either side of politics would have touched it with a barge pole.

If you balance your episcopal throne on the fence, you will look rather silly when the fence is knocked down. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams looks silly all right as he contemplates the collapse of the boundaries that structured the Anglican communion, the group of notionally 80 million (actually, perhaps 50 million) Christians that he notionally leads and actually just exhorts, like a rugby referee without a whistle whom the scrum ignores.

But looking silly is not his most serious problem. . . . There is a precise definition of schism in a church that has bishops . . . there can only be one real bishop in any diocese; where there are more, there is schism, and the claim that the others aren't really proper Christians at all.

This need not matter unless everybody wants it to . . . [but] outside England, where churches must compete for membership, it matters a lot. The trouble, from Williams' perspective is that the Church of England can no longer be kept aloof from the convulsions outside as it too descends from establishment into the market place. . . . The flames of theological hatred outside have run all round the world as if the Internet were made with gunpowder fuses instead of cables.

It is the theological understanding that makes this argument so hard to control. Most churches, most of the time, don't give a damn for theology. That's one of the things that atheists get wrong about religion. They think it is about propositional beliefs, rather than rituals and belonging. And so they assume that the dispute in the Anglican Communion is really about gays. But if it were, it would be possible to reach a compromise, as has been done about women, where people at least pretend to accept each others' viewpoint.

By elevating the dispute to a matter of theological principle, both sides are now saying that compromise is impossible, and that trying for it is wrong. This is Williams' real defeat. When he was merely the Archbishop of Wales, 10 years ago, and still a respected theologian, he was asked to speak at the Lambeth Conference on the subject--important even then--of how Anglicans should resolve their disputes. He told 800 bishops gathered from all round the world into a hot marquee on the campus of the University of Kent that they should listen to one another. He quoted Wittgenstein to the effect that sometimes the most important thing a philosopher can say to another is "give me time". At the time I wondered what weight his sweating, angry audience would give to the opinions of a gay Jewish atheist but I admired Williams for thinking that they should. They didn't. Now his time, too, has run out.

In earlier times Christianity had a very similar approach to renouncing religion. It was most evident during the bloody wars, forced conversions and burnings of heretics that accompanied the Christian Reformation and Counter Reformation. The Roman Catholic Church of my youth in Australia did not permit Protestants to marry in its churches. This was only 50 years ago. We have overcome this sectarian divide.

. . . In Australia the case of Lina Joy has come as a surprise. We are entitled to express our concern about it. We know the one universal principle that is shared by all the world's great religions is the Golden Rule. To do unto others as you would wish them to do unto you.

One of the foremost critics of the Lina Joy decision was Dr Thio Li-ann of the National University of Singapore. She observed: "There is a certain agony about this case, which at its heart concerns a woman who wishes to make a change in religious profession and to marry and have a family."

When I read this critique I applauded Dr Thio's views. Imagine my disappointment to read the Hansard record of remarks by the same Dr Thio, a couple of weeks ago, as a member of the Parliament of Singapore, opposing proposals to repeal the criminal laws of Singapore directed against homosexual men.

Speaking from a standpoint as a Christian believer, Dr Thio rallied the opposition to reform. She denounced "the sexual libertine ethos of the wild, wild West". She declared "you cannot make a human wrong a human right". She warned against "slouching back to Sodom". We have all heard all this type of language from religious zealots in Australia. Fortunately, recent evidence suggests that we are growing up.

My point is that it is not good enough for Christians, or people of the Christian tradition, to be selective about tolerance and acceptance. We cannot selectively denounce Islam for its views on apostasy but then do equally nasty and cruel things to others by invoking imperfect understandings of our own religious tradition.

Universal human rights are needed to permit each and every one of us to fulfil ourselves as our unique human natures, intelligence and moral sense demand. For Lina Joy and her fiance this means the freedom to worship God as they believe, and to marry and live in their own country. For a homosexual man in Singapore, it means freedom from the fear of harassment and humiliation by outdated criminal laws.

Lina Joy should have our support because she is a human being standing up for the integrity of her basic rights. Those rights are not, as the majority judges in Malaysia said of her case, her "whims and fancies". They are precious manifestations of deep-seated human feelings that express part of the very essence of what it is to be a human being.

After an anguished week of debate at its annual meeting, the church's 86-member governing synod voted 50-34 to make the change. Two members abstained. . . . The decision means that six of Norway's 11 bishops are likely to open the pulpit to gay clergy in partnerships. In a vote earlier in the year, those six bishops voted in favor of easing the ban.

The church already allows gays to serve in the clergy as long as they are not living in a homosexual partnership. . . . The synod's vote was a compromise revision of a 1997 resolution by the highest body in Norway's state Protestant church that barred all clergy who enter homosexual partnerships from holding consecrated jobs.

. . . Under Norwegian law, people in gay partnerships have the same rights as those in heterosexual marriages, apart from church weddings and adoption.

The church, with nearly 85 percent of Norway's 4.7 million people as members, has remained locked in a heated debate on the topic. . . . In 2000, the Norwegian government, which formally employs all state church staff, upheld the appointment of Jens Torstein Olsen as a clergyman in Oslo, even though he lived with a gay partner in violation of the 1997 church decision.

Royal College of Psychiatrists: submission to the Church of England's Listening Exercise on Human Sexuality.

This report is prepared by a Special Interest Group in the Royal College of Psychiatrists. We have limited our comments to areas that pertain to the origins of sexuality and the psychological and social well being of lesbian, gay and bisexual people (LGB), which we believe will inform the Church of England's listening exercise.

Introduction

The Royal College of Psychiatrists holds the view that LGB people should be regarded as valued members of society who have exactly similar rights and responsibilities as all other citizens. This includes equal access to health care, the rights and responsibilities involved in a civil partnership, the rights and responsibilities involved in procreating and bringing up children, freedom to practice a religion as a lay person or religious leader, freedom from harassment or discrimination in any sphere and a right to protection from therapies that are potentially damaging, particularly those that purport to change sexual orientation.

We shall address a number of issues that arise from our expertise in this area with the aim of informing the debate within the Church of England about homosexual people. These concern the history of the relationship between psychiatry and LGB people, determinants of sexual orientation, the mental health and well being of LGB people, their access to psychotherapy and the kinds of psychotherapy that can be harmful.

1. The history of psychiatry with LGB people.

Opposition to homosexuality in Europe reached a peak in the nineteenth century. What had earlier been regarded as a vice, evolved into a perversion or psychological illness. Official sanction of homosexuality both as illness and (for men) a crime led to discrimination, inhumane treatments and shame, guilt and fear for gay men and lesbians (1). However, things began to change for the better some 30 years ago when in 1973 the American Psychiatric Association concluded there was no scientific evidence that homosexuality was a disorder and removed it from its diagnostic glossary of mental disorders. The International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organisation followed suit in 1992. This unfortunate history demonstrates how marginalisation of a group of people who have a particular personality feature (in this case homosexuality) can lead to harmful medical practice and a basis for discrimination in society.

2. The origins of homosexuality

Despite almost a century of psychoanalytic and psychological speculation, there is no substantive evidence to support the suggestion that the nature of parenting or early childhood experiences play any role in the formation of a person's fundamental heterosexual or homosexual orientation (2). It would appear that sexual orientation is biological in nature, determined by a complex interplay of genetic factors (3) and the early uterine environment (4). Sexual orientation is therefore not a choice, though sexual behaviour clearly is. Thus LGB people have exactly the same rights and responsibilities concerning the expression of their sexuality as heterosexual people. However, until the beginning of more liberal social attitudes to homosexuality in the past two decades, prejudice and discrimination against homosexuality induced considerable embarrassment and shame in many LGB people and did little to encourage them to lead sex lives that are respectful of themselves and others. We return to the stability of LGB partnerships below.

3. Psychological and social well being of LGB people

There is now a large body of research evidence that indicates that being gay, lesbian or bisexual is compatible with normal mental health and social adjustment. However, the experiences of discrimination in society and possible rejection by friends, families and others, such as employers, means that some LGB people experience a greater than expected prevalence of mental health and substance misuse problems (5, 6). Although there have been claims by conservative political groups in the USA that this higher prevalence of mental health difficulties is confirmation that homosexuality is itself a mental disorder, there is no evidence whatever to substantiate such a claim (7).

4. Stability of gay and lesbian relationships

There appears to be considerable variability in the quality and durability of same-sex, cohabiting relationships (8, 9). A large part of the instability in gay and lesbian partnerships arises from lack of support within society, the church or the family for such relationships. Since the introduction of the first civil partnership law in 1989 in Denmark, legal recognition of same-sex relationships has been debated around the world. Civil partnership agreements were conceived out of a concern that same-sex couples have no protection in law in circumstances of death or break-up of the relationship. There is already good evidence that marriage confers health benefits on heterosexual men and women (10, 11) and similar benefits could accrue from same-sex civil unions. Legal and social recognition of same-sex relationships is likely to reduce discrimination, increase the stability of same sex relationships and lead to better physical and mental health for gay and lesbian people. It is difficult to understand opposition to civil partnerships for a group of socially marginalised people who cannot marry and who as a consequence may experience more unstable partnerships. It cannot offer a threat to the stability of heterosexual marriage. Legal recognition of civil partnerships seems likely to stabilise same-sex relationships, create a focus for celebration with families and friends and provide vital protection at time of dissolution (12). Gay men and lesbians' vulnerability to mental disorders may diminish in societies that recognise their relationships as valuable and become more accepting of them as respected members of society who might meet prospective partners at places of work and in other such settings that are taken for granted by heterosexual people.

5. Psychotherapy and reparative therapy for LGB people

The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy recently commissioned a systematic review of the world's literature on LGB people's experiences with psychotherapy (13). This evidence shows that LGB people are open to seeking help for mental health problems. However, they may be misunderstood by therapists who regard their homosexuality as the root cause of any presenting problem such as depression or anxiety. Unfortunately, therapists who behave in this way are likely to cause considerable distress. A small minority of therapists will even go so far as to attempt to change their client's sexual orientation (14). This can be deeply damaging. Although there is now a number of therapists and organisation in the USA and in the UK that claim that therapy can help homosexuals to become heterosexual, there is no evidence that such change is possible. The best evidence for efficacy of any treatment comes from randomised clinical trials and no such trial has been carried out in this field. There are however at least two studies that have followed up LGB people who have undergone therapy with the aim of becoming heterosexual. Neither attempted to assess the patients before receiving therapy and both relied on the subjective accounts of people, who were asked to volunteer by the therapy organisations themselves (15) or who were recruited via the Internet (16). The first study claimed that change was possible for a small minority (13%) of LGB people, most of whom could be regarded as bisexual at the outset of therapy (15). The second showed little effect as well as considerable harm (16). Meanwhile, we know from historical evidence that treatments to change sexual orientation that were common in the 1960s and 1970s were very damaging to those patients who underwent them and affected no change in their sexual orientation (1, 17, 18).

Conclusions

In conclusion the evidence would suggest that there is no scientific or rational reason for treating LGB people any differently to their heterosexual counterparts. People are happiest and are likely to reach their potential when they are able to integrate the various aspects of the self as fully as possible (19). Socially inclusive, non-judgemental attitudes to LGB people who attend places of worship or who are religious leaders themselves will have positive consequences for LGB people as well as for the wider society in which they live.

Professor Michael King

Report prepared by the Special Interest Group in Gay and Lesbian Mental Health of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
31st October 2007

Reference List
(1) King M, Bartlett A. British psychiatry and homosexuality. Br J Psychiatry 1999 August;175:106-13.
(2) Bell AP, Weinberg MS. Homosexualities : a study of diversity among men and women. New York: Simon and Schuster; 1978.
(3) Mustanski BS, DuPree MG, Nievergelt CM, Bocklandt S, Schork NJ, Hamer DH. A genomewide scan of male sexual orientation. Human Genetics 2005 March 17;116(4):272-8.
(4) Blanchard R, Cantor JM, Bogaert AF, Breedlove SM, Ellis L. Interaction of fraternal birth order and handedness in the development of male homosexuality. Hormones and Behavior 2006 March;49(3):405-14.
(5) King M, McKeown E, Warner J et al. Mental health and quality of life of gay men and lesbians in England and Wales: controlled, cross-sectional study. Br J Psychiatry 2003 December;183:552-8.
(6) Gilman SE, Cochran SD, Mays VM, Hughes M, Ostrow D, Kessler RC. Risk of psychiatric disorders among individuals reporting same-sex sexual partners in the National Comorbidity Survey. Am J Public Health 2001 June;91(6):933-9.
(7) Bailey JM. Homosexuality and mental illness. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1999 October;56(10):883-4.
(8) Mays VM, Cochran SD. Mental health correlates of perceived discrimination among lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults in the United States. Am J Public Health 2001 November;91(11):1869-76.
(9) McWhirter DP, Mattison AM. Male couples. In: Cabaj R, Stein TS, editors. Textbook of Homosexuality and Mental Health.Washington: American Psychiatric Press; 1996.
(10) Kiecolt-Glaser JK, Newton TL. Marriage and health: his and hers. Psychol Bull 2001 July;127(4):472-503.
(11) Johnson NJ, Backlund E, Sorlie PD, Loveless CA. Marital status and mortality: the national longitudinal mortality study. Ann Epidemiol 2000 May;10(4):224-38.
(12) King M, Bartlett A. What same sex civil partnerships may mean for health. J Epidemiol Community Health 2006 March 1;60(3):188-91.
(13) King M, Semlyen J, Killaspy H, Nazareth I, Osborn DP. A systematic review of research on counselling and psychotherapy for lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender people. Lutterworth: BACP; 2007.
(14) Bartlett A, King M, Phillips P. Straight talking: an investigation of the attitudes and practice of psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in relation to gays and lesbians. Br J Psychiatry 2001 December;179:545-9.
(15) Spitzer RL. Can some gay men and lesbians change their sexual orientation? 200 participants reporting a change from homosexual to heterosexual orientation. Arch Sex Behav 2003 October;32(5):403-17.
(16) Shidlo A, Schroeder M. Changing sexual orientation: A consumers' report. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 2002;33:249-59.
(17) King M, Smith G, Bartlett A. Treatments of homosexuality in Britain since the 1950s--an oral history: the experience of professionals. BMJ 2004 February 21;328(7437):429.
(18) Smith G, Bartlett A, King M. Treatments of homosexuality in Britain since the 1950s--an oral history: the experience of patients. BMJ 2004 February 21;328(7437):427.
(19) Haldeman DC. Gay Rights, Patient Rights: The Implications of Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy. Professional Psychology - Research & Practice 2002;33(3):260-4.

• 5   Recognises problem, and puts forward practical ways to find a solution which accords with Christian Social Justice Principles.
• 4   Recognises problem has acceptable approach which accords with Christian Social Justice Principles but some details lacking.
• 3   Largely recognises problem and has some approaches to dealing with it which accords with Christian Social Justice Principles.
• 2   Problem not fully recognised and/or approaches to deal with it vague or are not fully in accord with Christian Social Justice Principles.
• 1   Problem not recognised and/or no ways proposed to deal with it or are not in accord with Christian Social Justice Principles.

Mr Turnbull says he is opposed to discrimination against same-sex couples. "I'm delighted to be able to announce to you tonight that if re-elected, the Coalition will extend the eligibility for death benefits under the Australian Government-defined benefit super schemes to independent relationships, which of course includes same sex couples," he said.

Greens Senator Kerry Nettle welcomed the announcement but believe the Federal Government needs to go further on the issue of gay rites. "Why when the Government voted against this change in recent sittings of Parliament, are they now, two weeks before an election, making this kind of announcement?" she said. "I think it's another example of the Federal Government using the gay and lesbian community to promise one thing and yet not deliver."

Emily Gray from the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby says she was also pleased by Mr Turnbull's announcement but doubted the impact it would have on the gay community. "In the scheme of things we believe it is not a very significant announcement. There remain over 58 laws that still remain discriminatory according to HREOC," she said.

The Coalition has relented to pressure and will grant to gay and lesbian couples the same rights on Commonwealth public sector superannuation as heterosexual couples. Malcolm Turnbull, who is under considerable political pressure from the sizeable gay community in his seat of Wentworth, flagged the changes in a speech to a gay and lesbian business leaders function last night. They will be confirmed today.

While the Coalition will not grant gay couples de facto status, or adopt any of the other 58 recommendations outlined in a human rights report in June, it will allow, if re-elected, interdependent gay couples to share each other's public pensions and super benefits--as heterosexual couples do. It will apply across the Commonwealth public service, ranging from judges, politicians to public servants and the military. Labor has already promised to institute all 58 changes, saying it was unfair to discriminate financially against people on the basis of them being gay. In 2004 such discrimination was abolished in relation to private sector superannuation.

. . . Mr Turnbull said it was a very substantial reform that affected thousands of people and "will in a practical and material way remove this form of discrimination against same-sex couples".

Before the election was called, cabinet was split on whether to extend to gay couples the same legal and financial rights as heterosexual couples. . . . Granting the rights to gay couples does not legalise same-sex marriage, which both major parties oppose. The issue was first highlighted in June when the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission published a report finding same-sex couples were discriminated against in 58 areas of financial and work-related entitlements.

The High Court's Justice Michael Kirby spoke out. He wanted the law to be changed so that his partner of 38 years, Johan van Vloten, could have access to a part-pension payable for life, should Justice Kirby die first. Under current law, if a retired judge in a heterosexual relationship dies before his or her partner, the partner is entitled to 62.5 per cent of the judge's pension. But Mr van Vloten would not receive anything because he is not female. Mr Turnbull was unsuccessful in pushing the changes through cabinet and further deliberation was postponed until after the election. But with Mr Turnbull in trouble in his seat, and his Labor rival, George Newhouse, supporting the change, the Coalition has made the promise now.

Malcolm Turnbull sounds very proud of his Government--and indeed himself--deigning to provide access to public sector superannuation for same-sex couples. But perhaps someone needs to remind Mr Turnbull that all that is happening is action on a promise the Government made over three years ago while they were busy banning gays from getting married. No doubt it's in Mr Turnbull's electoral interests to present himself as the champion of this concession now that Wentworth has so many more same-sex couples than at the last election but, as one half of such a couple, I can say this is far too little, too late. Forcing his Government to act on a commitment it made long ago, so that Mr Turnbull has a buffer against a lot of angry constituents, is nothing to be proud of. -- Sam Butler Woollahra

Please, Mr Turnbull, we're gay, not intellectually challenged. We might fancy members of our own sex but we still own a number of brain cells as our hetero brothers and sisters. Do you seriously believe that two weeks out from the election you can pledge to adopt one, I repeat one, of the 58 recommendations outlined in a human rights report regarding same-sex couples, knowing that the federal Labor Party had already promised to institute all 58, and then expect gay and lesbian constituents to flock to polling booths around the country to return you and your conservative geniuses to office? Hardly, sunshine. -- Max Fischer Scarborough

Closing the door on ourselves

When the musical "Fiddler on the Roof" first opened on Broadway back in 1964, few could have predicted that this tale of a Jewish father struggling to preserve tradition and at the same time to love his five tradition-breaking daughters would become a metaphor for families coping through the 1960s and '70s with shattering social and religious change.

Recently another father and daughter struggling to resolve differences -- a lesbian lifestyle that challenged his Catholic beliefs -- were barred by archdiocesan pressure from telling their story at a welcoming Catholic parish in Minneapolis. Besides generating publicity for the book that recounts the painful father-daughter exchange, the official decision raises again some equally painful questions about the relationship between struggling Catholics and their church.

Church leaders, of course, have boxed themselves in with tortuous logic on homosexuality that strains to reconcile loving the sinner, hating the sin, accepting those with the orientation (albeit "intrinsically disordered"), and then inviting them to make peace with their church -- once they have renounced their need for sexual intimacy.

The church once viewed itself as a home for everyone and its children as works in progress. The church once had room for all who were a day late and a dollar short of the ideal, whose private lives were compromised by infidelity, racism, addictions, larceny and deception. Sunday Mass was the gathering place for the seven capital sinners, dressed up, mixed up, and trying their best, it was assumed, to navigate life's contradictions.

Tevye comes to mind again. What guided him in his quandary over his daughters was the image of the village fiddler on his precarious rooftop perch, playing away as the father soliloquized "on the one hand" to "on the other hand," finally resolving that, whatever his daughters did, they would always be his children, always be loved.

Unfortunately, today's Catholic leaders, in pursuit of "Catholic identity," are increasingly less likely to view the church as a gathering place for the faithful-but-flawed. As episcopally fueled battles heat up over who can approach the altar, and who will sort out the sinners from the worthy at Communion time, the locus of exclusion has widened to include not only the altar, but "church property." Any parish, Catholic high school, college or university, retreat center or medical center had better think twice about hosting controversy, frank discussion, perceived criticism of church policy, prayer services for unapproved themes or any ecumenical event that attracts vituperative e-mails or faxes from those who see scandal and blasphemy everywhere.

In 1997, the U.S. Catholic bishops' Committee on Marriage and the Family -- in the best of Catholic tradition -- issued a pastoral letter for Catholic families dealing with homosexuality. They called it "Always Our Children." Its concluding paragraph, addressed to Catholic homosexuals, says: " Though at times you may feel discouraged, hurt, or angry, do not walk away from your families, from the Christian community, from all those who love you. In you God's love is revealed. You are always our children."

The text would make a wonderful note taped to the church door for returning gays and lesbians trying to resolve their sexual orientation and their faith in stable, productive lives. Except that in an increasing number of cases, they find the church doors locked.

So where then, when our lives get complicated, when our children turn out different from what we thought they would, when controversy invades our homes, do we go? If Catholics can't turn to their churches as the most appropriate place for hearing one another's stories and, through them, finding balance and compassion, where will we do the work of reconciliation that makes us church?

Vote change of climate, Phillip Adams The Australian, 3 Nov 07

A variation of the argument Pascal applied to belief in God can be applied to climate change. Pascal's "wager" says it's better to bet on God's existence than against it. If he exists, you'll be an eternal winner; if not, you've lost nothing. On the other hand, Pascal argued, to bet against God and to lose means you've lost everything.

For years John Howard joined George Bush in betting against the reality of climate change. On this issue these Christian gentlemen were effectively atheists. And they've been proved disastrously wrong. Now they're being politically punished. Trouble is, so are the rest of us.

In the '80s, the Commission for the Future was established by Barry Jones, the Hawke government's minister for science. I was chairman and Professor Ian Lowe was CEO. We chose the greenhouse effect, as this fatal phenomenon was then known, as our focus. We published documents, convened conferences, imported experts, held meetings in town halls across Australia. There was a dramatic response from scientists and public alike but a negligible reaction from our politicians.

At the time the problem wasn't denial. The climate change conspiracy theorists were yet to emerge. Nor was it a question of party-line hostilities -- they, too, would emerge much later. Indeed, more concern was shown for the issue on the conservative side. The problem was just that it was early days for anxiety. What the Commission for the Future was shouting about belonged to … the future.

Not that we were being loud or angry. Anything but. Prior to the rise of "risk management" as both a fundamental ingredient in business and an increasingly influential profession, we were proposing the wisdom of Pascal's wager. In everything we said and published we stressed the same point. It is safer, better, wiser to act on the assumption that global warming is a major threat. If proven to be true, Australia will be years ahead. If we're proved wrong, we'll still have gained. We'll have reduced pollution. We'll have cleaner air, purer water.

Come John Howard's watch we'd lost the bet. Like Bush, he listened to the wrong people. The famous vested interests. Having closed down the Commission for the Future, Howard harkened to Hugh Morgan and his fellow miners. The PM preferred the soothing views of the deniers among right-wing think-tanks and punditry to those of the scientists. Howard saw climate change (Bush's soft-pedal term for the crisis) as some sort of insidious, ideological attack on the very lifeblood of capitalism.

In short, there was no risk assessment. No insurance. No safeguards. And in an appalling piece of symbolism, no Kyoto. Now with our rivers dying, dams drying and our cities and food production in crisis, he admits there is a problem. And he expects to be taken seriously and gratefully as the nation's saviour.

Oh, and he reckons nuclear power is the answer. And more uranium mining. The nuclear power industry was on its last legs, dying everywhere. For good reason. It's immensely costly, increases dangers of weapon proliferation, poses huge problems with waste disposal and the decommissioning of plants.

It will take decades to build nuclear plants. And did you know that the much-vaunted value of uranium is somewhat exaggerated? It's just 1 per cent of our mining exports. As Ian Lowe points out in the latest Quarterly Essay -- demolishing Howard's nuclear arguments -- Australia makes more from the export of cheese.

Can one hope that Labor will get off its backside? If you look at NSW the answer is no, with the Government opening coal mines at 1000-miles-an-hour while tackling Sydney's water shortages with a wretched de-sal plant. And federal Labor seems more concerned with 14,000 coal-mining jobs -- a labour force that could easily be absorbed in building sustainable power stations.

As Lowe points out, we've lost hundreds of thousands of jobs in the manufacturing industries in recent years -- and that's put down to progress. As climate change bites, its effect on, for example, the Great Barrier Reef will be dramatic. Bang go 60,000 jobs in the Queensland tourist industry.

The Murray-Darling was a disgrace long before climate change kicked in. Now it's official. It's a calamity. Howard tells us this as if it's news. As with power needs, water usage has been spiralling out of control for decades -- and the lack of political response at all levels of government has been criminal.

We need a change in the political climate just as the PM needed a better role model. He should have dumped Bush (everyone else has) and gone for Arnie. What Schwarzenegger is achieving in California -- an economy of comparable scale to Australia's -- is impressive. Power-saving initiatives, alternative energies, tougher emissions laws.

It's all bets off on climate change. Howard to the knacker's yard. Time to change horses.

Cardinal Pell's views on climate change are his own

Cardinal George Pell has made a name for himself as a denier of radical climate change.

In replying to criticism from the Anglican Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn George Browning last week, he accused 'radical environmentalists' of 'moralising their own agenda and imposing it on people through fear'.

Then at the weekend, he devoted his Sunday Telegraph column to the topic, reaffirming that he is 'certainly sceptical about extravagant claims of impending man-made climatic catastrophes, because the evidence is insufficient'. He argues there is nothing extraordinary about present circumstances, as 'climate change has always occurred' and scientists' predictions of an 'apocalypse' due to global warming should be taken 'with a grain of salt'.

Given such strong statements from the most prominent leader in the Catholic Church in Australia, some might infer that the Church denies the reality of climate change. That would certainly conflict with the thrust of Church teaching that climate change is a reality that requires a change in our way of life:

• Pope John Paul II said in 1990 that 'when man turns his back on the Creator's plan, he provokes a disorder'.
• The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace says: 'The climate is a good that must be protected and reminds consumers and those engaged in industrial activity to develop a greater sense of responsibility for their behaviour.'
• One of the stronger local church statements comes from the 2005 position paper of the Australian Catholic Bishops: Climate Change: Our Responsibility to Sustain God’s Earth. The focus is not on the existence of climate change, but what to do about it: 'Given the gravity of the problem, detailed and resolute responses need to be both swift and radical.'

In his Sunday Telegraph column, Cardinal Pell does not underscore his argument with theological justification, as he does with his position on other issues such as human cloning. This is proper because his views are his own. So it would be unfortunate if casual readers attributed to them the authority of the Catholic Church. They have only the authority of his personal opinions.

The Columban Justice Peace and Integrity of Creation institute has released guidelines for the federal election, warning voters against intimidation by 'those who play on religion and people's good will in their denial of climate change'. It refers to those with a literalist reading of Scripture who pervert the religious word 'stewardship' to sanction economic exploitation.

Cardinal Pell has not so far incorporated such a theological dimension into his argument. It is only fair to him, and the Catholic Church, that members of the public and other commentators do not assume that he has.

Appendix A (iv) to the Standing Committee's report to this General Synod reports on a study into the implementation of the Listening Process in the Australian church

1. Other than by requesting this report and by providing for the synod session on the listening process to be conducted on Tuesday, what action has been, is being and will be taken by Standing Committee to implement whole heartedly the listening process in the Australian Church?

2. In particular, how has the Standing Committee acted in response to paragraph 9 of the report, which tells us that gay and lesbian people are seeking the opportunity to offer the church their experiences of caring, monogamous, long-lasting same-sex relationships and of their good experiences as church members?

(1) The Standing Committee has not undertaken any further initiatives, but it should be noted that compiling the report and preparing the Synod session are significant initiatives.

(2) The audio presentation offers some experiences referred to in part 2 of the question.

On the brink of schism


Passionate: lay preacher Brian McKinlay says he confronts the reality everyday that he is part of "the problem" dividing the church. Photo: Andrew Sheargold

---

Barney Zwartz
27 October 2007

BRIAN McKinlay's plea is simple but heartfelt. "I'd like people to appreciate how hard it is, almost every day of one's life, to have crisis and division in a church I love because of something that is an intimate part of the way God created me."

McKinlay, a Canberra public servant and lay preacher, is a passionate Christian who lives in a monogamous, faithful, committed same-sex relationship with another Christian. "Do you wake up every morning as a married person and think you are part of the problem dividing the church? I live with this nearly every day. There's a huge cost," he says.

"I'm nearly 60, I'm OK. What about the 22-year-old who has just discovered he's a poofter, but he loves Jesus. How will he cope with that? Some kill themselves."

McKinlay was one of 250 delegates at the Anglican synod in Canberra this week who sat in silence, lights dimmed, to hear the anonymous testimony of four gay and lesbian Anglicans.

Homosexuality has been a strong theme at the three-yearly synod, both as the issue that has driven the worldwide Anglican Church to the brink of schism in the past five years, and in discussions of whether anti-gay attitudes have hardened in the Australian church. A number of gay Anglicans were in no doubt about that, while Synod deputy chairman Justice Peter Young predicted the next big conflict in the Australian church would be between the hierarchy and gay and lesbian Christians.

"This is the issue of the day," says a senior Melbourne priest who is gay. "For the younger generation, 'don't ask, don't tell' isn't acceptable. For some people, honesty and integrity is much more important than discretion. We just want the sympathetic understanding that, as part of God's good creation, this is how it is."

The Anglican Church has always formally forbidden homosexual activity. Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen says the church standards are drawn straight from the Bible, they are perfectly clear, and are adhered to by all churches. "The stand of the worldwide church for 2000 years is that God approves sexual relations in marriage and disapproves of sexual relations, heterosexual or homosexual, outside marriage. This view is not against homosexuals but for marriage," Dr Jensen says.

The synod "listening process" on Tuesday night represented a significant step, according to leading laywoman Dr Muriel Porter, who organised the presentation. "It says a lot about the church that these people have to tell their stories anonymously -- that's the saddest thing," she says.

The room was still, and people filed out quietly and reflectively. Earlier attempts in a couple of Australian dioceses resulted in the listening process turning into a shouting process, which deterred other dioceses from even trying, according to Porter.

"I detect a willingness to listen now," she says, "but if anything attitudes are hardening in response to what is happening internationally."

Porter says there are fewer gay people in the church than 20 years ago, both clergy and in congregations. "The rules are getting tougher on who gets through. There wasn't as much 'putting a window into men's souls', to quote Elizabeth I, as now, and we lose some of the most promising people because they aren't willing to subject themselves to an inhuman level of scrutiny."

The four stories that were read to the synod reflected different experiences of homosexuality. One is a former priest who left the church because of its attitude to gays, another man stayed but is celibate because he believes that to be the biblical requirement, another is a woman who was a lesbian but through Christian experience has become heterosexual, and the fourth is a still-serving priest who keeps his homosexuality secret.

The former priest says he could not cope with celibacy, and not just because of sex. "I feared becoming a lonely single priest, emotionally empty, who could end up hitting the bottle." He fell in love with a man (they have been together 35 years) and knew they could not live together openly, nor was he prepared to pretend. He left the priesthood and, eight years later, the church. "I did not want to be part of an institution that would not accept me as a whole person. If I had followed the church's line and rejected this relationship and all it has given me, I would now effectively be dead."

The second story is that of a layman, 53, who accepted he had always been gay but believed it was against Scripture to have sex. As a young man, he sought counselling from a youth leader who asked him for sex. He refused. Later, as a highly respected youth leader himself, he invited a young Christian to sleep with him and was rebuffed. "I felt such a level of shame and disgust at how things had come full circle that even now, more than two decades later, the emotional memory is still painful." But his walk with Christ deepened, and he feels secure.

"I have sought to make my life's focus not my sexuality but rather God's grace in calling me to be one of his people … These things matter far more to me than issues to do with my sexual orientation and how I respond to them," he says.

The third testimony is from a woman, sexually abused as a child, who was so certain she was a lesbian that she took male hormones, grew a beard and had her breasts removed. Becoming suicidal, she called out to God that she could not live like this any more. "It was like a decade of psychotherapy in an hour. I understood who I was. I was not a man, just a very injured woman."

Now she is married, with three children. She says: "It is a lot easier to be heterosexual; who would ever choose to be homosexual? I know that God has never rejected me and accepts me as I am. The God I worship would never reject gay people; he is a God of healing and restoration."

The last testimony is a priest who lived almost 40 years in a monogamous relationship with another man, sometimes in the same house, sometimes not. This enriched his life and ministry enormously.

He says the climate in the church has become more fearful and mean-spirited, leading many gays to give up on it. "I do wish the church might let the question of homosexuality take the small place it needs in the tradition."

Melbourne priest Nigel Wright, who "came out" 15 years ago, thinks anti-gay attitudes in the church have hardened. "What I call the horizons of imagination have narrowed. Systems have been set up that bid us identify with those who are in, and therefore not with those who are outside. It's cruel as well as heretical."

Father Wright lives with his partner in a legal British civil partnership, and says he has not found any objection from church authorities. He's grateful for that, but he rejects the conservative line on homosexuality -- that the orientation itself is not a moral failure but sexual activity is.

"That silly thing about love the sinner, not the sin, and it's OK if you're not practising -- like I haven't been practising for years! I've been up to concert standard for a long time," he says. The senior Melbourne priest who did not want to be named feels the same way. "Never say it's not personal, because people are affected," he says.

Gays used to call themselves "friends of Dorothy", a reference to The Wizard of Oz, and at St Agnes, Glenhuntly, the congregation has celebrated St Dorothy's Day for years. Actually, there is a St Dorothy, who refused to get married and died a virgin martyr in the third century. Vicar David Still says the St Dorothy service gives the wider gay community a chance to experience faith together in a welcoming environment. "Half a dozen parishes at the Catholic end of Anglicanism are quite accommodating of gay people," he says. "We would have four or five openly gay, including couples, and the parish is extremely welcoming."

It was a warm welcome that led Brian McKinlay to reveal his homosexuality. At a Canberra synod a few years ago Bishop George Browning said he knew there were gay and lesbian members and he hoped they would feel welcome. "I stood up and said, if he had the courage to say that, the least I could do was have the courage to say thank you. They clapped and cheered, and that was entirely enough."

But he wants gay and heterosexual Christians to remember what Christian priorities are. "For me, the work of the church and the gospel of Christ is supremely more important than anything I might construe as my rights. The Great Commission (Jesus' instruction to make disciples) is best fulfilled if we open our doors to anybody and everybody. I pray that every person who comes seeking God will find a welcome. I don't want myself to be an obstacle to achieving that."

Barney Zwartz is religion editor

Australian Anglicans had become fearful and mean-spirited about homosexuals in the church, a gay priest told the church's national synod last night, while a top Anglican suggested homosexuality would be the next battleground.

Justice Peter Young, the synod's deputy chairman, told The Age that homosexuality would be the next problem for the Australian church now the debate over women bishops had been resolved. "We can see from England and New Zealand what the problems are. We can see that the next problem is between the (Anglican) hierarchy and gay and lesbian Christians," he said.

The gay priest, 60, who has lived almost 40 years in a monogamous relationship, was one of four homosexuals whose testimony was read by volunteers to preserve their anonymity in a special session of synod. The priest said there was a much more generous attitude to gays in the 1970s and '80s, and he knew many clergy living in faithful relationships. "In recent years the climate has changed. It is fearful and very often mean-spirited," he said.

"Today there are few priests living in a same-sex relationship. My suspicion is that there are many fewer gay people in the church--they seem to have given up on institutional religion and certainly the Christian church."

Dr Muriel Porter, who acquired the four accounts, said attitudes had hardened in response to international Anglican turmoil over sexuality. Dr Porter said there were fewer gay people in the church than 20 years ago, and it would be rare to find openly gay people, but if all gay clergy left they would leave a huge gap. "We lose some of the most promising people because they simply aren't prepared to subject themselves to an inhuman level of scrutiny."

The four stories told of different experiences. One was of a priest who left the church because of its attitude to gays, another man stayed but was celibate, another was a woman who had been a lesbian but through Christian experience became heterosexual, and the fourth was the priest who kept his homosexuality semi-secret for decades.
Australia's Anglican leader, Brisbane Archbishop Philip Aspinall, said it was hard to get cool, rational debate on homosexuality.

The church needed space so people could engage with confronting ideas in a non-threatening way, he said. "We should listen compassionately, whether we agree with them (gays) or not."

Preferences may give Greens the rails run

Patricia Karvelas, The Australian (26 Oct 07)

A new Morgan poll reveals the Liberal Party is well short of a quota to win a Senate spot in the ACT, which could deliver Gary Humphries's seat to Greens candidate Kerrie Tucker.

According to the latest Morgan Poll, the Coalition is polling at 24.35 per cent in the ACT--well short of the quota of 33 per cent it needs to win the seat. The Greens are getting their strongest poll results in the country in the ACT, with 17.09 per cent of people saying they would like to vote for them. With ALP preferences, the Greens would easily win the seat. This would mean Ms Tucker would take office straight after the election, robbing the Coalition of its Senate majority. It would also mean the Liberal Party had no federal politicians in the ACT.

In a half Senate election, each state elects six senators (who take office for six years from July 1, 2008) while the territories elect two senators at each election, but the term of the territory senators is the same as a member of the House of Representatives. That means that if Senator Humphries loses his seat, the Coalition will immediately lose their absolute majority in the Senate. The Coalition holds 39 of the 76 Senate seats.

Several national organisations have targeted their campaigning on the ACT, with the Senate seat in mind, including internet-based activist organisation GetUp.

The poll also reveals that the Greens are polling well in Tasmania, on 15.33 per cent, and 11.49per cent in Victoria, where they also hope to win a seat. The poll shows the ALP is still not seen as having strong global warming and climate change credentials, despite its focus on these issues. Only 24.8per cent of those surveyed considered Labor best on the issue. The Coalition did worse with only 16.8 per cent rating them as best. The Greens polled at 41.6 per cent.

Ms Tucker, who spent nine years in the ACT Legislative Assembly, said: "While recognising the challenge, I believe I can win one of the two ACT Senate seats."

A radio shock jock interfered with Kevin Rudd's carefully manicured campaign yesterday by asking the Opposition Leader to lay out his views on gay marriage. . . . Mr Rudd's plan to spend the day talking about childcare policies was derailed by his appearance on FM radio host Kyle Sandilands' show. "On the institution of marriage itself, our view is that it's between a man and a woman and that's just been our traditional continuing view," Mr Rudd told Sandilands and his listeners.

"But ages ago, if you were black, you weren't allowed to travel on the same bus as a white person. And then we all realised, oh, actually that's wrong of us to think that because that was stupid. And that was wrong," Mr Sandilands said. "Do you think in the future sometimes we will look back and think we were wrong in what we believed. Like we can't really put our own beliefs on everyone, can we?"

Mr Rudd replied: "No. I accept that. But at the same time, you asked me a direct question, 'What do I believe in? What do I stand for? What is my party's policy?' I have just got to be up front with you and say that's it.

A bitter rift over climate change has developed between a senior member of the Anglican Church and Sydney Catholic Archbishop George Pell.

Canberra Bishop George Browning, the Anglican Church's global environmental chief said Cardinal Pell was out of step with his own church and made no sense on global warming. Bishop Browning also criticised the Federal Government for its "utter obsession" with growth and warned that climate change refugees would be a bigger problem than terrorists in a century of desperate struggle.

At the national Anglican synod in Canberra yesterday, Bishop Browning attacked the cardinal for saying Jesus said nothing about climate change. "It's almost unbelievable," said Bishop Browning, who is the chairman of the Anglican Communion Environmental Network. "I wrote him a letter saying Jesus had an awful lot to say about the rich taking what belonged to the poor and about the heritage of the children, and as he spoke about both of these things he spoke about climate change."

Later, he told The Age that Cardinal Pell was an exception even in his own church. "I frankly don't know where he's coming from or why he says what he does. It doesn't make any sense to me. The contribution he should make as leader of the Catholic Church is muted because of his stance." Cardinal Pell replied scathingly that church leaders should be allergic to nonsense. "My task as a Christian leader is to engage with reality, to contribute to debate on important issues, to open people's minds and to point out when the emperor is wearing few or no clothes," he said. "Radical environmentalists are more than up to the task of moralising their own agenda and imposing it on people through fear. They don't need church leaders to help them with this, although it is a very effective way of further muting Christian witness," he said. Cardinal Pell said he was sceptical of extravagant claims of impending man-made catastrophes. However, the Vatican accepts that climate change is a serious threat to the world.

Bishop Browning said Australian politicians "were driven by their obsession with growth. The future is about sustainability, not prosperity on its own. Prosperity without sustainability is economic death." On climate refugees, Bishop Browning said that over millenniums people moved when their environment changed. "The 21st century will be a desperate struggle, especially for water," he said. He said the science of global warming was settled and accepted even by US President George Bush.

"It is also settled morally. Jesus made it absolutely clear that the poor are not here to pay the bills of the rich, but that's exactly what's happening."

He told the synod: "It's not inevitable that humanity will face an apocalyptic world. To do something about it will cost us, but we will still have three meals a day and live in a comfortable house. We need to do it today. I want all of you to leave the synod today believing this is our core business, it's not (just) something greenie Christians do."

Meanwhile, Rosie Catt, of the Australian Anglican Environmental Network, said inaction on climate change amounted to genocide according to the United Nations definition. "If we know climate change is having that effect on the most vulnerable people and we can do something about it, are we not guilty of the destruction of a way of life, in whole or part?" she said.

Australia's most prominent religious sceptic of climate change, the Catholic Archbishop George Pell, was out of step within his church and the global Christian community on global warming, a leading Anglican environmentalist says.

The head of the Anglican Church's international body on the environment, George Browning, said Dr Pell's position on global warming defied scientific consensus and theological imperatives to protect the Earth and its future generations. It also made no sense and would be proven a mistake. Bishop Browning's stance came as the Australian Anglican church prepared to adopt its strongest position yet on climate change, committing 23 dioceses to initiatives reducing their carbon footprint.

But Dr Pell said last night he had every right to be sceptical about extravagant claims of impending man-made climatic catastrophes. "There are many measures which are good for the environment, which we should pursue," he said. "We need to be able talk freely about this and about the uncertainties around climate change. Invoking the authority of some scientific experts to shut down debate is not good for science, the environment, for people here and in the developing world or for the people of tomorrow. My task as a Christian leader is to engage with reality, to contribute to debate on important issues, to open people's minds, and to point out when the emperor is wearing few or no clothes. Radical environmentalists are more than up to the task of moralising their own agenda and imposing it on people through fear. They don't need church leaders to help them with this, although it is a very effective way of further muting Christian witness. Church leaders in particular should be allergic to nonsense."

Bishop Browning supported warnings that climate change refugees would, in the future, pose a bigger threat to world security than terrorism by triggering massive population shifts. He also warned Australia had to dump the "language of drought" because it offered false hope to farmers by implying that after drought would come flood and a return to normal farming life. The warming of the planet had triggered irreversible climate changes that warranted fundamental changes in farming and investment practices.

Bishop Browning took issue with Dr Pell's Easter message this year at which the cardinal said Jesus had nothing to say on global warming. He told the Anglican synod meeting in Canberra yesterday he had written to Dr Pell after the Easter message because he found his statement "almost unbelievable".

Cardinal George Pell yesterday came under fire for his sceptical view of climate change and for being out of touch with his community. Responding to the criticism from Anglican Bishop George Browning, Cardinal Pell said that church leaders "should be allergic to nonsense" and that his role was to "engage with reality".

Bishop Browning told the Australian Anglican Church's general synod in Canberra yesterday that the cardinal was out of touch with the Catholic Church as well as with the general community. "He is an exception even within his own church," Bishop Browning said. "I frankly do not understand where he is coming from. The contribution he should make as leader of the Catholic Church in Australia is muted by these statements."

Cardinal Pell replied that "radical environmentalists" were "more than up to the task of moralising their own agenda and imposing it on people through fear. They don't need church leaders to help them with this, although it is a very effective way of further muting Christian witness," he said.

He added that "church leaders in particular should be allergic to nonsense. I am certainly sceptical about extravagant claims of impending man-made climatic catastrophes. Uncertainties on climate change abound . . . my task as a Christian leader is to engage with reality, to contribute to debate on important issues, to open people's minds, and to point out when the emperor is wearing few or noclothes."

Bishop Browning, the chair of the Anglican Communion Environmental Network, said he had written to the cardinal after his remark at Easter that "neither did Jesus say anything about global warming". "I told him: 'I can't believe you said that,"' Bishop Browning said. He said he had received a "gracious" reply from the cardinal, "but he did not say he had made a mistake".

Bishop Browning, whose Canberra-Goulburn diocese stretches from Batemans Bay on the NSW coast as far as Wagga Wagga and Young in the drought-declared inland and includes many areas where people are under financial stress, argued that there was an inextricable link between climate change and human activities. He said the church should be leading efforts to ameliorate the consequences.

"Jesus had an awful lot to say about the rich taking what belonged to the poor and the heritage of children, and as he spoke about both these things, he spoke about climate change," the bishop said. "People of belief should be in the vanguard of this movement."

Whereas -- on the initiative of the Anglican Consultative Council, and with the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury -- the Anglican Church of Korea will host a world-wide Anglican Peace Conference in Seoul in November 2007 concerning peace initiatives and reconciliation on the Korean peninsula,

this General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia:

(a) sends greetings of peace in Christ to the Anglican Church of Korea and the Towards Peace in Korea Conference;

(b) supports the creation of a worldwide Anglican network for peace in North East Asia;

(c) invites all Christians to pray for the peace of the Korean peninsula and the freedom to worship of its people; and

(d) requests the Archbishop of Perth, the Most Reverend Roger Herft, who is attending the conference, to transmit this message of goodwill to the Primate Bishop of the Anglican Church of Korea.

This Synod,
mindful of the recent unrest in the nation of Myanmar (Burma), and the continuing oppression and difficulties faced by Burmese Christians, and noting lack of basic freedoms, including the right to protest peacefully, and the many injustices suffered by the people of this nation,

1. calls on the members of the Anglican Church of Australia to pray consistently for the peace and security of the people of Burma,
2. for Burmese Christians and especially the members of the Anglican Church under the leadership of Archbishop Samuel San Si Htay; and
3. calls on the political leadership of this nation to continue to express Australia’s concern for the peace and security of the Burmese people to the military leadership of that nation, and to engage through the international community in efforts to progress principles of freedom and democracy for the Burmese people.

Burma's invisble victims

Ever since I was a member of the General Committee of the Christian Conference of Asia, and then one of the presidents of that regional ecumenical organisation, I have had a profound interest in the nation of Burma, its people, and especially Burmese Christians.

I recall being deeply moved one morning when we were meeting in Osaka, Japan. I breakfasted with the representative from Burma in a busy local café. We appeared to be the only non-Japanese in the place and the only English speakers. With my normal Aussie blunt talking, and in my ignorance, I asked, "Why don’t you share with us more openly about the situation for your people and the Christians in your nation?". The quiet reply was, "Because if I did, when I go home, I might disappear".

Burma is a nation in South-East Asia with a population of about 50 million. Since 1962 it has been under military rule, following the coup staged by General Ne Win, when the civilian government was toppled. In 1988 the current junta was formed, and in 1990, the junta suspended the results of a democratic parliamentary election, and the successful leader in that election, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been under house arrest ever since.

There are nearly four million Christians in Burma, and they are regarded as part of the worldwide persecuted church. Minority ethnic groups in Burma, including the Karen, the Karenni, Chin and Kachin, all include quite large Christian populations. Christianity Today reports that the US State Department ranks Burma as one of the six worst violators of religious freedom. Informed observers now believe that the military junta plans to eradicate Christians from Burma so that it will become a wholly Buddhist nation.

Stories from Christian pastors and refugees in the camps on the Thai/Burmese border, where they have been ministered to by many Christian missionaries and church representatives, and NGOs, give a clear picture of what is happening to the oppressed people. They report that Christian churches, villages and homes are destroyed and burnt to the ground. The majority of Burma’s Christian population are Baptists, but there are other Christian groupings, including the Anglican Church.

The Anglican Primate is Archbishop Samuel San Si Htay. He is an inspiring man, slim and wiry like the majority of his people, and full of Christian courage in his witness and leadership. Like most Burmese he has to be careful about his comments on the situation in his country while outside Burma.

There are many human rights abuses. People are compelled to become human minesweepers, men are taken from their homes to be forced labourers, children are seized and turned into soldiers, and the use of rape as a weapon of war and control of the people is well documented. In August this year, the regime dramatically increased the cost of petrol. As a result, there were uprisings which grew into the marches that we saw reported in our media, with many Buddhist monks joining in the protests. There was an immediate crackdown from the military forces, many people were seized and taken away, beaten and tortured. One Japanese journalist died while filming events. He was not holding a weapon and he was shot in the back.

A Bangkok Post journalist wrote that Rudyard Kipling described Burma as a land full of "sunshine, palm trees and tinkly temple bells", but now he said, "its people are at risk of being felled like trees in a far-off forest, invisible and all but unheard". But hear the words of a pastor to a Christianity Today journalist who had found his way into remote parts of Burma. "We have to leave village after village, house after house. But it increases our faith. We are Christians; we know that God will help us. But please remember us in your prayers. Please do not forget."

Sarah Macneil could be Australia's first female bishop as the next vacancy is looming in her home diocese of Canberra-Goulburn where Bishop George Browning is planning to retire early next year.

Certainly the Canberra-based archdeacon is among the experienced, senior women who are eligible now that the Anglican Church has ruled there is no barrier on the grounds of sex. With the ink barely dry on the judgment that announced the long-fought and historic shift to female bishops, Macneil, 52, has not had time to stop and consider the personal implications. "Looking at bishop is a whole different kind of dynamic," she says.

Her days are already full and satisfying. In addition to her administrative role, Macneil is the priest for the parish of All Saints in Ainslie, she's married to another priest, Ian Chaplin, and she has a teenage son.

"There was no point in considering something that was not possible," Macneil says. "Since it has become a possibility, one of the responses that unfolded for me was a wonderful sense of joy and completion for the church that women can now be considered.

"Might God actually be calling me to have my name considered in this kind of situation? That's the kind of question you need to spend a lot of time and thought and prayer on over days. I have not had time to do it and, if I had, the thinking and praying would have been affected by the emotional response to the decision. I imagine lots of other women are in the same position that I am."

If Macneil were to replace Browning, Sydney's Archbishop Peter Jensen, as the head of the metropolitan diocese in the region, should preside over the historic consecration. But it's not that simple. Australia's 23 dioceses have a large degree of autonomy and it is up to each to choose whether to implement the ruling on female bishops. Jensen's conservative diocese will not, just as it does not ordain female priests. So no one seriously expects Jensen to preside over the consecration of a female bishop.

Macneil has no comment on this scenario. But Anglican insiders are well aware it is one of the difficulties arising from a decision about one-third of the church does not support. The delicate management of this issue is the job of the leader of Australia's 3.7million Anglicans, Brisbane's Archbishop Phillip Aspinall. It is also part of the load the primate carries into the church's three-yearly parliament, or synod, which starts tomorrow.

An acknowledged supporter of women in leadership, Aspinall was also a member of the church's high court, the Appellate Tribunal, which ruled 4:3 that there was no constitutional impediment to change. It took more than two years for the tribunal to deliver a legal resolution to a theological problem. The first step forward, ordaining women as deacons, the first level of ministry, came in the mid-1980s. "In the 1970s, '80s and '90s, the theological grounds were thoroughly rehearsed internationally as well as in Australia, and by the time we got to 'deaconing' women in 1985 in Australia the feeling was the theological arguments against ordaining women as deacons and priests were not sufficient," Aspinall says.

Opposition to female priests and bishops rests on several grounds. One is the concept that seems quaint to the secular mind--headship--which belongs to men. Exponents claim the biblical authority, for example, of St Paul for the idea that women do not have any authority over men. Other arguments include not wanting to depart from 2000 years of Christian tradition of male leadership and that Jesus did not have female apostles.

Aspinall says New Testament documents show Jesus regarded women as key to his mission. "It was to women he first appeared following the resurrection and sent them to convey the news to the male apostles. So they can be seen as the first apostles, as it were." He points out God is neither male nor female and Jesus is a representative of all people, not just men.

Those who agree with Aspinall have won this round, but he is concerned to ensure those who disagree do not end up feeling spiritually disenfranchised. For him it is a matter of urgency and it will be discussed at the synod in Canberra. And although the bishops agreed when they met earlier this year that there should be no consecration of women until after they next meet in April, Aspinall points out this is not binding and not all bishops were present when it was made.

This has been a big deal in Australia, but it pales in comparison to the gigantic stoush in the 76 million-strong worldwide church over the status of people in same-sex relationships and whether they can become priests and bishops. Aspinall is immersed in this debate too, courtesy of his election in February to the primates' standing committee. It works closely with the church's advisory body, the Anglican Consultative Council, and it also advises the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, who has to navigate the church through these troubled waters.

But if Aspinall is an unequivocal supporter of women in the church, he is emphatically silent on the same-sex issues, so as not to further inflame debate. "For the time being, at least, my agenda is to contribute what I can to create an environment in which, in a careful and balanced way, the issues can be addressed," he says.

It was made harder in 2003 when part of the church's American arm, the Episcopalians, consecrated a gay bishop from New Hampshire, Gene Robinson, who was in a same-sex relationship. Undertakings have since been sought by the rest of the church that the Episcopalians not do it again or bless any same-sex unions, as they had done at about the same time. Homosexuality was only one of the relevant issues. The other was authority: the rest of the church was angered and saddened (depending on the faction) by the Episcopalians flouting its wish that the issue be given more thought and discussion before anyone took action.

Aspinall was among those who addressed last month's meeting of the Episcopalians on the subject in New Orleans in the US. He is positive about the outcome: to hold off on consecrating any more people "whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on the communion", including "non-celibate gay and lesbian persons". They also pledged no bishops would authorise public rites of blessing for same-sexcouples. "In my view they put the brakes on pretty hard in order to create space for discussion in the wider community," Aspinall says.

The fate of the 10-yearly Lambeth Conference held by the Archbishop of Canterbury is up in the air while the world's primates try to work out if the Episcopalians have been sufficiently contrite. All bishops are invited, including Robinson. Sydney's bishops wrote to Williams saying they wouldn't accept until the lie of the land became clearer. Jensen has claimed he will not attend if Robinson does. Aspinall says the church needs to stick together to sort out its problems and it can't do that if members boycott important meetings such as Lambeth.

One of the tasks of this general synod is to work out a collective response to the Episcopalians' latest undertaking, which Aspinall will pass on to Williams. Aspinall also has a challenge of his own for the communion. "For the (past) four or five years discussion has been about process, about how we live together despite our differences," he says. "I think the time is coming when we have got to have a significant international analysis of the substance of the issues. We have not had, to my knowledge, an international Anglican theological commission to look at the theological issues involved.

"I believe the Anglican communion as a whole has to work on these issues with a commission that represents the different views within the communion. Because the temperature rises when these issues are raised, it will be hard."

Intractable arguments arise over the place of women and attitudes to homosexuality "because of deep-seated differences in approaches to scripture"," Aspinall says. The group would need to "look at how Bible use in the life of the Anglican communion might allow some more rational understandings to develop (that) could provide a context in which same-sex issues could be considered".

"How can we agree on what principles of interpretation can be applied?" he says. "The only way to deal with this stuff is to sit down with the scholars and try to hammer our way through it. But if we are coming to the text with different assumptions and rules, we are bound to get different answers." Then the challenge would be to educate the rest of the church.

"We are not talking about a quick fix," Aspinall says. "What's at stake in the final analysis is the degree to which the church can live out in its own life the unity (that) it says God intends for the world." He is unperturbed by criticism, most recently from bishop and scholar Tom Frame, who argues in his new book Anglicans in Australia that the church's disunity is at dangerous levels. "It is fragmented and factionalised," Aspinall confirms. Structurally those things are built in. It took us 40 years to put in place the 1962 constitution. That's because of the history: as colonies were established and dioceses were established from England, they developed their own life and character, and none of the dioceses want to relinquish their power."

While he thinks the Australian church should pull together more, he notes with satisfaction that its struggles could help show the world church how to resist yielding to bitter division.

But is the Australian church successful? Yes and no, he says. "We are still in one church. It has not split. Relationships are changing, though, and the advent of women bishops will change them further."

If that day comes for Macneil, she will bring to the role of bishop not only pastoral experience and leadership but vital expertise: her doctoral thesis was on Anglican identity and governance.

The Greens launched the re-election campaign of NSW senator Kerry Nettle on Friday, pledging to use its numbers to push for a referendum on a Bill of Rights. The party also promised to use a balance of power leverage to double the budget of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to $30 million.

"We need a Bill of Rights to ensure no longer will future prime ministers be able to cut down basic rights," Greens leader Bob Brown said. With both major parties indicating a referendum in the next term, Brown wanted a Bill of Rights included and welcomed further socially progressive moves from the Government.

But Prime Minister John Howard has ruled out a last-minute announcement on same-sex discrimination or de facto recognition. "Well that is wrong, I’m not about to introduce any legislation on that," Howard said last Friday. "Does the Government endorse all the recommendations of the Human Rights Commission on this? No it doesn’t."

At a Greens forum last week Nettle said the party was committed to full de facto and marriage equality for all people regardless of sexuality or gender as well as federal anti-discrimination protections and parenting rights. Those policies --and the offer to support any federal civil union legislation--were given "full ticks" by Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby spokesman Ghassan Kassisieh. "What the Greens could do is negotiate on key points. Really, we just need to know that law reform for us is a top priority for them as well. And our issues would be put on their leverage agenda," Kassisieh said.

The forum also introduced local Greens candidates Susan Jarnason in Wentworth, Jenny Leong in Sydney and Saeed Khan in Grayndler, as well as openly gay Ray Goodlass in Riverina.

"The old parties joining to ban gay marriage exemplified attacks against minorities," Leong said. "We want to get rid of the Howard Government and send a message to a future Rudd government that you can't talk about equality with conditions or compromise."

1. freedom of sexuality and gender identity are fundamental human rights.
2. acceptance and celebration of diversity are essential for genuine social justice and equality.
3. people have the right to assume their self-identified sex.
4. discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender identity is a significant cause of psychological distress, mental illness and suicide.
5. the health needs of all Australians should be provided for without discrimination and with respect and equity.

6. legal and social environments free from harassment, abuse, vilification, stigmatisation, discrimination, disadvantage or exploitation on the basis of sexuality or gender identity.
7. the legalisation of marriage between two consenting adults regardless of sexuality or gender identity.
8. de facto relationships to have equal status in law and government policy regardless of sexuality and gender identity.
9. access, regardless of sexuality and gender identity, to adoption, fostering, artificial insemination and in vitro fertilisation procedures.
10. the education system to provide age-appropriate information about the diversity of sexuality.
11. access to the full range of medical and health services required by people with needs related to their sexuality and gender identity.

12. legislate to remove discrimination against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender or Intersex (LGBTI) people in federal legislation.
13. require governments and their agencies to consult with LGBTI communities and representative groups on the development of policies and programs that affect LGBTI people.
14. initiate national anti-discrimination public education campaigns.
15. legislate to allow marriage regardless of sexuality or gender identity.
16. introduce legislation to ensure fair and equal treatment under Commonwealth law of all relationships regardless of sexuality and gender identity.
17. support nationally consistent age of consent laws.
18. remove convictions for consensual homosexual acts from legal records.
19. end the inappropriate application of offensive behaviour, indecent behaviour, 'promotion' and incitement laws to non-heterosexual acts.
20. fund services to support and protect LGBTI youth, in particular suicide prevention, peer support, coming out, counselling, and housing services and programs.
21. establish intersex as a gender recognised by the legal system.
22. support the provision of accurate information, counselling and referral for individuals with, and parents and carers of, infants with intersex conditions.
23. support gender assignment for people born with an intersex condition being made only when they are able to express personal sexual identity.
24. support the granting of political asylum on humanitarian grounds to people persecuted in their own countries on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity.

A young crowd sings their praise of God at the City Life church in Wantirna South. There is no sedating hum of an organ as the congregation files in, no candle flames or sad-eyed statues to reflect upon. Instead, a wooden cross has been draped with a white cloth and set on stage amid the musical instruments--abandoned for the moment--while hard-driving mood music plays in the background, one of those mindlessly pleasant tunes with widdly guitars and synthesisers, as found in skiing documentaries and cinema advertising.

Everything is pleasant and upbeat at City Life church in Wantirna South. There's a buzz. When Senior Pastor Mark Conner takes to the stage to welcome the 2500 people--in the main hall, the balcony and in the overflow rooms--he uses words like "tremendous" and "excellent" when the crowd show their enthusiasm. When the band starts up, the songs have a very happy feel to them--even as they celebrate and give thanks for Christ's ordeal.

"I'm so glad you came to save us," goes one line. "You took the fall . . . and thought of me above all," goes another. This is a Good Friday, when everything is good indeed. Jesus died, but he died for us. Jesus suffered, but he thought of us at the time.

A small sampling of the faithful--many having converted from traditional churches and other religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism--suggests that a sense of "relevance" is behind the growing popularity of Pentecostal style of worship in Australia.

"It feels more relevant," says Kevin Russell who, with his wife, Jenny, converted from the Anglican Church nine years ago. "We feel we have the opportunity to know God more closely," he says. Says Leigh, a former Vietnamese refugee: "I get more out of it than I did from Buddhism . . . which is more a philosophical thing, about ideas . . . this is very real." And Carl is a long-time Catholic who came to crave more than "symbols . . . and rituals".

The Good Friday service doesn't feature such Pentecostal practices as talking in tongues--although they are a feature at smaller, home-based meetings--but follows a simple formula of songs and "a message", rather than a sermon.

The message, too--delivered by Conner's wife, Nicole--serves to make the Easter story personally relevant to the gathering. Her approach is fresh and interesting, her delivery vigorous without being overly showy--the theme being Christ's last words. She suggests that "My father, why have you forsaken me?" represents the moment that Jesus was separated from the undiluted goodness and purity of God to suffer as a human. In the desperate agony of "It is finished", Nicole suggests that Christ is declaring the bitter part of salvation is now done--in tandem with his last mortal breath. She makes the comparison to four unfinished statues by Michelangelo--where human forms are in seeming torment as they remain half-emerged from the stone. And just as the statues need their maker to complete the job, man requires his maker to free him from the bondage of sin through the agency of forgiveness.

Another song or two, a synchronised communion--crackers and juice--and it's all over, with much laughter and chatter at the exits. "We believe it's a sin for church to be boring," says Mark Conner.

[I]n the course of our conversation together we realized that, in fact, Scripture is our Scripture. LGBT people are not excluded from affirming this Scripture's teaching that "All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness" (verse 16). We are not excluded because this affirmation does not mean that we believe we should robotically "do" everything we might read about in Scripture.

The study's authors suppose that Christians who disapprove of homosexuality could be akin to the mythmakers Paul warns Timothy to "correct, rebuke, and encourage." HRC turns the tables on Christians who have used this same passage to defend orthodox teaching. The tactic may not be compelling to Christians familiar with the Bible's many plain teachings against homosexual behavior. But the approach has a certain appeal to those who respect Scripture but don't understand it. These people would not be so persuaded if HRC simply denounced Scripture as a relic of ancient culture. Misguided theologians of earlier eras sank venerable denominations with that strategy.

Still, the campaign looks like another example of Paul's prophetic warning: "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear" (2 Tim. 4:3-4).

Now that the Church has had some time to absorb and consider the recent meeting of the House of Bishops in New Orleans and its response to the Anglican Communion, I'd like to share with you what I experienced at the recent House of Bishops meeting, and where I think we are as a result.

There is NO "mind of the House" nor a "mind of the Episcopal Church." In fact, we are a House and a Church of many different minds. We are in transition from the Church we have been called to be in the past, to the Church we are called to be now and in the future. We are not there yet.

I value highly the thoughts and needs of my brother and sister conservative bishops, who have no intention of leading their flocks out of the Episcopal Church, but come out of dioceses which, for the most part, find the Episcopal Church's actions of the last four years troublesome and alarming. I listened to them when they voiced the fears of their people that changing our views on homosexuality is a precursor to moving on to denying important tenets of our orthodox faith, from the Trinity to the Resurrection. We worked for a statement which would reflect the diversity we recognize and value as a strength of our Episcopal communion. It was our goal to describe the Church as it currently is: NOT of one mind, but struggling to be of one heart.

My own goal -- and that of many bishops -- was to do NOTHING at this meeting. That is, our goal, in response to the Primates, was simply to state where we are as an Episcopal Church, not to move us forward or backward. Sometimes, "progress" is to be found in holding the ground we've already achieved, when "moving forward" is either untimely or not politically possible. And, doing nothing substantive respects the rightful reminder to us from many in the Senior House that the House of Bishops cannot speak for the whole Church, but rather must wait until all orders of ministry are gathered for its joint deliberations at General Convention.

While many of us worked hard to block B033 and voted against it at General Convention, it IS the most recent declaration of all orders of ministry gathered as a Church. The Bishops merely restated what is, as of the last General Convention.

Yes, we did identify gay and lesbian people as among the group included in those who 'present a challenge" to the Communion. That comes as a surprise to no one. It is a statement of who we are at the moment. Sad, but true.

Many bishops spoke on behalf of their lgbt members and worked hard to prevent our movement backwards. We fought hard over certain words, certain language. We sidelined some things that truly would have represented a movement backwards.

I want to tell you what I said to the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the course of his comments, it seemed to me that the Archbishop was drawing a line between fidelity to our gay and lesbian members, and fidelity to the "process of common discernment," which he had offered as a prime function of a bishop. I heard him saying that gay and lesbian members of our Church would simply have to wait until there was a consensus in the Communion. When we were invited to respond, I said something like, "Your Grace, I have always respected you as a person and your office, and I always will. But I want you to know and hear, that to me, a gay man and faithful member of this Church, this is one of the most dehumanizing things I've heard in a long time, and I will not be party to it. It reminds me of Jesus question 'Is the Sabbath made for man, or man for the Sabbath?' Choosing a process over the lives of human beings and faithful members of this Church is simply unacceptable and unscriptural." The next morning, the Archbishop tried to assure us that he meant both/and rather than either/or. I tried to speak my truth to him.

On the issue of same sex unions, I argued that our statement be reflective of what is true right now in the Episcopal Church: that while same sex blessings are not officially permitted in most dioceses, they are going on and will continue to go on as an appropriate pastoral response to our gay and lesbian members and their relationships. Earlier versions of our response contained both sides of this truth. I argued to keep both sides of that truth in the final version, providing the clarity asked for by the Primates.

Others made the argument that to state that "a majority of Bishops do not sanction such blessings" implied that a minority do in fact sanction such blessings, and many more take no actions to prevent them. All this without coming right out and saying so. That argument won the day. I think it was a mistake.

Another issue to which I spoke was this notion of "public" versus "private" rites. I pointed out on the floor that our very theology of marriage is based on the communal nature of such a rite. Presumably, the couple has already made commitments to one another privately, or else they would not be seeking Holy Matrimony. What happens in a wedding is that the COMMUNITY is drawn into the relationship -- the vows are taken in the presence of that community and the community pledges itself to support the couple in the keeping of their vows. It is, by its very nature, a "public" event -- no matter how many or how few people are in attendance. The same goes for our solemn commitments to one another as lgbt couples.

I suspect that these efforts to keep such rites "private" is just another version of "don't ask, don't tell." If avoidance of further conflict is the goal, then I can understand it. But if speaking the truth in love is the standard by which we engage in our relationships with the Communion, then no.

Let me also state strongly that I believe that the Joint Standing Committee of the ACC and Primates MISunderstood us when they stated that they understood that the HOB in fact "declared a 'moratorium on all such public Rites.'" Neither in our discussions nor in our statement did we agree to or declare such a moratorium on permitting such rites to take place. That may be true in many or most dioceses, but that is certainly not the case in my own diocese and many others. The General Convention has stated that such rites are indeed to be considered within the bounds of the pastoral ministry of this Church to its gay and lesbian members, and that remains the policy of The Episcopal Church.

Lastly, let me respond to the very real pain in the knowledge that the change we long for takes time. This movement forward is going to take a long time. That doesn't make it right. It certainly does not make it easy. Dr. King rightly said that "justice delayed is justice denied," but that didn't stop him from accepting and applauding incremental advances along the way.

We have every right to be impatient. We MUST keep pushing the Church to do the right thing. We must never let anyone believe that we will be satisfied with anything less than the full affirmation of us and our relationships as children of God.

BUT, I will continue to try to remain realistic in my approach. I work hard, and pray hard, to find the patience to stay at the table as long as it takes. And I hope we can refrain from attacking our ALLIES for not doing enough, soon enough. The bridges we are burning today may turn out to be the bridges we want to cross in the future. Let's not destroy them.

We need to be in this for the long haul. For us to get overly discouraged when we don't get all that we want, as fast as we want, seems counterproductive to me. We should never capitulate to less than all God wants for us, but to lose heart when we don't move fast enough, and to attack the Church we are trying to help redeem, seems counterproductive.

The two days of listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury and some members of the ACC were the two hardest days I've had since my consecration. (It was a constant and holy reminder to me of the pain all of YOU continue to experience every day at the hands of a Church which is not yet what it is called to be. Ours is a difficult and transforming task: to continue serving a church that seems to love us less than we love it!) I was comforted by the support I DID receive from those straight bishops who spoke up for us, and especially by many of the Bishops of color, who implicitly "got" what I was trying to say and defied the majority with their support of me and of us. I was even encouraged by many conservative bishops' willingness to work together to craft a statement we, liberal and conservative alike, could all live with.

I believe with my whole heart that the Spirit is alive and well and living in our Church -- even in the House of Bishops. I believe Jesus when he told his disciples, on the night before he died for us, that they were not ready to hear and understand all that he had to teach them -- and that he would send the Holy Spirit to lead them into all truth. I believe that now is such a moment, when the Church, in its plodding and all-too-slow a way, is being guided into truth about its gay and lesbian members. It took ME 39 years to acknowledge who I was as a gay man and to affirm that I too am considered precious by God. Of course, the very next day after telling my parents, I expected them immediately to catch up to what had taken me 39 years to come to. Mercifully, it has not taken them the same 39 years to do so. The Church family is no different. It is going to take TIME.

I voted "yes" to the HoB statement. I believe it was the best we could do at this time. I am far less committed to being ideologically and unrelentingly pure, and far more interested in the "art of the possible." Am I totally pleased with our statement? Of course not. Do I wish we could have done more? Absolutely. Can I live with it? Yes, I can. For right now. Until General Convention, which is the appropriate time for us to take up these issues again as a Church, with all orders of ministry present. I am taking to heart the old 60's slogan, "Don't whine, organize!"

I am always caught between the vision I believe God has for God's Church, and the call to stay at the table, in communion with those who disagree with me about that vision -- or, as is the case for most bishops, who disagree about the appropriate "timing" for reaching that vision of full inclusion. In this painful meantime, please pray for me as I seek to serve the people of my diocese and you, the community of which I am so honored to be a part.

Your brother in Christ,

+Gene

Uncertainty is now over. The decisive moments have passed. Irreversible actions have occurred. The time has come for sustained thought about a different future. The Anglican Communion will never be the same again. The Windsor process has failed, largely because it refused to grapple with the key issue of the truth.

A new and more biblical vision is required to help biblically faithful Anglican churches survive and grow in the contemporary world.

Some have still set their hopes on the Lambeth Conference. But that is to misunderstand the significance of our time. It can no longer either unify Anglicanism or speak with authority.

[A]ny authority which we may have ascribed to the deliberations of the Bishops has been lost permanently.

Not surprisingly, Lambeth 2008 is not going to attempt a similar exercise in conciliar pronouncements.

. . . The American House of Bishops has now responded to the Primates. Many have seen in their pronouncements sufficient conformity to the request of the Primates to enable the Communion to continue on its way. I do not read their statement like that. I think that they have failed to meet the hopes of the Primates. But the significance of the document at this level hardly matters. The document taken as a whole makes the real issue abundantly clear. Sexual rights are gospel.

The Americans are firmly committed to the view that the practice of homosexual sex in a long term relationship is morally acceptable.

Not only is it acceptable, it is demanded by the gospel itself that we endorse this lifestyle as Christian.

. . . [T]hey do not intend to reverse their decisions about this and they do intend to proclaim this message wherever possible. They want to persuade us that they are right, and that the rest of us should embrace this development. Here is a missionary faith.

The biblical conservatives and their allies in Africa and Asia knew this. . . . They took irreversible steps to secure the future of some of the biblical Anglicans in North America.

. . . The response of the Primates has involved the provision of episcopal oversight. This, too, has changed the nature of the Anglican Communion. From now on there will inevitably be boundary crossing and the days of sacrosanct diocesan boundaries are over. . . . This is the new fact of Anglican polity.

How are these developments going to be incorporated into world-Anglicanism? What future should we be thinking of? Where is our vision for them? Hand-wringing is not the answer.

The aim of the Archbishop of Canterbury was to retain the highest level of fellowship in the Communion. He believed that truth will be found in communion, in inclusion rather than exclusion.

From his point of view, an extended passage of time is vital. What matters for the Archbishop is not this Lambeth, but the next one and the one after that. . . . The Archbishop has revealed his hopes through a lecture on biblical interpretation, "The Bible Today: Reading and Hearing", delivered in Canada in April 2007. In this lecture he addresses the very heart of the controversy, by challenging conservative interpretations of Romans 1 and John 14, and thus raising the issues of interpretation, human sexuality and the uniqueness of Christ as Mediator. He has signalled the importance of hermeneutics for our future. His lecture shows that there is an unavoidable contest about the meaning of the Bible in these crucial areas ahead of us. It is a challenge which must be met at a theological level. We may think that this whole business is about politics and border-crossing and ultimatums and conferences, but in fact it is about theology and especially the authority and interpretation of Scripture.

That leads to this fundamental conclusion. Those who believe that the American development is wrong must also plan for the next decades, not the next few months. There is every reason to think that the Western view of sexuality will eventually permeate other parts of the world.

. . . Thus the question before the biblically orthodox is this . . .

what new vision of the Anglican Communion should we embrace? Where should it be in the next twenty years? How can we ensure that the word of God rules our lives? How are we going to guard ourselves effectively against the sexual agenda of the West

and begin to turn back the tide of Western liberalism?

What theological education must we have? How can we now best network with each other? Who is going to care for Episcopalians in other western provinces who are going to be objecting to the official acceptance of non-biblical practices?

The need for high level discussion of these issues is urgent.

. . . In any case, the basic issue is no longer how can the communion be kept together. It is, within the Communion as it has now become, how can biblical Anglicans help each other survive and mission effectively in the contemporary world?

The Africans have shown a commendable concern for this very issue and taken steps to assist the western church.

They have recognised that the gospel sometimes divides and sometimes requires new and startling initiatives. We must now all take the actions and do the thinking required to safeguard biblical truth, not merely in the West but throughout the Anglican world.

To fail here, will be to waste the time and effort which has brought us to this fateful hour.

Ecumenical sensitivity meets church law on women bishops

. . .[U]nderneath this somewhat unexpected ruling from the church's highest legal body, the Appellate Tribunal, lies a wider, richer story. A decision made for ecumenical and post-colonial reasons turns out to have enabled the change.

Tribunal members must give written reasons for their decisions. The 79-page report setting these out requires close reading, and reveals that the conclusion is more strongly based than the 4/3 vote (2/2 from the lawyers, three of them being judges, and 2/1 from the bishops) might suggest. The judges' review of the legal and historical issues is fascinating; the bishops bring a wider theological perspective.

What lay behind the Tribunal's conclusion? The Anglican Church of Australia is governed by a constitution, as one would expect. Unlike most bodies, however, it took 36 years to be agreed upon, from 1926 to 1962. The struggle revolved around the balance between local and national powers. If European Australia has multiple beginnings and is shaped by the 'tyranny of distance' and state rivalries, the Anglican story is fiercer, because the beginnings of the major dioceses were largely aligned with the emerging 'parties' of the Church of England in the 1840s.

Melbourne's first bishop was Evangelical, and Sydney, steeped in the independent tradition of two generations of chaplains, was firmly Protestant. On the other hand, the first bishops of Adelaide (then including SA and WA) and Newcastle (then including Queensland) were of more Catholic sympathy. The dioceses also have different constitutional set-ups: Melbourne (and dioceses formed from it) are based on state law, while Newcastle and Adelaide (and dioceses formed from them) are based on 'compacts' made between bishop, clergy and laity.

Broadly speaking, Sydney held out for local autonomy in the constitution, while others wanted national decisions to apply across the nation. The deadlock was resolved in 1962 after the first visit by an Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Geoffrey Fisher who -- so the story goes -- drafted the constitution on the voyage home. The outcome is a complex compromise: key issues need high majorities in General Synod, but the Synod's decisions only apply locally where a diocese accepts them.

When a question arises about a decision (local or national) being constitutional it can be referred to the Appellate Tribunal, which consists of three diocesan bishops and four judges elected by the General Synod. Previous Tribunal decisions cleared the way for women to be ordained deacon and priest, along with General Synod decisions that needed 2/3 majorities by the lay members, clergy and bishops separately. While strong majorities supported female bishops, the motion failed twice in General Synod (in 2001 and 2004) to get the necessary 2/3 majority in the clergy and laity (the bishops' vote stayed over 80 per cent). The matter is not on the agenda for the October 2007 meeting -- presumably it was deemed pointless and divisive to raise it again in that context.

Following the 2004 'non-passing' ('defeat' hardly applies when there is a solid majority in favour) some 25 members used their right to raise the deeper question with the Tribunal, 'would it be unconstitutional to ordain a woman who is a priest as a bishop?' And as we now know, the Tribunal answered 'no' for diocesans, though a 1966 Canon which presumes that clergy are male would prevent women being appointed as assistant bishops (which can be corrected locally).

• allowed references to the maculine in the Constituion to be interpreted as including the feminine;
• allowed baptised people to become fully Anglicans by being 'received' rather than being confirmed; and
• and (from 1995) made a bishop-elect 'canonically fit' if 30 years of age and a priest -- neither confirmation (nor gender) being mentioned.

The Tribunal decision recognises that the change to 'priest' from 'confirmed' in the 'canonical fitness' of a bishop-elect -- largely made for ecumenical and post-colonial reasons -- also has the effect of allowing women who are priests to be ordained as bishops. Two separate concerns, one about seeing 'church' as bigger than 'Church of England', the other about seeing humankind as more than 'men', came together in this unexpected outcome.

Coming as it does in the lead-up to the forthcoming General Synod, the ruling may free the Anglican Church of Australia to place the evangelical mission of the church catholic as it core business, and to consider new questions on the basis of the wider church and wider world.

Senator Ludwig said Labor would push on with reform, despite opposition from Christian groups, whose views had already been taken on board and would not water down ALP policy.

"It is long overdue. The Howard Government should have done it ages ago, quite frankly. I don't know why they have stalled on it. It's not something that you capitalise on, it's just something we will do because we've had a longstanding commitment to it."

Labor would conduct an audit to find where discrimination lay in "legislation, guides, rule books". The second task would be identifying the 58 areas of discrimination and preparing legislation to remove them.

"We will also set up a state-based relationship register so you could both amend federal legislation to accord with the HREOC model to ensure you could then recognise same-sex relationships through a state-based relationship register, which closes the circle," he said. "I've said we would do that as a priority, which means as soon as you could work it through the department. I can't imagine it would take that long."

The last vestiges of gender differentiation within the Anglican Church of Australia have been swept away with the release of the appellate tribunal's ruling that nothing in the church's constitution prevents a woman being consecrated as a diocesan bishop. There is some minor housekeeping yet to be done in relation to assistant bishops, but gender is no longer a defining issue.

Not surprisingly, there are those who feel aggrieved by the tribunal's ruling and the inevitability of women being elected as diocesan bishops in the medium term. But even those who oppose women as bishops on theological and ecclesiological grounds ought to take some comfort from the orderly manner in which this issue has been largely resolved.

During the decade that the ordination of women to the episcopate has been under consideration, there has been constant discussion and wide consultation. As someone who attended both the 2001 and 2004 general synods where the issue was thoroughly canvassed, I was pleased that all parties were allowed to express their point of view.

The church's formal processes were observed and respected. When proposals to amend canon law failed to gain the requisite majorities, the appellate tribunal was approached for a ruling on the intentions of the church's constitution. After due consideration and according to established procedures, the tribunal has given its answer. Although it was a split decision, all parties have acknowledged the authority of the tribunal and honoured its ruling.

The ability of the Anglican Church to deal with this controversial issue in such a reasoned and dignified manner has demonstrated its responsibility and maturity. There will, however, be some fallout. Interactions between dioceses and relationships between bishops will be affected. New theological networks and personal affiliations will emerge.

In the same way that the ordination of women as priests created new divides within the church, the consecration of women as bishops will further divide those holding conflicting opinions on women's ministry, as some Anglicans will feel conscience-bound to decline the episcopal oversight of a woman. And because the church has not, and will not, make provision for alternative episcopal oversight--so-called flying bishops with a roving brief--the church faces a difficult pastoral challenge in caring for those opposed to the innovation.

It will be easier for this to happen in Sydney, which is the largest Anglican diocese in the country and the most organised opponent of the ordination of women. While Anglicans in Sydney are not obliged to accept the ministry of women as bishops within their diocese, its leadership needs to temper its claims about what the Bible does and does not permit in relation to this matter.

The ordination of women to both the priesthood and the episcopate has been conscientiously and vigorously supported by committed evangelicals of learning and discernment outside the diocese of Sydney. Consequently, Sydney cannot reasonably claim that it opposes women as bishops on the grounds that it is the only position that can be held by those whose theology is Bible-based and evangelical.

Nor will Sydney's mission be impeded or hindered by there being women bishops operating elsewhere in the country. Because the Anglican Church of Australia is little more than a federation of dioceses whose outlook is much more tribal than national--a lamentable situation, in my view--the archbishop of Sydney retains the power to regulate every aspect of ministry conducted within his diocese. He decides who will be licensed and the functions they will be permitted to perform.

It is much to the credit of Anglicans elsewhere in the country that they have shown due regard for the ethos and integrity of the diocese of Sydney and avoided actions that would undermine or subvert its traditions. There is no reason to believe this attitude will be set aside in relation to women as bishops. For its part, Sydney must recognise the tribunal's ruling and not initiate any spoiling action.

While some Anglo-Catholic and evangelical Anglicans will talk of leaving the church and forming a breakaway Anglican body, they need to be conscious that the appellate tribunal's ruling is considered and nuanced and that proponents of women as bishops have not acted unilaterally or in defiance of the church's constitution or processes.

Throughout their long and sometimes bloody history, Anglicans have shown a capacity to accept diversity of conviction and custom and have realised the perils of attaching ultimate significance to non-core beliefs and practices.

In contrast to some parts of the worldwide Anglican communion, I believe that Australian Anglicans have demonstrated the importance and utility of working with a framework of mutual accountability. This does not mean that unity is elusive or diversity is limitless.

In his 1936 work The Gospel and the Catholic Church, the future archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, pointed to the need for an Anglican synthesis. He stressed that "the Anglican Church is committed not to a vague position wherein the evangelical and the catholic views are alternatives, but to the scriptural faith wherein both elements are of one. It is her duty to train all her clergy in both these elements. Her bishops are called to be not judicious holders of a balance between two or three schools but, without any consciousness of party, to be the servants of the gospel of God and of the universal church."

Notwithstanding the tribunal's ruling and fears of schism, there is still more to unite Anglicans than to divide them.

Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn archdeacon Sarah Macneil has been "very comfortable under the stained glass ceiling", but she may be about to make an historic breakthrough. The diocese could be the first in Australia to elect a woman as its bishop following a decision by the Anglican church's highest court yesterday clearing the way for women to be consecrated bishops in most Australian dioceses. In a majority decision, the church's appellate tribunal in Brisbane ruled there was nothing in the church's constitution to prevent the consecration of a female priest as a bishop in a diocese which has adopted a 1992 church canon.

Bishop George Browning retires early next year and yesterday he raised the prospect of a female replacing him. "This announcement makes it possible for a woman to be a candidate at the election synod in September 2008," he said. "If the diocese feels a woman is most appropriate, then that person should be elected."

As the Canberra and Goulburn diocese's most senior female member of the clergy, Archdeacon Macneil has a real chance of being Australia's first female bishop. But she stressed yesterday that she had no expectations she was about to make Australian religious history. To be elected as a bishop, candidates had to agree to their nomination. "I could not accept nomination without a lot of thought and prayer," Archdeacon Macneil said.

And until yesterday, there had been no possibility she could be considered as a bishop. "Without that possibility, I have been very comfortable under the stained glass ceiling," she said. But she welcomed the ruling clearing the path for women to become bishops. "I am absolutely delighted the decision has been made. It is an excellent decision."

Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn chancellor Richard Refshauge said yesterday there may still be legal issues to be addressed in some dioceses, but it seemed likely this diocese would be able to elect a woman to replace Bishop Browning. The tribunal found a 40-year-old church law still prevented women being assistant bishops. Anglican Primate Phillip Aspinall said the appointment of assistant bishops was made under a 1966 canon. It had not been amended in 1995 when a requirement for a diocesan bishop to be male had been removed. Mr Refshauge said he believed this could be addressed by an amendment to legislation by diocesan synods.

Dr Aspinall said while he welcomed the decision, he recognised that the prospect of women bishops would be "difficult or distressing" for some. Bishop Browning said the vote had not set the scene for a church split. "I don't think it will cause a split or a difficulty in the province," he said, pointing to comments from evangelical Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen, who opposes the decision but will not move to block it. "I believe that we will live side-by-side and in time the quality and the ability of the women will speak for itself," Bishop Browning said.

Faith's place in public life

The proposed "compromise" by the Government over the fate of Catholic adoption agencies is in truth a defeat for the Catholic Church and a victory for those who have been opposing any exemption to the new regulations against homosexual discrimination. [. . . ] One [principle at stake] is that the leadership of the Catholic Church must start to engage with the many Catholics who find the Church's traditional treatment of homosexuality repugnant and indeed homophobic. The language of "gross depravity" -- as in the Catechism -- has to be repudiated. The Catholic case also needs to be more sharply defined as to what is really at stake. As Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor expressed it in an article in the Daily Telegraph this week, the argument is not that homosexual couples could never qualify as good parents for an adopted child -- some have and more will -- but that the new law demands recognition of a fundamental equivalence between homosexual and heterosexual couples and their lifestyles. The proposed law, in short, leaves no room for the many, who could well be in the majority, who believe that the best family setting for raising children is one parent of each sex. Any adoption agency, Catholic or not, that agrees with that principle is about to be driven out of business. That is an alarming proposition.

But more broadly even than this, politicians need to consider whether they are dealing a fatal blow to the policy, now promoted by both main parties, of drawing the religious and voluntary sector deeper into the functioning of the welfare state. Ministers have seen that the voluntary sector has a lot to offer; not just expertise but compassion and dedication beyond the call of duty between the hours of nine and five. But those qualities arise precisely because the motivation comes from deep religious commitment. With that religious commitment comes religious convictions, not all of which are likely to be compatible with a monolithic liberal-progressive orthodoxy. In short, the Government may be beckoning the voluntary agencies on board with one hand, and waving them away with the other. And this will be made worse if the perception grows that even politicians with deep religious convictions are no longer welcome in public life. Religion has long had a place in British public life, although as an influence rather than as a protagonist.

An official Catholic welfare agency, Centacare, has been awarded government contracts to operate new family relationship centres across Australia. Frank Quinlan, the executive director of the church-run umbrella agency, Catholic Social Services Australia, welcomed the Government's 24 January announcement that Centacare agencies would be involved in 10 of the 25 new family relationship centres. Mr Quinlan said the centres would provide support for couples before and during marriage and also help separating couples focus on the interests of children through mediation rather than litigation.

But the decision aroused opposition, with the Greens party Senator, Rachel Siewert, questioning the philosophy of some faith-based centres, saying people needed "independent, unbiased advice". She told Melbourne's Age newspaper that the centres were being "set up to fail". It was not always possible or desirable for couples to go into dispute resolution or to share parenting responsibility, she said.

They do not explain why Christianity has a personal and social morality of a particular shape, why that morality includes social justice as well as charity, and what space Christian faith allows to conscience.

These questions demand a more complex account of Christian faith than that provided in Mr. Rudd's emphasis on Jesus' practice or in Mr Abbott's emphasis on moral law. Such an account will recognise that God is the main actor. God loves the world and each human being in it, and wants a flourishing world in which the dignity of each person is respected. In a broken world, this means beginning with the most neglected. The life and death of Jesus Christ represent both a beginning of wholeness, and a way of life that expresses it.

The vision of the world offered in Christian faith is based on God's love for each human being. In this vision, it matters that in our personal lives we act as if each human life is precious. It also matters that our public policies and practices we also respect the value of each human life, beginning with the most neglected. In Christian faith personal morality and social morality are woven together seamlessly. The details of a moral code are fleshed out by asking what is entailed by considering ourselves and all other human beings as equally precious. This is the premise on which, for example, opposition both to abortion and to the Iraq war is based.

Christian faith requires both personal charity and social justice. God wants the world to flourish in a way that benefits each human being, beginning with the weakest. Because institutionalised relationships are normally shaped in part by greed and fear, they form a world in which people are marginalised. To help the world to flourish, then, we need social policies that dealt with these distortions. Personal charity is indispensable, but is not enough.

Mr. Abbott and Mr. Rudd both appeal to the role of conscience. They agree in insisting that politicians must base their decisions on what they see as the common good, irrespective of the position taken by the churches. Mr. Rudd also invokes conscience when considering issues like abortion and embryonic research, while Mr. Abbott does so in respect of issues of war, industrial relations and social morality. The place of conscience in Christian faith is complex. Conscience is the reasoned moral judgment we make about what we should do in particular situations. It is sovereign in the sense that we must do what we believe to be right. Acting conscientiously, however, guarantees that we act rightly. It does not mean that what we did was right or that it expressed what is entailed in the unique value of each human being. If we act in a way that regards the welfare of some human beings as expendable in the interests of others, our decision may be blameless. But it will be inconsistent with Christian faith. The fact that we then justify our decision theoretically does not make our theory a legitimate version of Christian faith. This is true both of both social and personal morality.

Politicians certainly must work within the framework of a secular society. We might also expect that they will commend their personal vision of the good society, and that if they are Christians, that this will be based on a conviction that each human being, beginning with the weakest, is precious. It is good that Mr. Rudd has opened a discussion of the relationship between Christian faith and politics. It will be important that both sides of that relationship are represented accurately in the discussion.

Ingrid Sischy: . . . In sculpture, when there was a big revolution happening, the pedestal became the symbol of all the past assumptions that had to be rethought. Is the tie, in the context of men's fashion, your equivalent of the pedestal that needs to be smashed?

Gianni Versace: Yes. Actually, I have nothing against individual ties, but I hate what ties mean as a symbol. I hate the restrictions they have come to embody. I hate the fact that they represent a uniform way of understanding men's style, and I hate the rules they stand for. It is so stupid that you can't go in certain restaurants if you're a man and you don't have a tie on. That's insane to me. You see some really horribly dressed people with ties on in such a restaurant, and yet someone who had a beautiful flowered shirt on couldn't get in. Fashion has to be free to express personality and individuality. I don't understand why a man can't go to work wearing a beautiful turtleneck or a beautiful T-shirt. Thank God, all that has started to change, and in many places a man can, and does.

IS: Have you always been bothered by the restrictions that are imposed on men in terms of how they are dressed?

GV: When I was young, I wondered, why do men have to dress all the same? Why do they have this boring uniformity? I always liked people who were out of the crowd, who were individuals, who were free, who had a real sense of style, which means their own sense of style. I believe in style. I believe in people who have something to express, who make statements. That's why in the book there are photos of Picasso and Hemingway and Nijinsky and Cocteau and Robert Mitchum and Nureyev, and for men of today, Elvis, Prince, and Elton. . . . These are people who make statements about their lives via their individual styles of dressing. You can tell the lifestyle of their art, of their living, of their loving.

IS: . . . The best designers are hip to the changes that have gone on with both sexes and have helped them happen. But the fact is that a lot of fashion is still stuck on old Ideas of men and women, and on old ideas of appropriateness.

GV: Fashion can help, but it's the person first who brings about changes. For example, the men's fashion I create has to do with personal desires. It is an expression and branch of myself. But I don't put myself on the stage. I put my "character" up there--the man who is free and who likes to dress in an individual way.

Lyrical poet tuned to earth and sky

One way to think about this astonishingly finished and coherent little book is as an installation meant to demonstrate various moments with language. Here in one part of the room, is the moment when a glance between a man and a woman defeats words. Here is the moment between strangers where what you thought was a mutual introduction turns out to be a play of words. And here is where there seems to be "nothing in a name", or where the mind disperses "the way a herd of goats spreads over the side of a hill--slowly and through the clatter of bells".

These are fugitive moments; the mind can darken. But in the middle of the room is an item called Mushrooms, which is the title of Simon West's opening poem. As the mushrooms "outgrow the dark grounds of their birth to join at last the light of day", the poet reflects:

The soft-fleshed name, mushroom,
of humus and moss, tugged at me
as if it had something to say,
as if it too could be prodded and wielded by the tongue, turned over to expose an underbelly's hidden treasure of gills.

And the bloom of meaning when thought breaks from such pods, then spreads outward
like the scattering of spawn?
Shhh … This tissuey fruit is all syllable, is already
bowing to the moisture of earth.
Mushrooms fulfil their word, and then some.

What you have here is an exactly observed image made with the sound of things, and which has metaphoric power. The mushrooms themselves offer pleasure enough, as do palms, rosellas, starlings, persimmons and clouds, to name some of the things that objectify the titles of other poems in the book. West's graphic power is wonderful, so that you feel, in all of his language moments, of this world.

In fact, you can also step into the book as a set of moods and landscapes beginning and lingering in northern Italy before transporting you to the Mornington Peninsula, the Australian Alps, and as far as the Australian desert (via a reflection on a painting by Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri). The unifying tone is nostalgic, yearning, and quickly latch on to a fertile moment:

A bee deflowers a flower, collecting
pollen like a count of first names,
while man, screened by the fuzz of his own bee-talk,
looks on in envy at a labourer willed by love,
and whose thoughts perhaps lie with her tiny portion of the queen ...
(A Bee)

All the book tells us about West is that in 2004 he held an Australian Young Poets Fellowship, and "was born in 1974 in Melbourne, where he currently teaches Italian".

Yet the reference to teaching Italian is pregnant. His poems invoke the mouthing of words, love affairs with vowels, a sense of the foreign word well digested. The mood of his Italian landscapes reminds me of the modem Italian poet Eugenio Montale, just as his two poems after Guido Cavalcanti, along with the imagist lyrics that follow, call up the figure of Ezra Pound, that passionate disciple of Italy.

A critic cited on the back cover describes West as "a laureate of darkness and a lyrical quester of light". True enough. But better to say that West is a poet beset by the roots and the reach of language. His poems seek the source of speech--the humus of the tongue, we might say, as their mushroomy bed--as much as they celebrate the way our words echo in starlight.

That, I think, is the joy of this book. You read it and feel that here is a poet absolutely attuned to both earth and sky, and who has--all of a sudden in a first book--worked out poems that make the great connections.

West is short-listed for the NSW Premier's Award for poetry.

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

Sources inside the Liberal Party told SSO a key member of Cabinet now supported the reforms. It follows the Government last week stalling a last-ditch effort by Labor, Democrats and Greens to pass the equality reforms. Publicly, Liberals are saying no commitment or policy will be offered before the election.

"We'd be interested in a conscience vote to try get some rights for same-sex couples, certainly superannuation, but after the election. It's all over red rover now," Liberal backbencher Dr Mal Washer told SSO. Washer was part of a voluntary cross-party ad hoc committee that recommended the Democrats' Same-Sex: Same Entitlements Bill be enacted as a matter of urgency. The report also recommended anti-discrimination protections for gay and lesbian people and greater federal recognition of state-based relationship registries.

Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce was the only dissenter, though he [even he!] did support Commonwealth superannuation reforms.

MP Mal Washer warned lobbyists to accept and build on the support for limited financial reforms and leave the remaining recommendations, like parenting rights, for another term. "One step at a time, otherwise you blur the issue and sometimes you try to do too much at once and you don't get anything," Washer said.

Democrats leader Lyn Allison, who led the committee, said she was pleased with the consensus on superannuation. "I know it's slow, and gay and lesbian people are frustrated and annoyed, and we are too, but we're in a better position than we were 10 or two years ago and it's moving in the right direction," she said.

Justice Minister David Johnson said if equity was given to one profession of public servants [judges] in same-sex relationships, all same-sex couples would want the same. "The Government is not saying no. We are considering this. It seems we are going down this path. It is not going to happen tonight; it is not going to happen in the immediate term," he told Parliament.

ComSuper Action Committee spokesman John Challis, 79, said, "At 78 years old, I'm not very impressed by the Government's leisurely approach to this issue."

Tired of the Howard government's delays in fixing inequality in federal superannuation schemes, one elderly same-sex couple has come forward to remind politicians that the issue isn't academic. For John Challis and his partner Arthur Cheeseman, 79 and 75 years old respectively, the issue is quite serious. Challis worked for the ABC until 1988 and the pair now rely on his Comsuper pension.

"I'm worried about what will happen to my partner when I die," Challis said. "My partner and I have lived together for 40 years. While we were both still working, in order that I could put extra money into superannuation, we lived mostly on his wages. So the pension is part of his investment also." Challis said he and Cheeseman had prepared as best they could, by lodging a statutory declaration with the Comsuper board upon retirement, and financially planning for the possibility Challis might die before the reforms are complete. "That's a real day-to-day financial consequence of financial discrimination. We've had to tie up a considerable amount of capital so he has enough income when the residual pension ceases, meaning when I die," Challis said.

Challis's concern about his partner's wellbeing is as much about the personal cost as the financial. "My partner suffers from macula degeneration in his eyes. In four or five years he is likely to be blind. It would be far more comfortable for him to receive a regular income from a residual pension than manage a series of investments. "I just want make sure my partner is secure. The only other solution is to make sure I outlive him."

. . . [R]eforms have gotten nowhere in the three years since Senator Coonan gave the commitment on behalf of the government," he said. Letters from government ministers have repeated the same line that reforms cannot proceed because of "technical matters and budgetary considerations that must be fully examined".

Three years of this line hasn't made Challis believe it. "I put in a freedom of information request for the cost estimates, but they won't release the actuary's report. It cost me $150 for them to say the report couldn't be released because it was out of date and it wouldn't be in the public interest." Challis is also unimpressed by minor amendments included in the budget to allow current federal public servants to opt out and find an alternative private scheme with interdependency options. "It's not just problematic, it's an insult--the Comsuper scheme is indexed and guaranteed," he said. "Even after 40 years, my partner is still denied a pension that a de facto heterosexual person would receive after just a short period of living together."

Challis has started a pressure group Comsuper Action Committee to make politicians understand the real implications for some couples. Comsuper Action Committee can be contacted on (02) 9358 1710 or email challsan@bigpond.net.au.

US bishops have bent the knee to the will of the bully

Uniting in homophobia, the Anglican church has delivered another blow to the battle against global religious fascism.

After months of "Anglican church to divide" headlines, the end is, at last, nigh. Those Anglicans who are really no more than fundamentalists in vestments will split off and form a version of the continuing Anglican church, or whatever they will call it. And the moderate conservatives and the moderate progressives will settle down to business as usual. After much worry, the Archbishop of Canterbury will be able to have a good night's sleep. The church is safe.

If only it were as simple as that. The deal that the archbishop has brokered with the Episcopal church in New Orleans protects the unity of the church by persuading US bishops that the church is more important than justice. The prophets of the Hebrew scriptures would have been appalled. For all the high-sounding rhetoric about how much they value gay people, the church has once again purchased its togetherness by excluding the outsider. The biblical text that hovers over this whole shoddy deal is John 11:50. As Jesus stands before the court, the high priest Caiaphas persuades the others that for practical reasons he must be got rid of: "You do not understand that it is better to have one man die than to have the whole nation destroyed." And so the deal is done.

OK, so no one has died here. A gay American bishop hasn't been invited to the Lambeth conference, a hugely expensive jolly that brings all the church's bishops to Canterbury once every 10 years. On top of this, the US church has agreed not to make any more bishops if they admit to being gay and having a partner. And they won't do gay blessing services either. Is this really so onerous a set of compromises in order to keep everybody round the same communion table? After all, compared with the desolation and misery that Hurricane Katrina wrought on those who hosted the meeting in New Orleans, ought we not to get a bit more perspective?

No: the struggle for the full inclusion of lesbian and gay people in the life of the church is a frontline battle in the war against global religious fascism. Robert Mugabe has called homosexuals "worse than dogs and pigs". Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government denies that gay people exist in Iran, and hangs the ones it finds. The Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria thinks homosexuality "evil" and "cancerous". There can be no compromise with any of this, irrespective of whether it is backed up by dodgy readings of holy texts or not.

Which is why the collapse of will in the US House of Bishops is so disappointing.

Whatever happened to the spirit of the Boston tea party? One visit from the Archbishop of Canterbury and they get suckered into history worship, falling in line behind the ancient mother church as if they were still suspended on colonial apron strings. Unfortunately, for all its sharp prophetic witness, the Achilles heel of the Episcopal church is its snotty-nosed Anglophilia. Establishment liberals have only so much bottle.

US bishops are now returning to their dioceses with a troubled conscience. Many know that the logic of the New Orleans deal is the logic of unity through exclusion. The church styles itself as not playing by these rules, yet this whole sorry business is as visceral as a group of playground kids coming together to slag off the boy with the unfashionable haircut or funny accent. Finding someone to point the finger at is the best way of bringing people together. Global Christian cohesion is being achieved by a church that is defining itself against some representative other - in this case, a short, rather geeky gay bishop with a bit of a drink problem. He is a scapegoat straight from central casting.

The sad truth is, the issue of homosexuality isn't splitting the Anglican communion: it's uniting it like never before. Before this great global row, we hardly knew each other existed. Anglicans in the pews could hardly care less about Christians in the next door parish, let alone care for those thousands of miles away in Africa or Asia. But as crisis looms, common cause has been achieved. The Rt Rev Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, has brought people together: hands across the ocean, united in homophobia.

It was the Episcopal church that held out longest against unholy unification. But in agreeing to these terms, they too have now bent the knee to the will of the collective bully. The fact that a fringe of rabid evangelicals may now quit the church must not distract from Rowan Williams's achievement in keeping us all together. A crisis has been averted. Gay people remain firmly on the outside; used by the church for vicars and vergers and sacristans, but officially little more than outcasts.

I have never been persuaded that Jesus was gay, as some do believe. But there is no doubt that he too was the outsider, despised and rejected. He also was the victim of official religious persecution. Which is why the other passage that today's Christians ought to give some thought to is the one from St Matthew's gospel that goes: "Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."

I believe that the House of Bishops has responded positively to all the requests put to them by the primates in our Dar es Salaam communiqué. Certainly they have responded to the substance of those requests. I would now like the time to undertake careful analysis of the House of Bishops response, but my initial reaction based both on my preliminary reading of the document itself and on my first-hand conversations with many of the Bishops involved is that the house has responded positively to the substance of all the requests made by the primates.

There are two choices that help define the role of a state that aspires to have a meaningful sovereign role in the world. Governments must choose whether they subscribe to the ideal of a rules-based international order, or whether they merely pay lip service to this order, believing that the world is actually governed by competing powers? Following on from this, the question of how governments conduct their foreign policy--whether it is hegemonic, equal status, or in a tributary style--arises.

Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, are all 'smaller' states than Australia . Yet they exercise more international sovereignty than does Australia (I define sovereignty as the exclusive right of governments to exercise authority within their territory. The UN, as a rules-based international order, rests on the convention that all sovereign states, large or small, possess equal sovereignty) because they proceed from the ideal of a rules-based international order and because they conduct their foreign relations with all countries--large, medium or small--as formal equals within that order. They participate in the UN and its agencies, and have earned widespread respect for their independence and good international citizenship.

The other extreme was the communist regimes set up in Eastern Europe after World War 2. These were essentially tributary states. Though retaining some of the traditional attributes of sovereignty — parliaments, flags, anthems and armies, they were satellite states of the Soviet Union. While paying lip service to the UN ideals, they voted in the UN as directed by Moscow. These states had no faith in a rules-based international order — after all, the League of Nations had failed to protect them from Nazi aggression in 1939. These regimes, led by not wholly unpatriotic people, identified their personal and national destinies with Soviet power.

There is a fault-line between those who believe the last twelve years have been 'business as usual' in Australian foreign policy, and those who believe these have been years of growing foreign policy dysfunction and failure to defend Australian national interests.

Through the conceptions of international participation outlined above, the Australian government since 1996 can arguably be said to have ceased to believe in a rules-based international order and become increasingly cynical about the UN. It has instead moved towards coalitions with powerful world players with whom we are claimed to "share core values"--in particular, this has meant the United States.

The Federal Government has also moved from a foreign policy based on sovereign state equality to a belief in a hierarchy of contending powers, in which Australia must prudently position itself as a loyal tributary to the US, as a hegemonic power vis-a-vis South Pacific island states, and (with the exception of the UK and major regional powers with whom it tries to maintain special bilateral relationships, e.g., Japan and China), as broadly indifferent to other states or regional groupings in the world. With ASEAN countries, Howard's relations are uncomfortable--neither hegemonic, nor tributary, nor genuinely equal.

Under 12 years of Howard government, this way of viewing the world has come to be seen as 'the new normal', now deeply ingrained in Australian political elites and the commentariat as simply 'common sense'--even among people who would claim to be Labor voters.

If Labor wins the forthcoming election, Australia must decide if its foreign policy will continue to operate within such a world view. I believe the reality of our foreign policy experience over the past few years has more in common with the Warsaw Pact system than many Australians would like to admit. Over recent years, Australia has progressively surrendered important attributes of sovereignty, including the following.

1. Warmaking--Parliament has become a rubberstamp on the Executive's power to engage our soldiers in wars of choice.
2. Defence strategic doctrine and force structure planning, and procurement decision-making and practices--all now heavily influenced by US alliance considerations.
3. Trade and investment policies, in particular as affected by the WTO Rules and the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement.
4. Protection of national cultural values, quarantine protection regimes, public health and the provision of public medicines (and even blood).
5. Environment protection and climate change--where we have echoed US policies.

The Australian government is reluctant to admit how much sovereignty Australia has surrendered in these areas over the past 12 years. To do so reflects poorly on their professional stewardship.

The polarisation of debate on such issues over the past 12 years has left the middle ground of public opinion confused as to what is really happening to Australian sovereignty. Questions include how much of our foreign policy is within our control, and what aspects of sovereignty really matter any more. If Howard goes, there will need to be much work in redefining Australian strategic interests.

My hopes for Australian foreign policy in 2008 include the government making an explicit re-commitment to the UN, cooler engagement with Washington under ANZUS, a serious review of our strategic doctrines, defence force structure and procurement , a stronger role for the Parliament in decisions to go to war, an independent review of the US FTA, a review of our relations with Pacific and Southeast Asian neighbours and review of the manner in which aid is distributed as a foreign policy tool, and aid as an international good-citizen obligation. I would also like to see a judicial inquiry into questions such as how human rights and civil liberties been eroded in recent years by the blurring of the separation of powers between administrative and judicial functions, and between the police and the military. The collective expertise that exists in the Australian foreign policy and strategic community must not remain silent in the debates that our country needs to have as the Howard era draws to its close.

Mr President, yesterday morning you reminded us of the welcome you offered to lesbian and gay members when this Synod first met in 2005. When I and others then thanked you publicly, Synod was kind enough to applaud. I felt humbled and would have been happy to leave it at that. But now that this motion is before us, we must look for words that unite, not divide, words that heal, not wound. I thank the proposers for their willingness to do that.

This weekend, we have been blessed by people's stories of faith -- stories, not arguments. The Listing Process can be a way for the faith stories of homosexual women and men to be heard by us all. From Psalm 24 we hear this story:

One thing have I desired of the Lord,
and that will I seek after,
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in God's temple.

That's my story--a passionate desire for worship and to see God revealed in God's temple, in us, the people of God, gathered in worship.

We are commanded to love, to worship, God with our whole being. That includes our sexuality, a beautiful, but enigmatic part of our being. Yet sexuality, and everything else, is as nothing at the foot of the cross. To discourage anyone from worship at the foot of the cross is an appalling violence against them and against the gospel of Christ.

Yes, Mr President, as you have said, it is a mistake, to put it mildly, that in the Anglican Communion one's attitude to homosexuality should have become a touchtone of one's orthodoxy. I thank you deeply and humbly for all that you have said on this, this weekend and previously. Mr President, brothers and sisters, let's get on with the business of the kingdom! Alleluia!

The kingdom will be better served if we do not worry about what we believe to be our rights. But I do beg Synod, and every Parish and Ministry Unit in the Diocese, not to stand between lesbian and gay people, or anyone else, and their desire to know, to worship, and to serve our Lord Jesus Christ.

The other day I decided not to take on a project that I'd been offered. It was a fantastic thing to do and I had been looking forward to it greatly. But suddenly, when I thought of all the steps I'd need to take to bring the project to fruition, I got an overwhelming sense of exhaustion and of biting off more than I could chew. And I decided to become an emotional "energy miser".

Definition? An energy miser is someone who realises they don't have as much energy as they used to have, and, with energy reserves at a critical low, decides to switch off the proverbial lights and use candles instead.

With all the demands upon us nowadays, there just isn't as much energy to burn as there once was. Humans have a limited supply. And while we're forced to multi task [as parents, workers, carers to ageing parents, supportive partners), any energy draining situation such as an argument, an extra project or a problem with one's kids can knock the body about dreadfully.

Nor should we be fooled by adrenalin surges. During the fight or flight reaction to a deadline or altercation, stress hormones flood the body and prepare us for action. This boosts energy levels and stimulates the system. But there's the inevitable biological let down afterwards, and it's now well known that continual, habitual stress makes the brain turn off other helpful hormones such as feel-good and sex hormones, leading to fatigue, immune deficiency and depression.

The skilled energy miser chooses his or her projects or battles carefully, scrutinising each ounce of energy that they are going to give the situation. "I won't yell at that bad driver because it will tire me out." Or "Yes, I will have those people over for dinner because their company will nourish me."

Once becoming a committed energy miser, there are techniques to help conserve energy such as learning to delegate, knowing when to walk away, and knowing when to bring in a lawyer or a nanny. Anything to spare spillage or leakage. Better to be energy rich and cash poor than the other way around.

We all know that it's becoming increasingly important to conserve the world's precious resources. Likewise, conserving our internal resources is not only intelligent, it's also the best anti ageing medicine around.

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.

Iraq's intolerance. The Boston Globe 16 Aug 07.

The truck bombings on Tuesday that killed more than 250 members of the religious sect known as Yazidi in northern Iraq appear to reflect local, parochial enmities. Still, this atrocity casts light on a more diffuse phenomenon in Iraq that U.S. policymakers have failed to comprehend and that cosmopolitan Iraqis have long ignored or denied--a ruthless intolerance of the Other.

The Kurdish-speaking Yazidi hold themselves apart from their Muslim or Christian neighbors. Those neighbors tend to view the Yazidi as heretics, because their religion draws on certain elements of those two creeds but contradicts crucial doctrines of each. The Yazidi, who do not accept converts and must be born into their religion, are said to disbelieve in evil; they worship a figure whom Christians and Muslims identify with Satan but whom the Yazidi regard as a chief angel who repented of his rebellion and was pardoned by the deity.

Like the predominantly Sunni Muslim Kurds living around them, or Christian sects, or Shiites, or Iraqi Jews, the Yazidi have had times when they could live their separate lives in peace and other times when they were persecuted for being different. The chain of events leading up to the four huge bomb blasts Tuesday in three villages near the Syrian border apparently began months ago, when a 17-year-old Yazidi girl eloped with a Sunni and converted to Islam. As punishment for what her community considered a violation of a religious taboo, she was stoned to death. A cellphone video of the stoning was circulated on the Internet, and seems to have incited attacks against members of the sect, including the murder of 23 Yazidi factory workers in April. The police said they were taken off a bus by killers from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

The desolating reality illuminated in the truck bombings and each of the incidents preceding it is a collective refusal to accept differences, whether of one individual from a community or of one group from another. Indeed, this is the billowing nightmare that has descended on all the people of Iraq. Beyond the obvious struggles for power and resources, old sectarian and ethnic animosities--some from as far back as the 7th century--are being revived. Long-dormant vendettas between Shiites and Sunni Arabs, between Kurds and Turkmen, or between Islamists and secular Iraqis have been let loose.

Acknowledging this reality need not mean giving up all hope that Iraqis may eventually find ways to live in peace. Still, for American policymakers, the lesson is that an invading power cannot destroy the administrative and security structures of a fragile society and expect to harvest a pluralist democracy. The lesson for the disparate Iraqi communities is that if they don't find a way to live together, they will go on killing one another.

Bishop Michael Nazir Ali of Rochester preached on the eve of the Feast of Transfiguration on Jesus appearance on the Mountain and hoped that Bishop Marshall would free his people to be followers of the risen Christ, and help them know what they have to put off and what to put on to live his risen life. 'The glory of God is to be seen in the risen Jesus and also the glory of men and women as they are meant to be which we have lost through sin and rebellion.'

As part of the greetings from religious and civic leaders, an Ayatollah from the Council of Guidance began with giving respect to the great prophet Jesus Christ and his holy mother St Mary. He spoke warmly of religious tolerance. 'When everyone praises God because they are happy they are linked with us. Anyone in suffering who asks God for help in the middle of the night is our brother. We feel great sympathy and closeness for everyone who believes God in his heart Those priests and bishops who are asking God for help in the middle of the night are paving the way for morality in society'.

The Presiding Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East, Mouneer Anis said: 'Many countries in the Middle East are places where religions and civilizations came together. They speak now of a clash of civilizations. By the grace of God we want to return back to the origin with the civilizations of this region where civilizations came together for a better world and humanity.' The Archbishop of Canterbury also sent greetings: 'The task of building relationships with government and religious leaders is an important element in the ministry to which you are called and we look forward to working with you in promoting deeper mutual understanding.'

On the evening before the installation, all the visiting Bishops and Archbishops visited the mausoleum-shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini and laid a wreath. They were accorded a guard of honour and met with government officials.

At the close of the service Bishop Azad said 'My Christ did not come for only Christians; my Christ is for the whole world. With your help and co-operation I will seek to serve both Muslims and Christians because Christ came to serve all.'

1. Labor would win in a landslide if an election were called now;
2. the gap is closing, with a possibly tight election contest in November or December 2007; since its lowest point in March 2007, the government's primary vote has improved 5.2 percentage points, the Labor primary vote has dropped 3.0 points and the government's two-party preferred prediction is up 4.5 points; and
3. since November 2006 the Greens and the minor parties have dropped from almost 20 per cent to 13 per cent; the government could need at least 45 per cent of the primary vote to be returned and Labor could need at least 42 per cent if to defeat the government (assuming a 60-40 preference split in Labor's favour).

Even Nairobi has been very cold going as low as eight degrees Celsius and a high of twenty! To us that is unusual. I think all of us have begun to experience the global weather change. Before, our weather pattern was well defined. We knew exactly when to plough, plant, weed and harvest. Even months of the year were known by the kind of farming activities that were done during those periods. This is no more! This year, we had floods in months associated with dry weather seasons. And the traditional wet months turned to be the dry months of the year. Given that we don't have capacity to predict accurately the weather pattern, the consequence in our farming activities has been devastating.

The Howard Government repeatedly defended its anti-terror laws during the 25 days it detained Mohamed Haneef. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, for example, said: "The system is working as intended." In fact, key parts of the law did not operate as intended and, to the extent that they did, this only strengthens the case for reform.

No one should be allowed to judge their own mistakes, especially where extraordinary powers have been exercised and national security is at stake. There should be an inquiry into Haneef's case by a respected, independent person such as a former High Court judge. It should not be left to a Senate committee to deliberate for months, only to provide a partisan report.

The inquiry should examine the actions of the prosecutors and police as well as the underlying law. The focus must be on operational errors and on a legal regime that has its own flaws.

Australia does need strong laws to prevent terrorist attacks. These must also include effective checks and balances, and reflect democratic principles such as the presumption of innocence. The laws should also prevent terrorism investigations becoming politicised by ministers using immigration or other powers.

The inquiry should examine whether Australian law matches these goals. It should examine whether it is right to hold a person without charge for an indefinite period. The Crimes Act says a terrorism suspect can be questioned for 24 hours. However, it also says a magistrate can permit "dead time" so questioning can be spread across an undefined number of days. This enabled Haneef to be detained for 12 days rather than about 12 hours, as for other serious offences.

When the law was passed in 2004, I argued before a Senate committee for a maximum of two days detention without charge. This was to overcome the possibility of significant periods of dead time causing an over-lengthy detention. The Attorney-General's Department rejected this, with a senior official saying: "I would be extraordinarily surprised if the dead time, for example, in relation to the time zones, would get anything like the sorts of time periods that were being suggested by Professor Williams."

Of course, Haneef was detained for 12 days, not two.

Concerns about the law led then justice minister Chris Ellison to promise in parliament: "Should the Senate pass this updated dead time mechanism, I make the undertaking that the Government will conduct an independent review of the new investigatory framework for terrorism investigations three years after they become law."

All the way with Figaro
A small troupe takes on one of the best-loved operas with intimacy and style
by Natasha Rudra. Canberra Times, 1 August 2007 : Times 2 supplement, p.8.


Sheena Smith (Susanna), Peter Laurence (Figaro), Tunja Doss (Countess Rosina), Stephen Hines (Count Almaviva), Leila Fetter (Marcellina) and Ron Presswell (Basilio) in Figaro. Picture: Melissa Adams

Musicians Patricia Whitbread and Colin Forbes are preparing for a difficult task. For three gruelling hours from tomorrow, they and their small troop of opera lovers will enter a world of disguise, mistaken identity and amorous advances in a short season of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.

Their amateur group, the Canberra Academy of Music and Related Arts, features several of Whitbread's voice students.

The group puts on one production a year to give members a chance to explore and perform music. So what makes them choose a full-length opera with some of the most complex vocal parts available? Whitbread blames her students. "We actually did a cut-down version last year," she says. "The singers did so well, and were so encouraged amongst themselves, that they said, 'couldn't we do the whole show?' "

The "whole show" involves 11 principals and a frenetic farce. The plot revolves around the former Barber of Seville, Figaro, and his would-be bride Susanna. They are trying to marry despite the advances of the unfaithful Count Almaviva.

Mozart's infectious, sophisticated music, combined with Lorenzo del Ponte's libretto, have made the opera one of the best loved. Sometimes this has had secured the larger insights of Figaro, which probes the politics of marriage between the upper and lower classes. The opera caused a stir with the 18th-century audiences, who were uneasy with its depiction of the social politics of the times

With a small company and without the resources of a bigger production house, director Forbes has opted for a chamber production [. . .]. "I actually play all the orchestral parts on a piano, or a keyboard or harpsichord," he says. "We have the facilities to do it in the way we are doing it -- in a chamber situation."

The strip-backed production also suits St Philip's Church O'Connor, where the group regularly rehearses and performs. Forbes says Figaro is an opera that doesn't require a great deal of room. "It doesn't require the massive space" of, say, Puccini's Turandot. "When all is said and done, it's being performed in a church and there's a big stone altar," he says. "So we have to adapt around there."

Whitbread says, "we have to work around the existing fixtures that we have. But that's not nearly such a massive issue."

The group is going for simplicity, with a few custom-built sets that will fit into the church and be easily changed. But Forbes says staging is hardly the focus. "You really can get away without any sets at all. It's about people. It's really a chamber work, despite the fact that it' done at Covent Garden and La Scala. It has to be intimate, but the advantage of that is that it really does show the humanity of it and the personal story of the drama. It helps to throw that out into relief, because we're not relying on massive lighting effects or staging."

Much of that personal story will also come from the cast members, many of whom are tutored or coached by the couple. Whitbread is cheerful about the fact that it is an amateur production, and says the lead singers bring an extra zest. "They're definitely not professionals, because most of them are involved in other disciplines," she says. "In fact, three lead girls are writing doctoral theses in economics, law and biology. So this is their sanity, I believe."

Those lead girls are Tanjua Doss, Alison Knight and Sheena Smith. Doss, an economics analyst, is Countess Almaviva, Knight who plays Cherubino, page boy in love with a countess, is writing her doctoral thesis in zoology at the Australian National University, and Smith, in the lead role of Susannah, is a PhD law student.

Other principal roles are played by some of the couple's fellow musicians or teachers, and Whitbread, as vocal director, jokes about having to be careful with her musical points and directions.

Whitbread believes having other pursuits and passions gives her singers an edge and makes them work harder at researching their parts. "They bring to their role such an insight, because they are such clever people, and they really do their homework," she says. "I've got absolute admiration for these people because they are understanding what they're doing. It's moving with a lot of flow and a lot of confidence."

I have finally become bored with the whole damn thing. Bored, not with being gay, but with talking about it. I blame Tony Blair.

Do cats witter endlessly on about being cats? Do redheads drive us to distraction with their thoughts on being ginger? How many serious comment columns in the editorial pages of newspapers are devoted to the musings of straight men on what it is to be a heterosexual? No, they just get on with it--with being cats, redheads or straights. Such things are for the lifestyle sections of weekend magazines, not rubbing shoulders with the debate on global warming, housing or the terrorist threat.

Fellow-queers: stop moaning. How interesting is any of this to the rest of the world any more? Other groups out there have it worse than we do in Britain. We've got the political changes we asked for. . . . Our main persecutors now are religions--the "faith community": Islam, Catholicism, Anglicanism, evangelicals, Judaism, Hinduism--but most of our fellow Britons don't seriously subscribe to any of these superstitions, so why take it out on them? The brave thing now is to take the battle into the cathedrals, temples, synagogues and Rastafarian dives, not the opinion pages of The Guardian.

To the mosques, homosexualists! Post-homosexualists--to the opera!

I have to confess: I don't want to be "a homosexual" any more. . . . In the words of the Smashing Pumpkins, "I just want to be me"! I want to come out of the closet that is "gay".

. . . They may think we're a group, that it matters if you're gay, but are we and does it any more? Do we have anything in common with each other just because we're gay? Are we really proud of being gay? What's to be proud of in just being something? It mattered then, when we weren't citizens. But is there any sense in it now?

. . . The time has come for the end of the heterosexual, the end of the homosexual. It was just a phase we were going through. And the only people who believe it any more are the gay identity freaks, the religious nuts and the bigots. Individuality is the new black, don't you think?

[I]nstead of an apology, Haneef's name and reputation was further besmirched by the Australian government. Immigration minister Kevin Andrews said the doctor's eagerness to be reunited with his wife in Bangalore "actually heightens rather than lessens my suspicion".

Haneef's request for an apology from the Australian authorities after the investigation (labelled "incompetent" by the former chairman of Australia's national crime authority) against him failed to find evidence he had "recklessly" supported UK terror was also met with derision. "What do you expect them to do--fall on the ground and grovel, eat dirt? I mean, get real", said Alexander Downer, the foreign minister.

To add insult to injury, Andrews revoked Haneef's work visa and said this was based on secret police information--implying without offering any evidence that Haneef was somehow of dubious, and perhaps criminal, character. Haneef's colleagues have described him as dedicated and hardworking: his employer, Gold Coast hospital, promised to give him his job back if he regained his visa.

Government-sponsored character assassination may not be illegal but it is a grotesque abuse of power. John Howard's 11-year regime has long been acclaimed for its Machiavellian mastery of "dog whistle politics" -- sending the voters shrill messages about race and immigration without making any direct statement. Yet Howard's administration has never been subtle about hyping the risk of terrorism and the supposed links between immigrants and terrorism.

There has never been a terror attack on Australian soil--although many Australians understandably view the 2002 Bali bombing atrocity, in which 202 people were killed including 88 Australians, as an assault on their nation--but Howard has repeatedly emphasised the terror threat, bringing in tough new anti-terror laws and issuing alarming guidance on how citizens can survive terror attacks.

Some of this may be responsible government; much looks like irresponsible electioneering. It is hard not to see the abuse of Haneef as the desperate lashing out of a government on its last legs, trailing Labor in the polls and desperately seeking a "Tampa moment" to push it to victory in the federal elections later this year.

In 2001, Howard was also trailing in the polls until he used troops to repel a Norwegian ship, the Tampa, which had rescued a sinking vessel of Afghan asylum seekers. The prime minister dumped them on Nauru, an impoverished Pacific Island. This tough, expensive and disproportionate stance won him the election.

The government's treatment of Haneef matches its treatment of other immigrants. In the run-up to the 2001 election, Howard also claimed another group of refugees arriving by boat deliberately threw their children overboard, sparking outrage over these apparently inhumane "illegals". Despite being quickly advised this story was completely false, Howard only admitted as much after he had won the election. Howard will seek other immigrants to demonise but, this time, his grubby government may be beyond rescue. Voters are increasingly seeing their ageing prime minister as the boy who cried wolf over immigrants and terrorism in Australia.

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews can't have it both ways. Either he is privy to secret information that paints Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef in a light so bad that he should be detained while the matter is properly investigated, or the secret information possessed by the minister is now of so little consequence, Dr Haneef should have his visa reinstated and be allowed to continue to practise medicine in Australia. But what we have witnessed over the past three days bares all the hallmarks of a political charade designed to preserve a shred of credibility for a government that has overplayed its hand.

. . . [I]t is not possible to review Mr Andrews' actions in dealing with Dr Haneef without feeling uneasy that they were guided by politics, rather than good policy.

. . .While a suspicious mind is one thing, and the precautionary principle a worthy bedrock when deciding matters of national security, what appears to be craven political opportunism at Dr Haneef's misfortune should serve as a warning beacon for everyone.

The spectacle of Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews trying to slither from blame for his contribution to the ongoing debacle over Mohamed Haneef shames Australians. Andrews is the ministerial monkey in this international embarrassment, not the organ-grinder.

His decision a fortnight ago to cancel Dr Haneef's visa and keep him in detention -- despite the granting of bail by a Brisbane magistrate on grounds including that the evidence at the time was "exceptionally weak" (before the "evidence" all but vanished in a puff of smoke) -- had to be endorsed by John Howard.

Now, having failed to score political points on national security with Dr Haneef, the Prime Minister and Andrews are sticking like glue to avoid further ignominy. Andrews was insisting yesterday that despite the most humiliating public backdown by the criminal justice system in recent memory, nothing had changed in relation to Dr Haneef. Accordingly, he argues, the 27-year-old Dr Haneef, whose freedom was snatched and his life almost ruined because of a trumped-up terrorism charge, cannot look forward to having his cancelled visa restored.

But it gets worse than that. Andrews said yesterday the decision of Dr Haneef to leave Australia for his family home in India to meet his newborn daughter for the first time, and see his wife, "actually heightens rather than lessens my suspicions". Andrews has adopted an untenable position to save his skin at the continuing expense of Dr Haneef. The minister is unwilling to restore the visa because to do so would admit what everyone, including Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty, knows -- he made a serious error in cancelling it in the first place.

In his "statement of reasons" a fortnight ago, before the case completely imploded, he discloses how, "having formed the necessary suspicion that Dr Haneef does not pass the character test, and having decided that cancellation of Dr Haneef's visa would be in the national interest", he exercised his discretion to cancel the visa. Andrews says he relied on Direction No.21 [of 2001], relating to the Migration Act, as a guide.

Direction No. 21 states in its preamble: "In exercising this power, the minister has a responsibility to the parliament and to the Australian community to protect the community from criminal or other reprehensible conduct and to refuse to grant visas, or cancel visas held by non-citizens, whose actions are so abhorrent to the community that they should not be allowed to enter or remain within it." Andrews cannot seriously believe this is now valid in view of the effective clearance the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, Damian Bugg QC, afforded Dr Haneef on Friday.

Back on July 16, when Dr Haneef was still facing a criminal charge, Andrews also disclosed in his statement of reasons that he gave "primary consideration to the protection of the Australian community, taking into account the seriousness and nature of Dr Haneef's suspected conduct, the likelihood that such conduct might be repeated (risk of recidivism), and general deterrence". Andrews disclosed that "protection of the Australian community" weighed in favour of visa cancellation, and he gave it "significant weight". Does Andrews seriously believe that this, too, is still valid? That we need protection from a medical practitioner who is generous with a mobile phone SIM card?

Andrews also said he weighed the category "expectations of Australian community", and, accordingly, he resolved "that the Australian community would expect that a non-citizen, who has had an association with persons suspected of involvement in an act of terrorism and who has been charged with an offence of providing resources to a terrorist organisation, including those persons, would have their visa cancelled".

He gave this consideration "moderate weight". It is hard to believe Andrews seriously thinks this category, as well, is still valid.

Most Australians have an expectation that Dr Haneef will be treated with scrupulous fairness and honesty to make up for the appalling conduct thus far. All the circumstances have changed since Andrews cancelled the visa. As Andrews can't accept this as a reality, we should change our Immigration Minister. And he should be followed out the door by Keelty, who wants Australians to believe he is not a blunt political instrument; that there has been no bungling by him or his officers; and that journalists should not criticise or challenge miscarriages of justice.

Health Ministers today joined in recognising the critical role of international medical graduates in providing high standards of health care in Australia and noting that many of our world renowned clinical leaders trained overseas. Almost a quarter of Australia's medical workforce are international medical graduates and Health Ministers, like the many families who rely on these doctors, thanked them for their contribution in meeting the nation's health needs.

So much has been said in this book about our communion with the natural world by the way of Intelligence that it is hardly necessary to underline what the ecologists have been telling us about our rape and ruin of the earth on which we live. This first came to people's notice in the period between the two world wars as the result of soil erosion, which sprang from the exploitation of the earth on a vast scale for commercial profit, leaving once fertile lands a desert. And it prompted T. S. Eliot in the Boutwood Lectures he gave at Cambridge in March 1939 to warn us that " a wrong attitude towards nature implies somewhere a wrong attitude towards God and the consequence is an inevitable doom". [T.S. Elliot. The idea of a Christian society. Faber, 1939, p. 62]

Eliot here put horse and cart in the right order. The ultimate protest against the rape of the earth cannot be on the utilitarian grounds that the world's resources will soon be exhausted. That may be true, although it always remains possible that technology will produce alternative sources of energy when we have exhausted all those now available. The ultimate protest against the earth's exploitation is our apprehension by the way of Intelligence that the earth is the dwelling-place of God's joy and therefore demands the forbearance, respect, reverence and love by which alone we can establish communion with Him.

The wrong attitude towards God of which Eliot spoke is that which regards Him as an object up there who lives in a kind of benevolent isolation from what He has created, a God who never walks in the garden He has planted, so that the garden may be turned into a rubbish heap without any sense of desecration or blasphemy. Such an attitude is totally impossible for anybody in whom the joy of God has gone out to meet His joy in the earth. Such a person will do everything in his power to preserve the Garden of the Lord from all the forms of pollution and exploitation which may threaten it, however much people tell that person to mind his own business. For it is his business, and everybody's.

501. Refusal or cancellation of visa on character grounds
Decision of Minister or delegate--natural justice applies
(1) The Minister may refuse to grant a visa to a person if the person does not satisfy the Minister that the person passes the character test [as defined by subsection (6)].
(2) The Minister may cancel a visa that has been granted to a person if: (a) the Minister reasonably suspects that the person does not pass the character test; and (b) the person does not satisfy the Minister that the person passes the character test.
Decision of Minister--natural justice does not apply
(3) The Minister may: (a) refuse to grant a visa to a person; or (b) cancel a visa that has been granted to a person; if: (c) the Minister reasonably suspects that the person does not pass the character test; and (d) the Minister is satisfied that the refusal or cancellation is in the national interest.
(4) The power under subsection (3) may only be exercised by the Minister personally.
(5) The rules of natural justice, and the code of procedure set out in Subdivision AB of Division of Part 2, do not apply to a decision under subsection (3).
Character test
(6) For the purposes of this section, a person does not pass the character test if:
(a) the person has a substantial criminal record (as defined by subsection (7)); or
(b) the person has or has had an association with someone else, or with a group or organisation, whom the Minister reasonably suspects has been or is involved in criminal conduct; or
(c) having regard to either or both of the following: (i) the person's past and present criminal conduct; (ii) the person's past and present general conduct; the person is not of good character; or
(d) in the event the person were allowed to enter or to remain in Australia, there is a significant risk that the person would: (i) engage in criminal conduct in Australia; or (ii) harass, molest, intimidate or stalk another person in Australia; or (iii) vilify a segment of the Australian community; or (iv) incite discord in the Australian community or in a segment of that community; or (v) represent a danger to the Australian community or to a segment of that community, whether by way of being liable to become involved in activities that are disruptive to, or in violence threatening harm to, that community or segment, or in any other way.
Otherwise, the person passes the character test .
[The remainder of the section defines "substantial criminal record", "conduct amounting to harassment or molestation" and other terms.]

The Spaniards hold St. James in the highest veneration, and if their history was to be believed, with good reason. At the battle of Clavijo, fought in the year 841 between Ramiro, king of Leon, and the Moors, when the day was going hard against the Christians, St. James appeared in the field, in his own proper person, armed with a sword of dazzling splendour, and mounted on a white horse, having housings charged with scallop shells, the saint's peculiar heraldic cognizance; he slew sixty thousand of the Moorish infidels, gaining the day for Spain and Christianity. The great Spanish order of knighthood, Santiago de Espada--St. James of the Sword--was founded in commemoration of the miraculous event; giving our historian Gibbon occasion to observe that, 'a stupendous metamorphosis was performed in the ninth century, when from a peaceful fisherman of the Lake of Gennesareth, the apostle James was transformed into a valorous knight, who charged at the head of Spanish chivalry in battles against the Moors. The gravest historians have celebrated his exploits; the miraculous shrine of Compostella displayed his power; and the sword of a military order, assisted by the terrors of the inquisition, was sufficient to remove every objection of profane criticism.'

The city of Compostella, in Galicia, became the chief seat of the order of St. James, from the legend of his body having been discovered there. The peculiar badge of the order is an blood-stained sword in the form of a cross, charged, as heralds term it, with a white scallop shell; the motto is Rubel ensis sanguine Arabum--Red is the sword with the blood of the Moors. The banner of the order, preserved in the royal armory at Madrid, is said to be the very standard which was used by Ferdinand and Isabella at the conquest of Granada. But, as it bears the imperial, double-headed eagle of the Emperor Charles V, we may accept the story, like many other Spanish ones, with some reservation.

Cross of the Order of Santiago (St. James)

Well, be all that as it may, I am delighted to celebrate another James today, who named himself after the saint.

The Pathway of St. James

After forty days of cheap wine and pilgrims' dinners
of nights rent by generous farts in frugal dormitories
we ascend on blistered feet the stairs of stone
to the Romanesque repository of the saint's bones
and pause at the great doorway of pardons
to place our palms on its marble portal
in the touching furrow worn by faith of centuries
before we enter the shrine
to indulge first moments of expiation
roaming the nave, apse and chapels of atonement
watching the stained lights of Christendom
concede to soft Galician darkness before repairing
to the bars of Santiago to commune
in broken tongues with penitents of many nations
until dawn compels us to trains and planes
to streak over mountains, deserts and oceans,
a diaspora of purged peripatetics with holey socks
returning to the places from whence they set forth
where other bones lie buried.

--B.N. Oakman, Eureka Street, 20 Mar 07

Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott says that while the Howard Government "isn't perfect" there is something "slightly phoney" about Kevin Rudd who is "completely unqualified" to be elected 'Australia's CEO'. Mr Abbott said Mr Rudd has been attacking the government's credibility while adopting a 'me-too' approach on major government policies. "Labor is saying me-too on security, me-too on the economy, me-too on forestry. Kevin Rudd can't have it both ways. He can't support all the government's significant policies while at the same time claim that there is something fundamentally dishonest about the way the government governs. I think what people are waking up to, or what people will eventually wake up to, is the fact that there is something slightly phoney about Kevin Rudd. . . . He has come to the conclusion that if he puts his hand up and says 'me-too' on all the important issues, somehow he might just coast into office. Well, I don't think that Australian elections are decided like that."

The final decision will be made closer to the election, but Kevin Rudd's sellout of Tasmania's native forests and wildlife yesterday, and endorsement of the polluting Gunns pulp mill, will see many Labor votes go to the Greens and removed a key opportunity for Labor to win Greens preferences. Rudd's $20 million to the loggers, on top of John Howard's multi-million dollar fostering of the chainsaws over recent years, compares with zero for protecting forests and zero commitment to a forest protection policy. The $8 million to protect the forest industry from climate change, fostered by an industry which logs and burns forests and puts massive tonnages of greenhouse gases in to the atmosphere each year, is illogical and perverse.

Rudd has not allocated a cent to protecting the organic farmers, the grape growers, the wine makers, tourism operators or the fishing industries from the impacts of climate change caused by the burning of forests - or the impact of pollution from the proposed pulp mill in the Tamar Valley. The Greens will go to the election offering the clean green alternative to the forest destroying and polluting policies of both John Howard and Kevin Rudd."

From security laws to indigenous issues, Labor is a pale imitation of John Howard's platform

Remember Kim Beazley's small target strategy? . . . Small target? What target? No sooner did the Tampa appear on the horizon than the entire federal party sank without trace. No matter how appalling the prime ministerial response to the plight of the refugees--and the revelations contained in the new Howard biography remind us of Howard's tricky and nasty response to that stand-off in 2001--Beazley backed it. The same PM now expressing deep concern over black kids in remote Northern Territory communities put kids into prison [immigration detention] camps. Howard created remote communities, first on our mainland, then dotted around the Pacific [the 'Pacific solution']. And Her Majesty's Opposition did not oppose him. Well and truly wedged, it became the worst flopposition in our political history.

As Labor yet again faces a federal election with, yet again, Howard as PM, yet again the Beazley boys . . . occupy key roles. And they're giving Kev the same advice they gave Kim. Be careful, not courageous. Propose, by all means, but don't oppose. Instead of fearing the wedge, want it, embrace it. Clasp it to your manly bosom.

Rudd keeps saying it loud and clear--and makes it sound sweetly reasonable. "I'm not here", says Kev, "to oppose for the sake of opposing." When it comes to the small target, the Rudd campaign resembles a Target telly commercial. Ten, 15, 20 per cent off! Before the PM can up the ante, Kev's at the checkout. And he cops the wedge without the hedge! He doesn't say "I'll go along with the PM on this, but". He doesn't say "while we'll give broad support to the Government in their response to the ... crisis" (readers can fill in the blank) "we want to see the details and reserve the right to demand changes or modifications". No, Kev signs up without qualification. And he stays signed. Despite this newspaper's revelations about the major cock-up in our terrorist investigation, and despite mounting outrage from the legal community about Mohamed Haneef's treatment, Julia Gillard was still giving the PM, Philip Ruddock and Kevin Andrews support, embarrassed but unqualified, at the weekend.

Ditto for indigenous issues. Rudd joined Howard's coalition of the willing in seconds flat, enthusiastically agreeing to invade those remote communities in the Northern Territory. As with previous quick-fix policies by Howard - the Murray-Darling takeover comes to mind--problems were quick to emerge in this takeover. The devilish detail in the small print soon made headlines but Rudd had left himself no room to manoeuvre.

I've been saying for years that Rudd is the only hope for a Labor victory against Howard, and still believe that. His discipline remains impressive. He doesn't shirk the work. But am I not alone in feeling a little anxious about the strategy? What seems like unseemly haste to neutralise Howard rather than challenge him? This sure as hell didn't work for Beazley. Voters seeking a conservative leader chose the real thing, not the substitute. Why bother changing when the contender didn't give you much of a choice?

. . . Western democracies are getting used to the choice-less choice. Variations on a theme. Tweedledum and Tweedledumber competing for office. To policy differences that require a magnifying glass. . . . I hope this won't be the case with Kev, but for many voters that's exactly what they're after. More of the same but in a slightly different style.

The book features some entertaining types, including the "mess phony" -- an individual who pretends to be messy while hiding order. There's also "the mess pervert", someone who actively creates mess because they derive pleasure from the process. However, Abrahamson and Freeman argue that constant order is ultimately costly. . . . "If you're messy you can let 20 things pile up on your desk. When it all gets too much, you'll spend one morning or an hour or whatever filing them all away. That expends a lot less energy than stopping what you are doing to deal every time you get a new piece of mess." A more interesting point he makes is that allowing mess to accumulate increases your chances of creating interesting connections, patterns or cross references you may not have thought of. "Mess tends to juxtapose things that would otherwise have been separated by order," says Abrahamson.

Abrahamson points to three types of empirical research that helped the authors qualify their assertion that mess reigns supreme. The first was conducted by computer simulation, using desk scenarios ranging from very messy to very neat. The exercise showed that of all the parameter settings, moderate mess helped employees finish their tasks the fastest. Abrahamson and Freedman also interviewed 100 people, and another 160 via a web-based survey. "It's a topic people love to talk about, but I'd say two thirds of messy people feel guilty about their mess says Abrahamson.

Corporate adviser Mark Struk does not know of any research that proves a link between intelligence and either messiness or neatness. "It's fair to say that more creative, more right-brained people tend be messy, but being messy or or neat has no implications for intelligence," he says. Struk says most comp, are following the American corporate model of trying to clean up their employess and limit the amount of paper piling up on desks: There's a definite trend towards decluttering."

. . . So celebrate your mess, allow it to pile up, and , what grows out of it. Just remember to keep it private.

Brad Pitt: So certainly discrimination has no place in Christianity. There's a big argument going on in America right now, on gay rights and equality.

Desmond Tutu: For me, I couldn't ever keep quiet. I came from a situation where for a very long time people were discriminated against, made to suffer for something about which they could do nothing--their ethnicity. We were made to suffer because we were not white. Then, for a very long time in our church, we didn't ordain women, and we were penalizing a huge section of humanity for something about which they could do nothing--their gender. And I'm glad that now the church has changed all that. I'm glad that apartheid has ended. I could not for any part of me be able to keep quiet, because people were being penalized, ostracized, treated as if they were less than human, because of something they could do nothing to change--their sexual orientation. For me, I can't imagine the Lord that I worship, this Jesus Christ, actually concurring with the persecution of a minority that is already being persecuted. The Jesus who I worship is a Jesus who was forever on the side of those who were being clobbered, and he got into trouble precisely because of that. Our church, the Anglican Church, is experiencing a very, very serious crisis. It is all to do with human sexuality. I think God is weeping. He is weeping that we should be spending so much energy, time, resources on this subject at a time when the world is aching.

• Smalltown boy
• Why?
• Don't leave me this way
• Never can say goodbye
• There's more to love
• Ain't necessarily so
• You make me feel
• For a friend
• So cold the night

The doctrinal grounds for allowing such blessings were passed, but the motion that would have allowed for an orderly approach to the change was defeated. While it is likely that the negative vote cast by the bishops (refusing to approve the rite) was motivated by a desire for the unity of the church, it is unclear whether this will now be the result.

To grasp the depth of the problem created, we need to understand what it means to say that something is a "matter indifferent." Anglicanism has since its very beginnings sought to hold together a diversity of ways of being an Anglican. The Elizabethan settlement sought to hold together all but the most radical Protestants and all but the most committed Catholics into a single church. In order to do this, the range of commitments that were required of Anglicans was kept to a minimum.

Anglicans were to hold to the historic creeds shared by all Christians, the two sacraments believed to be established by Jesus (baptism and holy communion), the tradition of leadership by bishops, and those things that could be "plainly proved by scripture." This does not cover everything that individual Anglicans might believe is important, but the point is that no Anglican can have their view compelled on anything outside this core. Things outside this core came to be known as "matters indifferent." This means they are not essential to Anglican identity and Anglicans can and, as a matter of fact, do disagree about them. I am no better or worse an Anglican for any position that I take on a matter indifferent, and my view cannot be compelled one way or another.

So then, to say that the blessing of same-sex unions is a matter indifferent is to say that it is a matter about which Anglicans might reasonably disagree both in theory and in practice. It is to say that it is a matter which cannot be the basis of discipline . . .

[P]riests are bound by oaths of obedience in "all things lawful and honest." The question is going to be whether or not it is lawful to require obedience from a priest on something the general synod of the church has declared to be a matter indifferent. Further, if it is a matter indifferent, the question is going to be whether a priest can lawfully be prevented from blessing, or entering into, a relationship that the 2004 general synod declared to have "integrity and sanctity."

. . . On the one hand, [the General Synod] has been unwilling [at the behest of the bishops] to affirm the right of dioceses to make pastoral provision for the blessing of same-sex unions where they might need or wish to do so. Although, technically, this does not take away the right of a diocese to proceed on the grounds that the defeat of a motion is not the affirmation of its contrary--it seems unlikely that many dioceses will not proceed as dioceses.

On the other hand, the synod has also ruled that the blessing of same-sex unions in not contrary to "core doctrine." Further, in its response to the St. Michael report, it has affirmed the conclusions of that report, which stated that blessings were not core doctrine but rather had the status of "adiaphora," meaning a matter that is not essential to salvation, or not essential to our identity as Anglican.

If this is true, it becomes unclear what could be the basis of a decision to discipline any priest who in blessing a same-sex union acts on the basis of a matter indifferent even if he or she does so, on a matter of significant controversy, and without the authorization of the church.

The case of Mohamed Haneef, alleged associate of terrorists, is a shambles. While the Government doggedly defends cancelling Haneef's visa on character grounds, evidence is leaking from both sides, a senior judge has ridiculed the case against the doctor, Australian business is worried about an Indian trade backlash, and Scotland Yard is angry at an investigator being named in leaked evidence.

Beyond the public circus, the Haneef case raises important issues about public attitudes and how they are shaped. Haneef's barrister, Stephen Keim, says he released a police interview with his client to counter "selective and misleading" leaks by police. Does this help Haneef get a fair hearing, or further jeopardise due process? The Government asks the public to trust that allegations against Haneef are serious, though secret. Yet the Government does not seem to trust the judiciary; if the information against Haneef is so damning, why did the Government not put it before the Brisbane magistrate and the Federal Court judge, both of whom were so unimpressed by the case against him? The issue is one of public confidence. As the Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie, said: "For God's sake, explain to Australians why you have taken this course of action."

When the draconian anti-terrorism laws were before Parliament, the public was assured by the Prime Minister, John Howard, that they would be closely supervised by the courts. Yet this week has seen two ministers doing the judicial sidestep. The Immigration Minister, Kevin Andrews, decided within an hour of Haneef's successful bail application to cancel his visa on character grounds, while the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, on hearing of Haneef's bail, said he might have to tighten the laws.

When the Federal Court judge Jeffrey Spender said he, too, would fail the character test under Mr Andrew's interpretation of the immigration laws, the judge was voicing scepticism in the legal fraternity and the wider community about the strength of the case against Haneef. The Government must demonstrate it has the right balance between protecting national security and the rights of individuals; Haneef deserves his day in court. In an election year, the Government must be careful not to appear to cry wolf on national security. Mr Andrews did not require proof beyond reasonable doubt to cancel Haneef's visa--reasonable suspicion was good enough. However, suspicion breeds suspicion, and increasingly, the general public smells a rat.

In a city dedicated to male beauty, former rugby star– turned–actor Ian Roberts still manages, at 41, to turn heads as he stands barefoot on the sidewalk outside his West Hollywood digs, waiting to greet me. Dressed in loose jeans and T-shirt, he cuts an imposing figure, his body still that of a pro rugby player—hard and built for speed, power, and collision.

Inside his sparsely furnished apartment decorated with photographs of his boyfriend, Daniel, who lives in Sydney, he offers me a Gatorade. It's literally all he has in the fridge after being away in New Zealand shooting Kiss Me Deadly: A Jacob Keane Assignment, a thriller for Here TV starring Robert Gant and Shannen Doherty. Roberts plays Frederick, "an intense thug," according to the film's director, Ron Oliver.

"Roles for someone of my size are rather limited," Roberts says, referring to his 6-foot-5 frame. "I've always been 'the thug,' " he says in regard to a career that has included Australian TV and roles in Superman Returns (as Riley, one of Lex Luthor's henchmen) and Little Fish, alongside Cate Blanchett. "I don't mind doing that sort of role either, as long as I work."

Oliver suggests that Roberts may be underestimating his talent: "Basically, we cast Ian as a heavy, figuring that his rugby fame and sheer physical size would be enough for the role. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that he had created a full living, breathing human being out of what was essentially an underwritten, clichéd 'bad guy' part. He's an extremely thoughtful actor, very engaged in his work." Oliver liked Roberts's performance so much, he spiked a fairly gruesome death scene to keep Frederick alive for a possible sequel.

"People refer to me as 'the gay rugby player,' " Roberts says of the way casting directors at home in Australia have perceived him since he came out officially in 1995, becoming the only major international male athlete in team sports to come out while still playing at the elite level. "But that's one of the things I have no control over. I've been lucky to have worked professionally off and on—mostly on—since I graduated from NIDA [Sydney's National Institute of Dramatic Art] in 2004."

Still, he admits to the insecurities plaguing any out actor: "I'm never sure if I didn't get the job because I'm the gay rugby player or because I wasn't good at the audition. I wish I didn't think that way, but I do."

The cure of some aspects of the Church's present malaise must be discovered in Winston Churchill's words: in "blood, toil, tears and sweat" They must cultivate sophistication in what pertains to their religious faith by reconciling themselves with the simple declaration, "I do not know." The revolution through which the Church is now passing has been variously described as a crisis in relevance, a crisis in authority, and a crisis in identity. Are these not really different expressions of what constitutes the heart of the matter, namely, a crisis in faith? To say, therefore, in answer to many of the tormenting questions of the present hour, "I do not know," is not to contribute to the pervading agnosticism and atheism of our time. It is rather to take the first step toward a firm renewal of faith after the model of the distraught father who sought Jesus' cure for his son bedeviled by an evil spirit. "Lord, I do believe," he said, "help my unbelief."
---John Tracy Ellis (1905-1992)

The burden of false certainty about the Bible, by Savi Hensman. Ekklesisa, 14 July 2007.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 England & Wales License.

To younger poets

A light comes off the Object, called Relation.
It connects the maker with what is to be made,
and illuminates both. That is all you have to do,
    to see it.
But remember, the poem, to be a poem,
isn't in the end a product of you.
You are the prism the beam strikes,
but it isn't you.

Poets who keep on saying 'I' and 'me'
are drunk
     on Ego.
Simply stay attentive
to the source of the light, and always
keep the prism clean.

--Judith Wright, Overland, autumn 1999, p.4.

2001

We will decide
Who comes into this country--
And the circumstances
In which they come.^[*]

Like a piece of poetry it was,
the toughening iambics,
those sharpened 'c's, like angled pikes,

the two-beat lines that got us going --
except line 3 which had its extra
fist banged on the table.

Note the subtle half-rhyme, too,
'country' matched with 'come'
and how the preposition 'in

assumes its proper place.
Like most great poetry, of course,
it's mainly made from echoes:

the glorious Three Hundred Greeks
who held Thermopylae
and Winston Churchill roaring still

"We shall fight them on the beaches . . ."
Like all such deathless works of art
it's shivering with myth:

the golden hordes who spoil our sleep
across two centuries,
the bard far back with lyre and smoke

declaiming his alliterations,
the ancient battles of his race
with dragons, gods and men.

No wonder, then, that those who might
have shown us something else,
defeated now by poetry.

had nowhere left to turn.

-- Geoff Page. Overland 181:92, Summer 2005

New evidence shows that that as the radiation coming from the sun varies (and sun-spot activity is one way of monitoring this) the earth seems to heat up or cool down. Solar activity very precisely matches the plot of temperature change over the last 100 years. It correlates well with the anomalous post-war temperature dip, when global carbon dioxide levels were rising. In fact, what is known of solar activity over the last several hundred years correlates very well with temperature. This is what some scientists are beginning to believe causes climate change.

Following the screening of the 50-minute film about climate change, a strangely one-sided interview was aired between regular Lateline host Tony Jones and the film's director, Martin Durkin. The fierce interrogation appeared to leave the filmmaker bemused. A discussion between a panel of eight experts then dissected the documentary, which claimed the chief cause of climate change was not human activity but changes in solar radiation. But it was not long before the 100-strong studio audience became impatient and started calling out questions.

Jones eventually opened the discussion up to the floor, but by the look on his face he quickly realised he should have stuck with the panel. The first question was more a rant about "coal 14", and its dangers - a topic none of the panel seemed to know anything about. Another audience member then asked about Prince Philip's role in founding the green movement, and how he had once remarked how he wished he could be reincarnated as the ebola virus in order to reduce the population. What did the panel think about that?

Some in the audience began giggling as questions were being asked, which was perhaps a shame because some words of widsom did emerge. The last question came from a man who said he cared less about fighting within the science community than about the government policies needed to address climate change. "Rome is burning, and we are fiddling around here." And with that, the studio lights were turned off.

Find another culprit

So it's official, the sun has nothing to do with recent global warming. Scientists have shown that changes in solar activity have nothing to do with the surge in global temperatures measured since the 1970s. Which is a problem for the climate change sceptics, who need something other than human emissions of greenhouse gases to blame it on. The study has been called the final nail in their coffin.

But what's really new here? The solar link to recent climate change has already been thoroughly examined and dismissed. Researchers already knew that changes in the amount of energy arriving from the sun couldn't be responsible. And the trend in cosmic rays--the darling "new" theory of the sceptics--is known to go in the wrong direction. Scientifically, this new paper does nothing new except correct some technical errors in a satellite record of solar irradiance--hardly headline stuff. And while recycling old claims as new may be routine for politicians and the media, it is much less common for scientific journals. The top journal Nature decided not to accept this new study for this reason. And the decision by the Royal Society to publish it appears to be as much about politics as science.

Britain's scientific elite were shaken by the public reaction to Channel 4's Great Global Warming Swindle. They thought they had won the argument on the causes of climate change. Several who give public lectures on the subject had even started to leave out that section. Mike Lockwood, the physicist behind the new study, admits he wrote the paper as a direct challenge to the programme's claims. The Royal Society appears to have published it for the same reason.

. . . The new study may yet have a positive effect. It leaves little doubt (again) that human emissions are the culprit, and stamps on another of the snakes released by Channel 4's swindle. But does science really need the right presentation for it to be authoritative? And how many final nails does a coffin need before it can be buried?

There are many interesting palaeoclimate studies that suggest that solar variability had an influence on pre-industrial climate. There are also some detection-attribution studies using global climate models that suggest there was a detectable influence of solar variability in the first half of the twentieth century and that the solar radiative forcing variations were amplified by some mechanism that is, as yet, unknown. However, these findings are not relevant to any debates about modern climate change. Our results show that the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified.
-- Mike Lockwood & Claus Fröhlich. Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature. Proceedings of the Royal Society A. 10 July 2007.

In 2002 Scott Whitmont and Christopher Whitmont-Stephenson had a full-scale "marriage" ceremony with a Jewish celebrant and lay cantor, 148 guests, reception, speeches -- "everything a wedding is", Mr Whitmont said. Before the end of the year they will have another ceremony, smaller but more important to them because it will be recognised by Jewish religious authorities. It will be the first such ceremony in Australia. Mr Whitmont said yesterday: "We will be kosher. We are committed to each other, we love each other, we want to live a Jewish life together."

Orthodox Judaism, like mainstream Christianity and Islam, forbids ceremonies for same-sex unions, though they may welcome homosexuals into their congregations. But the Union for Progressive Judaism has approved "same-gender commitment ceremonies between two Jews". The Council of Progressive Rabbis will decide at its next meeting in October what form such ceremonies can take. By December Mr Whitmont and Mr Whitmont-Stephenson will be formally united at the Temple Emanuel in Woollahra.

Fred Morgan, the chief rabbi at Temple Beth Israel in Melbourne, said: "We always welcome gays and lesbians into our community but, if we don't acknowledge their long-term relationships, we are welcoming them with one hand and pushing them away with the other." The main progressive Jewish bodies in the US, Britain and South Africa allowed same-sex ceremonies years ago.

Mordechai Gutnick, president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australia, said the Orthodox rabbinate challenged the decision. "While we may and should be tolerant towards individuals, we certainly cannot sanctify something that our Bible clearly prohibits." Nevertheless, there has been little reaction from the Jewish community.

Scott Whitmont, a bookseller, and his partner, nurse Christopher Whitmont-Stephenson, are likely to become the first Australian couple to have a rabbinically-consecrated same-sex commitment ceremony. The Sydney couple, who are members of Temple Emanuel Woollahra (TEW), were buoyed by last month's decision of the Council of Progressive Rabbis (Moetzah) to allow gay union ceremonies.

Whitmont and Whitmont-Stephenson met eight years ago at a bookselling industry event. Whitmont-Stephenson, 37, converted to Judaism in 2001, and he and 46-year-old Whitmont, who grew up in the Orthodox North Shore Synagogue, held a civil commitment ceremony in 2002. The ceremony, attended by numerous family members of both men, included a Jewish celebrant, a lay chazan and Jewish traditions of a ketubah (marriage certificate) and breaking a glass. Whitmont was called to the Torah and read a haftarah at TEW ahead of the ceremony. At the time, they approached TEW's Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins, who told them he could not conduct a ceremony for them then but would perhaps be able to do so in the future.

Last month's news of the Moetzah's decision to permit rabbis to conduct same-gender ceremonies renewed their short-term hope for a Jewish ceremony, Whitmont told the AJN. The couple are hoping for a ceremony either later this year or early next year, after rabbis decide on a format for the simchas. Whitmont said he and his partner do not want to "be any poster boys for a political statement, but simply, like any couple, demonstrate our commitment and love for each other". He said he was not concerned at the Orthodox reaction. "Given the strictures of halacha, I'm not so naive as to expect that it would be accepted and condoned."

. . . The Moetzah would look closely at material from Reform congregations in the United States and England in coming up with a format for a ceremony at its next meeting, scheduled for October in Hobart. "Considering it isn't strictly halachic, they [the couple] would have some input into it, but the first input will be from the rabbis, who want to establish some foundations, parameters and structures.

VII
Basho says
that poets must have madness in them;
it is not the affected madness of a gymnast.
It is the madness of grief for all humanity
broken loose from its heavenly connections.
It is the madness of loss, of separateness,
no structure, nothing-to-be-desired,
an unwelcome visitor lived with and endured,
always lurking, constantly mocking.

[...]

I took to that emptiness that is within me
to once more know its nothingness
but this is nothing to me, it is of no use.
How can we learn not to attach ourselves
to the objects of our love?
--Terry Gilmore. The art of dense conversation. Surviving the shadow. (Paper Bark Press, 1990)

Dust

In my sixty eighth year drought stopped the song of the river,
sent ghosts of wheatfields blowing over the sky.

In the swimming-hole the water's dropped so low
I bruise my knees on rocks which are new acquaintances.

The daybreak moon is blurred in a gauze of dust.
Long ago my mother's face looked through a grey motor veil.

Fallen leaves on the current scarcely move.
But the azure kingfisher flashes upriver still.

Poems written in age confuse the years.
We all live, said Basho, in a phantom dwelling.

Again and again I think of the mistakes I've made in my clumsiness over the course of the years. There was a time when I envied those who had government offices or impressive domains, and on another occasion I considered entering the precincts of the Buddha and the teaching rooms of the patriarchs. Instead, I've wom out my body in journeys that are as aimless as the winds and clouds, and expended my feelings on flowers and birds. But somehow I've been able to make a living this way, and so in the end, unskilled and talentless as I am, I give myself wholly to this one concern, poetry. Bo Juyi worked so hard at it that he almost ruined his five vital organs, and Du Fu grew lean and emaciated because of it. As far as intelligence or the quality of our writings go, I can never compare to such men. And yet we all in the end live, do we not, in a phantom dwelling? But enough of that--I'm off to bed.

Among these summer trees,
a pasania--
something to count on.
--From The Country of Eight Islands. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960)

Grace Cavalieri: I guess this [reading of Haiku] moves us into the inevitable and that is your own attention to the thing itself which is the image. And I guess a couple of your themes. Critics talk of your 'unswerving faith' in the imagination and your belief in the image, in a thing. ... I wonder if you would comment on that quality you have as a poet. I see the combination of the image and the imagination and I don't quite know how to make that relationship.

Robert Haas: Yes, you know in contemporary thinking about poetry, of course, it's the big issue because if there is anything that defines post modernism I suppose it's radical skepticism, skepticism about whether there's a world we can know, with conceptual and ideological apparatus of the social worlds we're born into. I think if there's anything that characterizes contemporary art it's skepticism about those things. Lots of writers, especially minority writers have been unpacking the extent to which the languages we acquire already marginalize them. Gays and lesbians have been -- and thinkers sympathetic to the problems that come from this, whatever their own sexual orientation -- have been thinking about the ways in which the very nature of language already marginalizes any sexual relationship that doesn't look exactly like the ones that were approved by the churches in 1200. So there are millions of reasons to distrust the clear representation of the image and good reasons for distrusting them, and I think that one of the things that I love about haiku is that they work very hard to create the kind of aesthetic ideal.

I guess you'd say, in which one could use language as a clear mirror of the seeing of the world which of course only happens through work. You don't get to see that way if your head is full of brainless chatter.Yes, so that's the connection.At some level the common world has to be earned over and over and over again. It doesn't exist. Basho who would be -- in the whole history of writing, the great example of this -- when asked how you got to it he said through aesthetic madness. Which meant through imagination. There's no way there without that but, the idea whether there is one or not, our language can model a kind of attention that seems to both call the world into being, and call us into being by being there... That's an act of imagination. It's not necessarily the way things are. In fact it's not usually the way things are.

The loss of freedom through detention can have grave consequences for the individuals and their families. There should be nothing short of a careful and lawful exercise of the power to detain a person, characterised by thorough attention to detail and ongoing review of any decision to detain a person. Unfortunately, this was not the case in the majority of these matters. It is inexcusable that there were such frequent errors leading to the detention of people who had a lawful right to live unrestrained in the community.

The current furore about religion and homosexuality has caused something of a dilemma for my children and their friends, who are all in their twenties. So much of what the Church has said about homosexuality is, for them, not so much right or wrong, as simply "nonsense". They operate within a different worldview. Like many, and perhaps the majority of their peers, they do not believe that either homosexual orientation or practice is sinful or "evil" per se, any more than they believe that about heterosexuals. They do not think it unnatural or disordered that there is a minority of the human population which is attracted to its own gender. They simply accept that as a fact of life. They are shocked that gays and lesbians have continually to make a case for themselves as sexually expressive and relational human beings. For them, this is essentially a justice issue.

Nor do they start from a laissez-faire or ethically disinterested perspective. They have clear positive values about the wrong of cruelty, violence, faithlessness, abuse of power, mercilessness, pride. They have considerable respect for marriage, and a realistic understanding of its challenges, which means that it is something they will never enter into lightly.

But living as they do in a pluralist society they are exposed to a far greater degree of diversity of culture, lifestyle, beliefs, attitudes, than ever before. They know their (and my) gay and lesbian friends, they know their kindness, their abilities, the quality of their parenting, and they find it enriching, not evil. For them, discrimination against people on the ground of their sexual orientation has the same character as racial discrimination -- that is, it is not only immoral but criminal.

How then shall they relate to a Church that considers homosexual practice, regardless of its moral and relational quality, as a sin? To become a member of that Church, will they have to name as a sin that which they have hitherto seen as an expression of justice? To name homosexuality as evil (and for all the slipping around between orientation and practice, they don't see the Church even practising what it preaches here) is, for them, corrupt, and trivialises the real nature of evil. One of the great joys for us this year in the family of the Iona Community has been the opportunity to share in the celebrations of those of our members who have entered into civil partnerships. About 10 per cent of our membership and staff are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered. They are fully and openly part of our common life, part of our body. When one member of the body suffers, all the others suffer, too. When one member is honoured, all the others rejoice together. They are part of our common prayer, and we pray equally for their chosen partners and respect their choices.

I could not begin to describe how much these members have enriched the life of our community; in our worship, our action for justice and peace, in pastoral support and theological reflection. They have deepened our spirituality, enhanced and supported our families and modelled forgiveness and reconciliation. Their sexuality is not the only, or even the most, interesting thing about them.

Jesus said: "By their fruits you shall know them." And because we have known them, we have reaped a rich harvest. Many of them, whether single or with partners, have experienced ignorance, misunderstanding and unremitting hostility in their Churches.

As Christians, the world judges us not by our discussions and doctrinal statements, but by our greatest claim; that we love God and love one another. By that standard, our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered members and staff have been a witness to us, and I am glad that they find a safe home within the Iona Community.

• violations of basic human rights in the areas of speech, religion and assembly--geneocide aginst the Falun Gong, for example;
• invasion threats against Taiwan, endangering peace;
• overvaluation of the yuan, which is counterproductive to global prosperity and market stability;
• use of sophisticated technologies and penetration techniques to monitor communciations and attack critical foreign computer networks, stealing highly sensitive information;
• active Chinese support for savagely despotic leaders in Zimbabwe, North Korea and the Sudan;
• exploitation of workers, including in the production of Olympics-related products; and
• environmental damage in pursuit of Olympic glory.

A fascist regime plans to host the Olympic Games. Critics call for a boycott, but the Games come off as planned. And on the field of world opinion, the host scores an enormous victory. Berlin in 1936? No, Beijing in 2008.

... Now that the Winter Olympics are over, all eyes will soon turn to the Summer Olympics. And that's just what the Chinese want. Like the Germans of the '30s, they will use the Olympics to showcase their economy--and hide their repressive behavior.

... [W]e can expect China's dictators to disguise their cruelties in a colorful haze of artistic and technological wizardry. To be fair, the Chinese leaders have never demonstrated the genocidal mentality or the global ambitions of Nazi Germany. And nominally, of course, China remains a "communist" nation. But make no mistake: It's also a fascist one. [F]ascism is marked by four characteristics: centralization of authority under a dictator; stringent socio-economic controls; suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship; and a policy of belligerent nationalism. The Chinese regime exhibits all four.

... Why should we help this brutal state by participating in its cynical Olympic spectacle? Why not sit this one out?

... [S]pare me the anguished retort about "politicizing" the Olympics. The Olympics have always been political. And no one understands that better than the Chinese leaders, who are counting on the Games to advertise their achievements--and mask their misdeeds. The only question is whether the rest of the world will play along.

When China announced its plans to pave a highway to the Mount Everest base camp in Tibet as part of its 2008 Olympic preparations, adventurers around the world winced at the latest encroachment into the Himalayan wilderness. Mountaineers who have already been to Everest, however, were more likely to greet the announcement of the "blacktop highway fenced with undulating guardrails" with little more than a shrug. Despite an elevation of more than 17,000 feet, it's been a long time since the Chinese base camp has resembled a wilderness.

A multistory hotel has been open for years now, just an hour's walk from base camp, with hot meals, cold beer, soft beds and a telescope aimed at the mountaintop. A giant cellular phone tower constructed by China Telecom a mile from the base camp provided phone service all the way to the summit during much of the just-completed spring climbing season.

An official from the Tibetan Mountaineering Association welcomed the paving of the Everest highway, saying that "climbers will be able to save their energy for climbing." But the reality is that they already do. While on the Nepal side of Everest, climbers walk for a week to get to base camp, on the Chinese side almost all of the climbers have been arriving in vehicles for decades.

China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported the road is being paved to ease the Olympic torch's trip to the summit during what is planned as the highlight of the most ambitious torch run in the history of the Games: an 85,000-mile, 130-day journey that will cross five continents. But Chinese climbers already took the torch to the top of the mountain during a dry run of the Olympic climb in May.

Other mountaineers reported that the large Chinese team tested several torches to see which would burn best in the thin air. So why would they need a paved road to get the torch to the summit next year?

In mountaineering terms, a new highway is built on Everest every year--new ropes and ladders fixed all the way to the summit allow an ever-increasing number of climbers with an ever-decreasing average level of skill and experience a chance to reach the summit.

While some mountaineers may bristle at the idea of a paved, two-lane road to the mountain, hundreds of Tibetans and Sherpas in one of the poorest regions of Asia, for whom the highway will provide employment opportunities, will certainly see the announcement as good news.

Advocates for Tibetan independence, however, probably won't. Many have complained the torch climb is just another way for the Communist government to plant its flag on a state that was independent until 1951. The Tibetan cause has become tightly tied to Western mountaineers in the last year, after scores of climbers on another Tibetan peak, Cho Oyu, reported seeing Chinese soldiers firing on Tibetan refugees trying to cross into Nepal, killing a Tibetan nun.

But, like most roads into the mountains, this path seems less about taking a torch or a flag into the wilderness than about bringing money back from it. In 1996--the year of the disaster on Everest made famous in Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air"--some 98 climbers reached the summit. Nearly 600 made it in the latest climbing season. And by far the greatest increase in visitation has been on the Chinese side of Everest, turning the Chinese base camp into something of a frontier town.

During my last visit, in 2006, more than 80 large tents spread out like a tenement at the end of the road to base camp, all of them filled with Chinese and Tibetans offering liquor, bunks, meals and gear. Prostitutes and pimps openly propositioned Western mountaineers, and Tibetan pony carts, like colorful, miniature stagecoaches, offered rides to the monastery at nearby Rongbuk. Doctors told me that in addition to the traditional frostbite and altitude sickness, they now treat plenty of venereal diseases and wounds from base-camp brawls.

The Chinese government seems more than aware of what lies behind the wholesome image they project on the mountain Tibetans call Chomolungma--the "Goddess Mother of the Universe." When the climbers testing the torches showed up at the mountain last month, they brought a piece of equipment thought unprecedented in the history of Everest climbing: rifles, carried by the sentries posted at the barracks guarding the entrance to the camp.

There will be protests, of course, but one thing is clear: by creating a new level of ease in reaching the base camp and the summit, China is about to turn Mount Everest into the first arena, and profit center, of its Olympic Games.

Bold move to address a national disgrace

There are certain events had crossed the line for John Howard. One was the Port Arthur massacre. A decade on it is the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children. In each case he has acted with surprising passion -- the first driven by shock, and the latest by impatience.

The Prime Minister plans sweeping legislation for remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory that bans alcohol and pornography, requires medical checks for children and lifts the police presence. Half of welfare payments for families may be retained for food and household needs, and the permit system that restricts entry of non-indigenous people into about 60 remote communities will in large measure be scrapped as the Commonwealth unilaterally takes a five-year leasehold over the sites. Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough harnessed Mr Howard's energy so well that the ALP was co-opted in its wake. Mr Rudd has proposed a bipartisan "war cabinet" to achieve a rapid result on the chronic issue of Aboriginal social dysfunction in remote communities, which has meant childhood assault, rape and neglect are commonplace. Jibes that the plan is racist and undermines customary law miss the wood for the trees.

Neglect of Aboriginal health is a national disgrace that must be worn by government's current and past, state and federal, Labor and coalition. Well-meaning policies have allowed dithering to replace action. So-called self-determination has largely delivered bureaucratic neglect instead of empowerment. And the resultant chaos has spawned a generation of people without motivation and personal responsibility. One of the PM's mantras, mutual obligation, has been further popularised by Cape York Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson.

But there are many risks in delivering this still-embryonic venture. Removing alcohol from communities doesn't cure a addiction. Requiring school attendance demands that schools be properly resourced. Without careful assistance some communities will banish through urban drift, and layers of poverty and disadvantage will be multiplied. And the communities themselves must be engaged. The activity and goodwill generated by this policy shift must not be allowed to be diverted into either frenzy or a nanny state, but into practical applications that could aboriginal children and childhood.

	I don't support the war in Iraq, but I'm impressed by Stephen Benjamin and his articulate telling of his story in this, the first YouTube piece I've linked to this scrapbook.

Imagine for a moment an American soldier deep in the Iraqi desert. His unit is about to head out when he receives a cable detailing an insurgent ambush right in his convoy's path. With this information, he and his soldiers are now prepared for the danger that lies ahead.

Reports like these are regularly sent from military translators' desks, providing critical, often life-saving intelligence to troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the military has a desperate shortage of linguists trained to translate such invaluable information and convey it to the war zone.

The lack of qualified translators has been a pressing issue for some time -- the Army had filled only half its authorized positions for Arabic translators in 2001. Cables went untranslated on Sept. 10 that might have prevented the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Today, the American Embassy in Baghdad has nearly 1,000 personnel, but only a handful of fluent Arabic speakers.

I was an Arabic translator. After joining the Navy in 2003, I attended the Defense Language Institute, graduated in the top 10 per cent of my class and then spent two years giving our troops the critical translation services they desperately needed. I was ready to serve in Iraq.

But I never got to. In March, I was ousted from the Navy under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which mandates dismissal if a service member is found to be gay.

My story begins almost a year ago when my roommate, who is also gay, was deployed to Falluja. We communicated the only way we could: using the military's instant-messaging system on monitored government computers. These electronic conversations are lifelines, keeping soldiers sane while mortars land meters away.

... Our messages had included references to our social lives--comments that were otherwise unremarkable, except that they indicated we were both gay. ... The result was the termination of our careers, and the loss to the military of two more Arabic translators. ... My supervisors did not want to lose me. Most of my peers knew I was gay, and that didn't bother them. I was always accepted as a member of the team. And my experience was not anomalous: polls of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan show an overwhelming majority are comfortable with gays. Many were aware of at least one gay person in their unit and had no problem with it.

"Don't ask, don't tell" does nothing but deprive the military of talent it needs and invade the privacy of gay service members just trying to do their jobs and live their lives. Political and military leaders who support the current law may believe that homosexual soldiers threaten unit cohesion and military readiness, but the real damage is caused by denying enlistment to patriotic Americans and wrenching qualified individuals out of effective military units. This does not serve the military or the nation well.

Consider: more than 58 Arabic linguists have been kicked out since "don't ask, don't tell" was instituted. How much valuable intelligence could those men and women be providing today to troops in harm's way?

In addition to those translators, 11,000 other service members have been ousted since the "don't ask, don't tell" policy was passed by Congress in 1993. Many held critical jobs in intelligence, medicine and counterterrorism. An untold number of closeted gay military members don't re-enlist because of the pressure the law puts on them. This is the real cost of the ban--and, with our military so overcommitted and undermanned, it's too high to pay.

... As the friends I once served with head off to 15-month deployments, I regret I'm not there to lessen their burden and to serve my country. I'm trained to fight, I speak Arabic and I'm willing to serve. No recruiter needs to make a persuasive argument to sign me up. I'm ready, and I'm waiting.

Ingredients: 3 rounded tablespoons of medium oatmeal; 2 tablespoons heather honey; Scotch whisky.
Method: The oatmeal is prepared by putting it into a basin and mixing with cold water until the consistency is that of a thick paste. Leave for half an hour and then put through a fine strainer, pressing with a wooden spoon to extract as much liquid as possible. Throw away the oatmeal and use the creamy liquor from the oatmeal for the brose. Mix four dessert spoonfuls of pure honey and four sherry glassfuls of the prepared oatmeal and stir well. Put into a quart bottle and fill with malt whisky; shake before serving.

Ingredients: 1 bottle Scotch; 3-4oz (150g) course oatmeal; 3-4oz (150g) honey; 3/4 pint (450mls) fresh cream.
Method: soak oatmeal and scotch for 48 hours stirring occasionally; after 48 hours strain through finest muslin (butter or surgical); set the honey jar in hot water to thin the honey, then mix with whisky; add cereal liquid and mix well; bottle, store in refrigerator for 24 hours; cream brose must kept refrigerated until needed.

Ingredients: 1 bottle of Scotch; 1/2 pint (330mls) of double cream; 450g of clear Scottish honey; whites of six large eggs; handful of fine ground oatmeal.
Method: Soak the oatmeal with the Scotch; beat the egg whites until they become stiff; fold the cream into the egg white mixture; add the honey; blend in the whisky and oatmeal mixture slowly but steadily; bottle the liquid and set aside for a week, shaking each bottle daily.

In any conflict, both parties will say they want peace. Peace, however, will usually require compromise. Sometimes the parties are prepared to engage in this. In other cases, they want peace only if the other side is prepared to comply with their demands.

Any conceivable settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute would require the Israelis to sacrifice a substantial degree of security. It would require the Palestinians to abandon deeply cherished claims. At present, a critical mass of both communities is unwilling to make these concessions, as has been demonstrated in democratic elections in both Israel and the Palestinian territories.

In taking its stance, neither side is being unreasonable. The security concerns of the Israelis are genuine. The claims of the Palestinians are well founded. Both parties are entitled to respect for the legitimate postures they have chosen to adopt. Unfortunately, these postures make a settlement unachievable.

. . . At some point in the future, war-weariness or transformation of facts on the ground may change the sentiments of either or both of the parties. This is what happened in Northern Ireland and Bosnia. It has not yet happened in the apparently far more favourable circumstances of Cyprus. In view of the force with which both Israelis and Palestinians hold to their positions, and of the logic underpinning these positions, it is not going to happen in the Middle East in the foreseeable future.

. . . The most productive response the west can make to the deepening horrors of Palestine is to dissolve the Quartet, tear up the road map and leave the contenders to shape their own destiny.

My concern is that, so far, it is the Palestinians who have had to make all the 'compromises'. Over nearly sixty years, Israel has, largely illegally, taken ever larger swathes of Palestinian land, as a glance at some maps from PASSIA will show. These are extracts from an inset to The Wall in the West Bank, a map produced by Palestine Land Development Information Systems (PALDIS) for the Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network (PENGON). The full map is an insert in the PENGON publication: The Wall in Palestine: Facts, Testimonies,Analysis and can be downloaded from here. Ronald Regan in his famed speech at the Brandenberg Gate said "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!". Likewise . . . Mr Olmert, tear down this wall! Links:: Australian Coalition for Palestine | Fair go for Palestine | Australian Friends of Palestine | Women for Palestine Refusing for Israel | Refuser Solidarity Network Avigail Abarbanel's web site has a page of links to Israeli Peace Groups.

To mark its exhibition, VIP: very important photgraphs 1840s-1940s, the National Gallery of Australia has this curious photograph on its Winter events calendar. Acteaon c.1938 (detail) by George Platt Lynes (USA, 1907-1955).

The Australian Centre for Photography says of Lynes that his

camp, anguished evocations of classical myth and legend stem from an erotic fascination with the bodies of men. Abandoning youthful literary aspirations, he opened his first photographic studio in 1932 and, for a time, became one of the most sought-after fashion and portrait photographers in America. However, it is for his male nudes that he is now best remembered. They began in the guise of characters from classical mythology, both veiling their erotic focus and alluding to the angst of repression. After the war, Lynes became involved with Alfred Kinsey's researches into human sexuality and his work took on a more modern style while nonetheless retaining its brooding introspection.

In 1981, New York Timescritic, Glen Thornton asked whether the emotion in Lynes's nude studies of "handsome young men, many in Surrealist or mythological guise, filled with a strangled, inarticulate feeling" is "envy, longing, self-hatred or disgust?

. . . "the lighting merely underlines the artificiality of the stuffed owls and other studio props, not to mention the 'arty' poses themselves. The very idea of camouflaging nudity in classical myths recalls the etiolated classicism of the 1930's, and something which might work when briefly glimpsed on stage--a bizarrely made-up young man with antlers strapped to his head posing as Actaeon--is at best quaint anddated, at worst ludicrous, in a still photograph.

All well and good, but maybe the guy with the antlers was simply horny?

That's not entirely the trivialisation that it seems. Fritz Bultman (1919-85), for example, a young painter associated with this first generation of the New York School, employed the myth of Actaeon in a number of his works as a reference to his struggle his struggle with sexual desire. (Evan R Firestone. Fritz Bultman's Actaeon Paintings: Sexuality, Punishment, and Oedipal Conflict. Genders 34, 2001)

• Heterosexual men
• Bisexual men
• Homosexual men
• Homosexual women
• Bisexual women
• Heterosexual women

Despite some evidence of greater age-related deterioration of the brain in males than in females, gender differences in rates of cognitive aging have proved inconsistent. The present study employed web-based methodology to collect data from people aged 20-65 years (109,612 men; 88,509 women). As expected, men outperformed women on tests of mental rotation and line angle judgment, whereas women outperformed men on tests of category fluency and object location memory. Performance on all tests declined with age but significantly more so for men than for women. Heterosexuals of each gender generally outperformed bisexuals and homosexuals on tests where that gender was superior; however, there were no clear interactions between age and sexual orientation for either gender. At least for these particular tests from young adulthood to retirement, age is kinder to women than to men, but treats heterosexuals, bisexuals, and homosexuals just the same.

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your phone call to Amnesty International Australia.

I am able to clarify that Amnesty International (AI) has adopted a policy on selected aspects of abortion.

This policy is driven by the desire to address the consequences of widespread sexual violence targeting women and girls, the failure of virtually all governments to prevent sexual violence or to provide an adequate remedy for many victims/survivors of sexual violence including unwanted pregnancy, as well as the serious threats that pregnancy can pose to a woman's life and health.

AI is committed to addressing human rights violations that create women's unequal status, making it impossible for many women to control the terms and conditions of their sexual interactions with men. Discrimination against women can also result in women's lack of access to information and reproductive health services. Therefore, AI calls on governments to provide women and men with comprehensive sexual and reproductive health information and services. This may require governments to reform or repeal certain laws and policies which arbitrarily impede access to such information and services.

AI's policy also calls on all governments to repeal laws under which women are or can be charged and imprisoned for seeking or having an abortion. Government regulation of access to abortion must be reasonable, for example by ensuring practitioners are licensed, providing protection against medical malpractice, and setting gestational limits on abortion. However, criminal laws that single out medical professionals for providing information about or carrying out abortions within the confines of these reasonable limitations must also be repealed.

All women with complications from abortion must have access to appropriate medical services regardless of whether they obtained the abortion legally or illegally under national law. Governments must ensure that any woman, who has become pregnant as a result of sexual violence, including incest, has access to safe and legal abortion services. When a pregnancy poses a risk to a woman's life or a grave risk to her health, governments must ensure she has access to safe, legal abortion services.

AI takes no position on whether a woman should have an abortion under any of these circumstances but instead seeks to ensure that abortion services are safe and accessible to these women to prevent grave violations that could result if women were denied this option. AI has long promoted the rights of women and men to make informed choices about sex and reproduction free from coercion, discrimination and violence. AI also has long opposed coercive population control measures such as forced sterilization and forced abortion. AI's policy on selected aspects of abortion, which is consistent with these other policy positions, is rooted in an analysis of government obligations as defined under international human rights law.

As a democratic, membership-based organisation AI has a tradition of reaching major policy decisions after thorough internal discussion and debate with the membership. The issue of abortion has been no exception. This policy is representative of extensive consultation with AI members across the world, including in Australia.

It is important to remember that one can remain an active member or ally of Amnesty International and continue to collaborate on specific human rights issues or campaigns without having to change one's moral standpoint, perceptions or views on issues such as abortion. It is in this spirit that we are calling on all our members and supporters to work with us to end violence against women, which often lies at the root of many unwanted pregnancies.

Thank you again for taking the time to present your views to us. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

Yours sincerely,

Supporter Liaison Officer
Amnesty International Australia

In an era when Republicans across the nation seem intent on tearing the "conserve" out of conservatism, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, 59, is a national leader for his efforts to restore Teddy Roosevelt's conservation tradition to the G.O.P.

When he took office in 2003, Schwarzenegger announced a bold action plan for improving the state's air, water, landscapes, energy supplies and climate. He created the 25 million-acre Sierra Nevada Conservancy to preserve California's iconic mountain range; established thousands of acres of ocean parks; and put millions of dollars into habitat restoration, fisheries management and pollution reduction. He also adopted the most aggressive greenhouse-gas-reduction policies on earth, including ordering the state government to slash its energy use 20% and providing $3.2 billion to put solar roofs on homes and small businesses. By 2020 one-third of California's electricity will come from renewable sources like wind, biomass and the sun. Schwarzenegger's commitment to green growth often pits him against his own political party. He has fought off the Bush Administration's efforts to weaken California's global-warming initiatives and drill for oil along the coast and in the state's national forests. A true fiscal conservative with a deep commitment to California's future, the Governor regards environmental injury as deficit spending--loading the cost of this generation's prosperity onto the backs of our children. Schwarzenegger believes that good economic policy, over the long term, is always the same as good environmental policy.

		I enjoyed Bell Shakespeare Company's performance of Shakespeare's Othello at Canberra's Playhouse last week. Directed by Marion Potts, Wayne Blair leads as Othello with Leeanna Walsman as Desdemona and Marcus Graham as Iago. All were good, but I thought Graham's Iago was the standout performance. He made Iago amoral, witty and totally self-interested, but not a loathsome, overplayed, incarnation of all that is evil. Blair is the first Australian Aboriginal actor to take the lead in a major production of Othello in Australia and it's a risky role. I wasn't completely convinced by his portrayal, as I thought the lordly leader would have had more gravitas that Blair gave to his Othello. I'm not a great playgoer, but this show revived my interest in Shakespeare.
The newly rebuilt Playhouse is interesting, too. With its cylindrial shape, high, shallow balconies, and not too many seats, it suits its purpose well.

When this production of "Othello" hit the stage of the Playhouse for its Australian premiere I was worried. Very worried. It seemed that the actors were nervous. Very nervous.

Well-known Aussie actor Marcus Graham, playing the villainous Iago, took to the stage for the opening scene with Roderigo, played by Mitchell. Butel, and I felt like they were over-playing their roles.

But within 20 minutes everyone on stage had settled down into a much better theatrical rhythm . . . a rhythm required to keep this compelling Shakespeare work alive and bring the audience with them.

. . . Othello [is] played wonderfully by indigenous actor Wayne Blair . . .

. . . The first half was messy. Unnecessary movements by actors and what seemed to be bad lighting choices made it hard for the audience to connect properly with the production. Whilst Marcus Graham steadily ramped up his evil character, those around him, including Wayne Blair, seemed to be left in the wake of his performance.

Thank goodness for intervals, because after the break, it was like a different production: The play moved with a pace and dramatic intensity.

All the actors are good here, but there are some outstanding performances from a few worth noting. Graham is the best Iago seen on an Australian stage bringing a modern, smooth feel to his evil portrayal. The "Clown" played by Chris Ryan is expressive and funny, and provides a stark contrast to the rest of the cast, while Iago's wife Emilia is beautifully and sensitively portrayed by the wonderful Anni Finsterer. The rest of cast does a commendable job.

Doubtless the cast in this production will pick up their act a little more in the first half as the season progresses. As and audience member, it's always good to remember that patience is a virtue, and if you have faith in that patience, it will pay off for you by the end of Bell's Othello.

It is abhorrent, of course, to make fun of someone's religion. Unless that religion happens to be your own.

In the 13 years since I wrote those words, I have displayed admirable restraint in commenting about the faith into which I was baptized, the Episcopal Church of America ... Until now.

A few months ago I could not believe my eyes when I read in The Boston Globe that a 115-year-old congregation, in Attleboro, had "changed its name to All Saints Anglican Church and affiliated itself with the Anglican Province of Rwanda." Ah, yes. Rwanda and Attleboro: an elusive but subtle connection.

Attleboro turned out to be just one of dozens of Episcopal churches that had sworn fealty to African bishops because the Americans objected to the ordination of gay clergy, and especially to the elevation of an openly gay man, Gene Robinson, to be the bishop of New Hampshire. The schismatics invoke endless biblical argle-bargle to defend their un-Christian bigotry, but in the end it boils down to this: They are unwilling to love and accept their neighbors as themselves.

It's ... hard work to worship alongside people who may not share your precise beliefs, or your sexual orientation. It's so much easier to start your own church, or to pretend that someone in Africa has the answer to your problems . . . Yes, religion is hard work. That's why so few people bother with it.

Now. Get on with it

When Melvyn Bragg's with dramatist Dennis Potter first screened 10 years ago I described it as the finest interview I'd ever seen. Having just chanced upon it again (on the arty pay-TV channel Ovation) I'd still rate it that highly.

It's no criticism of Bragg to say he contributed little to the interview's success. Melvyn couldn't get a word in sideways. Having interviewed countless thousands, I know that the best interviews are often soliloquies. They can come from a professional celebrity such as Gore Vidal, so intent on skilfully repeating himself that your task is simply to welcome him and get out of the way. Or from a guest with an urgent need to use your studio as a pulpit or confessional. Dennis Potter, though justly celebrated, came in the latter category. His sense of urgency could not have been greater.

For the most famous writer in the comparatively proud history of British television was dying. He'd learnt a few weeks earlier that he was "riddled with cancer", that treatment was futile, that his life expectancy could be counted in hours. In great pain (he kept swigging morphine from a flask), he sipped champagne and chain?smoked. He'd always scoffed at "No Smoking" signs and admonishments about alcohol -- and at this stage cigarettes and plonk were scarcely a threat to his health.

In a medium gridlocked by its rules, genres and stultifying predictability, Potter had written such idiosyncratic masterpieces as Pennies From Heaven and The Singing Detective. Other works, on stage or television, had produced major scandals and accusations of blasphemy and pornography. Christian crusader Mary Whitehouse was infuriated by his depictions of Jesus and the Devil, while the tabloids dubbed him "Dirty Den" because of his candour about sexuality. But those of us who loved Potter admired not only a reckless originality, but his holy trinity of honesty, wisdom and compassion.

By the end of the hour with Bragg, Potter was swigging more morphine than champagne and was near collapse. Yet everything he'd said was radiant with excitement. He was totally alive, reminding us that life is always in the present tense, is always NOW! Oh, the past lingers in the memory and can be powerfully evoked, and the future waits. Though, as he pointed out with great good humour, that no longer applied to him. But life is of the instant, and his focus on the instant had never been more intense. He described sitting at his desk (he was determined to finish a couple of scripts before he died) with his writing punctuated by looks out the window, at some white blossom he'd seen every year. But this time, NOW, he marvelled at it. "It is the whitest, brightest, blossomiest blossom ever!"

This is a NOW. Now it's a then. Now there's a new NOW, and another new NOW is nigh. That's life. One now after the other.

A lifetime ago I wrote that an awareness of our individual mortality is "a great aphrodisiac for living". So I knew exactly what Potter meant. For both of us, that sort of living is habitual -- and if there's a place in the vocabulary for blasphemy it should apply to the complaint, the very notion, of boredom. How can anyone ever be bored anywhere at any time? Isn't there's always something to observe, to think, to feel?

Potter applied this intensity to his love of England. Not of Britain; he was repelled by its connotations of imperialism. He loved England and its "Englishness". But he wasn't xenophobic, fully expecting others to feel the same way about their countries and cultures. Yet there was much happening to his England and the English that he deplored. Admitting that he no longer saw himself as "of the Left", that there were issues on which he felt conservative, and recognising that there were times the country had needed some radicalism from the Right, this son of a coal miner deplored the influence of Thatcherism and the destruction of the great achievement of the welfare state created by Labour governments after World War II. His comments on economic triumphalism, of values reduced to dollars, sound as relevant now as they were then.

And he deplored what was happening in the media -- particularly to television, the medium that had nurtured him for so long. He saw little hope of Dennis Potters in the future. What organisation would have the patience?

Potter expressed no fear about finding himself dying at 58. "I haven't shed a tear or felt a moment of terror since I learnt about it," he said. He'd had a long history of illness -- the singing detective, suffering and hallucinating in his hospital bed, was a self-portrait. The same disease had mutilated the hands that held his champagne flute and cigarette. Yet he was living, really living, in the NOW. As should we all.

When countries like Australia purport to preach the virtues of democracy, we might have the grace to recognise how violently resisted and how recently won even this most fundamental of all democratic principles has been, even in Australia.

We still have much to do to protect if from a government which routinely spends half a billion dollars of tax payers' money every year on propaganda masquerading as government information. We have to protect Australian democracy from a government which last year denied votes to no fewer than 200,000 of our fellow citizens, at the stroke of a pen, by closing the electoral rolls at the moment the Prime Minister chooses to announce an election. Delegates, this latest travesty of democracy reinforces the urgency of the appeal I have made to the Party over the last decade, to stop the manipulation of the electoral process and the stop the buckpassing of responsibilities between the State and Federal jurisdictions. And the way to do that is to establish fixed and simultaneous four-year terms for every House of Parliament in Australia.

. . . As a result of the work of the 1969 Conference, I was able to say in the 1969 Policy Speech, at Sydney Town Hall: "We of the Labor Party have an enduring commitment to a view about society. It is this: in modern countries, opportunities for all citizens--the opportunity for a complete education, opportunity for dignity in retirement, opportunity for proper medical treatment, opportunity to share in the nation's wealth and resources, opportunity for decent housing, opportunity for civilised conditions in our cities and our towns, opportunity to preserve and promote the natural beauty of the land--can be provided only if governments, the community itself acting through its elected representatives, will promote them. And increasingly, in Australia, the national government must initiate those opportunities."

Delegates, you will see at once the remarkable resonance and relevance of 1969 in terms of what we must do and what we can achieve in 2007. The issues on which we fought, in my first House of Representatives election as Leader--education, health, housing, fair shares for employees, fair provision for retirees, urban renewal, the environment, a failed war begun with lies, and a demanding foreign policy--all as urgent now as then, and some of them even more pressing than they ever were.

There is, however, one big difference. Our chief task in 1969 . . . was to present policies to remove or reduce the inequalities entrenched by two decades of Liberal neglect. Now, in 2007, the task of the Australian Labor Party is to address and redress the growing inequality created, not by neglect or drift or mere indifference, but by the deliberate infliction of a decade of the most ideologically driven regime in Australia's history.

The Bundanoon is Brigadoon highland gathering is a great day and one of the largest such events anywhere. (The title comes from the Brigadoon myth.) A small town in the Southern Highlands of NSW, Bundanoon is taken over for the day, with thousands of visitors, a parade, music, dancing games, hundreds of stalls, etc. They even change the name on the small railway station, on the main Sydney to Melbourne line.

So James and I invited my Dad to travel to Bundanoon for the day with us--quite a distance from his home. But as the saying goes, " be careful what you pray for -- you might get it!" We've been praying for rain for months and, on the festival day, it happened. The rain fell all day. The main venue was thick with mud. It was impossible to see much through the hundreds of umbrellas -- a major disappointment for the organisers and the many hundreds of participants. The parade was the largest yet, with 26 pipe bands, but most of them looked a bit damp and played accordingly.

I enjoyed meeting Glenda Mason, Commissioner in Australia of the Clan MacFarlane Society, of which I'm a member, staffing her stall under the MacFarlane banner!

An event of note was the launching of the Australian National Tartan by the Chieftain of the Day, British High Commissioner the Rt. Hon. Helen Liddell. The tartan was designed as Australia's official, accredited and recognised tartan, by Mrs. Betty Johnston of Canberra in consultation with the protocol section of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The colours include the red, white and blue of the Australian flag as well as Australia's official colours -- green and gold. The blue and green dominate, representing a rural setting of blue skies and green trees. The six white stripes represent the Southern Cross constellation, and the federation star, black stripes in the tartan represent Australian's early beginnings as a convict settlement, a dark area of our history. It's registered as 2742 in the Scottish Tartans World Register and no. 6098 on the register of the Scottish Tartans Authority.

Went there, didn't do that (too wet), but bought the T-shirt. Dad and I managed to raise a brave smile, despite the dreich day. But we do give thanks for the rain. And yes, that is the MacKinlay tartan I'm wearing.

Discrimination

12. Labor supports legislative and administrative action by all Australian governments to eliminate discrimination, including systemic discrimination, on the grounds of race, colour, sex, religion, age, sexuality, gender identity, disability, genetic makeup, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

17. Labor believes that people are entitled to respect, dignity and the opportunity to participate in society and receive the protection of the law regardless of their sexuality or gender identity. Labor supports the enactment of legislation prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of a person's sexuality or gender identity and will audit Commonwealth legislation to amend provisions that unfairly discriminate against any person on the grounds of sexuality or gender identity.

18. Labor will ensure that all couples who have a mutual commitment to a shared life do not suffer discrimination because they are not married. Labor will take action to ensure the development of nationally consistent, state-based relationship recognition legislation that will include the opportunity for couples who have a mutual commitment to a shared life to have those relationships registered and certified. This legislation will:

• be based on the scheme that has existed in Tasmania since 2004 and that the Victorian Government has announced its intention to introduce;
• not create schemes that mimic marriage or undermine existing laws that define marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Introduction

We the Bishops of the Anglican Church of the Province of Central Africa, comprising Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, "called to share in Jesus' work of sanctifying and shepherding his people and of speaking in God's name" (An Anglican Prayer Book, , London: Collins Publishers, 1989, p597). As shepherds of our people and out of compassion, feel the need to offer support to our brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe going through unprecedented levels of suffering.

Issues and Concerns

We the Bishops are concerned and pained at the distressing occurrences that have been taking place in Zimbabwe. The deteriorating economy has rendered the ordinary Zimbabwean unable to make ends meet. This we note has been exacerbated by the economic sanctions imposed by the Western countries. These so called targeted sanctions aimed at the leadership of the country of Zimbabwe in reality have affected the poor Zimbabweans who have born the brunt of the sanctions. The result of which has been the displacement of thousands of Zimbabweans roaming the cities and rural areas of our region making it imperative that the Zimbabwean crisis be looked at as a regional crisis. As a church, the degrading environs that the Zimbabweans find themselves in as they seek survival both in Zimbabwe and the region, pose serious pastoral challenges to us as a church.

We therefore call upon the Western countries to lift the economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe. We further call upon the British and American governments to honour their obligation of paying compensation to the white farmers.

We call upon the government of Zimbabwe to provide a framework for peace by creating a conducive environment for dialogue and tolerance.

As Bishops we denounce all forms of violence perpetrated by whatever source as a means of resolving conflict. As this is a degradation of those created in the image of God. We want to make it unequivocally clear to all of our people, that we do not condone what is happening in Zimbabwe.

We call upon the civil society in Zimbabwe to articulate and promote the practice and respect of human dignity by all social and political ways in the building of a culture of governance that respects the sanctity of life. So called targeted sanctions aimed at the leadership of the country of Zimbabwe in reality have affected the poor Zimbabweans who have born the brunt of the sanctions. The result of which has Furthermore, we urge the church in Zimbabwe to offer an effective pastoral ministry to the downtrodden, to rebuke and warn the nation especially those in positions of authority through a prophetic ministry by calling upon the nation to repentance and renewed relationship with God and our neighbours. Finally, in the wake of our Easter celebrations of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ we pray that the spirit of the Resurrection be shed in the hearts Zimbabweans to bring hope and renewed faith for a peaceful, just and prosperous Zimbabwe.

Issued by the Bishops of the Anglican Church of the Province of Central Africa

Q. High Commissioner, one of your Government's ministers, Hilary Benn, this week told a New York audience that the term 'war on terror' was sending out the wrong message and was, in fact, encouraging terrorists. Does this not suggest the military strategy encompassed by this term, particularly in Iraq, has been a bit of a failure?

A. We have never seen Iraq as part of the war on terrorism. Certainly, at the moment, we are engaged in a war on the streets in Afghanistan, in Iraq, against terrorism, but our raison d'être for our involvement in Iraq has not been about terrorism. We have always said, all along, that you cannot defeat what is going on in some parts of the world today by military might alone.
Indeed, Hilary Benn makes this point, that you cannot defeat what is going on in some parts of the world today by military might alone. You have to use the techniques of soft power. You have to use this debate about values and this narrative about values, whilst at the same time recognising that our societies are under threat from certain kinds of terrorism and taking the legislative and security responses necessary.

Q. Prime Minister Howard famously accused the Democrats in the US of giving encouragement to terrorists by suggesting a troop withdrawal from Iraq. It's a charge levied at Labor here as well. What do you make of the argument?

A. Well, the great thing about democratic societies is the people will decide, based on the rhetoric that comes forward during election campaigns. The involvement of Australia in Iraq is very important to the UK. We've watched what Mr Rudd has said and we will await developments and see what happens. But basically, at the end of the day, we have to take our decisions based on what is right for the UK and what the policy options are that we think are best. The great thing about democracies is it's not for me as an outsider, as a foreigner, to say what I think about other democracies. Up to you guys.

We have never seen Iraq as part of the war on terrorism, certainly at the moment we are engaged in a war on the streets in Afghanistan, in Iraq against terrorism but our raison d'être for our involvement in Iraq has not been about terrorism. . . . Phrases like war on terror these are tabloid slogans and I can understand why they're used, but the real fight against terror will not just be through a legislative process, it will also be about hearts and minds.and was reported widely in the UK.

We [British and Australians] did not arrive at our belief in tolerance, liberty and the rule of law by chance. Our belief in those fundamental principles is rooted deep in our history.

In Britain we had to find a way of living together in a state made up of several nations, and out of that we learned tolerance, then the pursuit of liberty and the principle of fairness to all.

. . . Without our passionate belief in these values, we would neither of us be inclusive societies, open to all regardless of race, creed or colour. We put at risk those values if we pretend they are not under attack from those who regard our liberal, tolerant societies as anathema. . . . Our enemies hide behind those values and yet they try to crush them by bringing bombs and fear to our streets.

We do a lot to protect ourselves, through the skill and courage of our security services both here and in Britain. We do much with legislation. We can repatriate those who come not to celebrate our freedom but to wreck it.

That kind of response is essential, but not sufficient. We must stop people becoming terrorists in the first place. We must counter their narrative of hate with our own narrative based on our shared values. Confront their ideas, inspire our young people with a vision of hope. Hope based on the strength of a free society, where all have rights, including women.

There are two million Muslims in Britain. Like any Britons, they want jobs, education, decent housing, opportunities. A fair go. British Muslims are helping to shape their country for the better. Britain has more Muslim parliamentarians than anywhere in Europe; British banks are pioneering Islamic finance--with Islamic principles--so that more money is invested in the UK. Men and women who are Muslims are in every profession, every skill, every community in Britain. And like everyone, they want to sleep safe in their beds at night, go about their lives free from fear. Raise their families.

Islam is not the threat, extremism is the threat.

. . . We must be rigorous in dealing with those who wish our liberal societies harm, but we must not deprive ourselves of the vibrancy that has come from opening ourselves to different cultures. We are richer for the diversity in every sense.

Sharing our prosperity is a route to our security too. Terrorists use disadvantage, alienation, and a sense of being unfairly treated as their recruiting tools.

Show somebody a painting of a verdant, botanically explicit forest with three elk grazing in the middle and ask what the picture is about, and the average viewer will answer, "Three elk grazing." . . . What you're unlikely to hear is anything akin to, "It's a classic temperate mix of maple, birch and beech trees, and here's a spectacular basswood and, whoa, an American elm that shows no sign of fungal infestation and, oh yeah, three elk and a blue jay."

According to Peter H. Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, many of us suffer from an insidious condition called "plant blindness." We barely notice plants, can rarely identify them and find them incomparably inert. Do you think that you will ever see a coma as vegetative as a tree? "Animals are much more vivid to the average person than plants are," Raven said, "and some people aren't even sure that plants are alive."

"Howard is whistling in wind", by Paul Syvret The Courier-Mail 17 April 07

Dog whistles are clever devices. They emit a high-pitched tone beyond the range of human hearing, but one that dogs' more sensitive ears can easily detect. In short, they send a message only to those pre-programmed to receive and respond.

Prime Minister John Howard has quite a collection of these whistles--finely tuned instruments designed to bore into the brains of certain sections of the Australian voting public. If you listen hard right now you can just hear them--a discordant tweeting noise at the very fringe of the political spectrum. There's a special whistle for whipping up fear of trade unions, another for multiculturalism, one for "the Aboriginal industry" and an orchestra of whistles for summoning forth fear and votes over national security and immigration.

They are Howard's alarm and divide tools. The latest inharmonious tune coming from the wind section in Howard's Government is an oldie but a goodie--a classic hit from the past decade of our discontent.

Immigration is always a favourite, with the fear and unease used to justify humanitarian abominations such as children locked behind razor wire and asylum seekers processed at God-forsaken gulags such as the detention centre on Nauru. We've already heard the number about the nasty illegal immigrants who toss children overboard, we've played the tune about the armada of asylum seekers sailing through our northern waters, and we've sung the song about the ingrate "towel-heads" who refuse to assimilate into our culture.

Now the variant is the faceless hordes of disease-ridden dispossessed who want to come here and spread their sickness. It is only Howard and our brave Immigration and Customs officials standing between Australia and the Grim Reaper. We're talking AIDS here--or more specifically those people living with the human immune-deficiency virus, or HIV. Last week, Howard argued that HIV-positive people should be banned from migrating to Australia in all but the most exceptional of circumstances. "My initial reaction is no (they should not be allowed in)," he said. "There may be some humanitarian considerations that could temper that in certain cases but prima facie, no." . . .

An Administration's Epic Collapse
In the face of three scandals, Bush offers only more relentless partisanship

The first three months of the new Democratic U.S. Congress have been neither terrible nor transcendent. A Pew poll had it about right: a substantial majority of the public remains happy the Democrats won in 2006, but neither Nancy Pelosi nor Harry Reid has dominated the public consciousness as Newt Gingrich did when the Republicans came to power in 1995. There is a reason for that. A much bigger story is unfolding: the epic collapse of the Bush Administration.

The three big Bush stories of 2007--the decision to "surge" in Iraq, the scandalous treatment of wounded veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys for tawdry political reasons--precisely illuminate the three qualities that make this Administration one of the worst in American history: arrogance (the surge), incompetence (Walter Reed) and cynicism (the U.S. Attorneys).

Iraq comes first, as always. From the start, it has been obvious that personal motives have skewed the President's judgment about the war. Saddam, tried to kill his dad; his dad didn't try hard enough to kill Saddam. There was payback to be had. But never was Bush's adolescent petulance more obvious than in his decision to ignore the Baker-Hamilton report and move in the exact opposite direction: adding troops and employing counter-insurgency tactics inappropriate to the situation on the ground. "There was no way he was going to accept [its findings] once the press began to portray the report as daddy's friends coming to the rescue," a member of the Baker-Hamilton commission told me. As with Bush's invasion of Iraq, the decision to surge was made unilaterally, without adequate respect for history or military doctrine. Iraq was invaded with insufficient troops and planning; the surge was attempted with too few troops (especially non-Kurdish, Arabic-speaking Iraqis), a purposely misleading time line ("progress" by September) and, most important, the absence of a reliable Iraqi government.

General David Petraeus has repeatedly said, "A military solution to Iraq is not possible." Translation: This thing fails unless there is a political deal among the Sh'ites, Sunnis and Kurds. There is no such deal on the horizon, largely because of the President's aversion to talking to people he doesn't like. And while some Baghdad neighborhoods may be more peaceful--temporarily--as a result of the increased U.S. military presence, the story two years from now is likely to resemble the recent headlines from Tall'Afar: dueling Sunni and Shi'ite massacres have destroyed order in a city famously pacified by counterinsurgency tactics in 2005. Bush's indifference to reality in Iraq is not an isolated case. It is the modus operandi of his Administration. The indifference of his Environmental Protection Agency to the dangers of carbon dioxide emissions was rejected by the Supreme Court on April 2.

On April 3, the President again accused Democrats of being "more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than providing our troops what they need." Such demagoguery, is particularly outrageous given the Administration's inability to provide the troops "what they need" at the nations premier hospital for veterans. The mold and decrepitude at Walter Reed are likely to be only the beginning of the tragedy, the latest example of incompetence in this Administration. 'This is yet another aspect of war planning that wasn't done properly," says Paul Rieckhoff of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "The entire VA hospital system is unprepared for the casualties of Iraq, especially the psychiatric casualties. A lot of vets are saying, 'This is our Katrina moment.' And they're right: this Administration governs badly because it doesn't care very much about governing."

Compared with Iraq and Walter Reed, the firing of the U.S. Attorneys is a relatively minor matter. It is true that U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President, but they are political appointees of a special sort. They are partisans, obviously, but must appear to be above politics--not working to influence elections, for example--if public faith in the impartiality of the justice system is to be maintained. Once again Karl Rove's operation has corrupted a policy area--like national security--that should be off-limits to political operators.

When Bush came to office--installed by the Supreme Court after receiving fewer votes than Al Gore--I speculated that the new President would have to govern in a bipartisan manner to be successful. He chose the opposite path, and his hyperpartisanship has proved to be a travesty of governance and a comprehensive failure. I've tried to be respectful of the man and the office, but the three defining sins of the Bush Administration--arrogance, incompetence, cynicism--are congenital: they're part of his personality. They're not likely to change. And it is increasingly difficult to imagine yet another two years of slow bleed with a leader so clearly unfit to lead.

Henry crunches the numbers for Howard (5 Apr 07)
Treasury fires a shot across the election-spending bow

Treasury Secretary Ken Henry has provided a sound and timely warning that good policy can often fall victim to political opportunity when an election beckons. In doing so, he has rallied the Treasury troops to resist the more outlandish requests by ministers keen to put short-term results ahead of long-term common sense. There is nothing particularly new in Dr Henry's comments delivered to an internal Treasury forum last month. They mostly emphasised that in a period of near-full employment, government actions that favour one sector come at an opportunity cost for those seeking labour elsewhere in the economy. Dr Henry said Treasury's reputation for analytical rigour and economy-wide thinking got it a seat at the policy table, but its advice was not always taken. However, there was a political dimension to Dr Henry's speech. He said officials should expect a spike in bad ideas from ministers as the election approached, and that they should be particularly vigilant in balancing their duty to be responsive but non-political in the advice they gave.

Controversially, Dr Henry said Treasury advice had been overlooked on two of the biggest political issues facing the nation--climate change and water. If Treasury had been listened to more attentively in both areas over recent years, he said, there was no doubt policy outcomes would have been far superior. To be fair, Dr Henry praised the superannuation reforms in the last budget as being as good as anything he had seen the department produce in his 20-odd years at Treasury.

Dr Henry said he had not intended his comments on water and climate change to be critical, but they drew a stiff rebuke from the Government, which is running heavily on its record of economic competence. John Howard said the bureaucracy did not always get it right, and he would not be leading a government that always took its advice. Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull, speaking from a tour of rural areas, said Dr Henry didn't know his Dethridge wheel from a computerised flume-gate. He said water policy was not a narrow or arcane economic analysis issue, but involved "dealing with practical people who've got a lot of dirt under their fingernails".

Maybe, but Dr Henry is to be congratulated for speaking out. As The Australian editorialised when the $10billion water plan was announced, the environmental objectives were matched only by the audacity of the politics that underpinned it, providing as it did a huge pot of money to be made available for distribution to rural voters. Since then ,the plan has been criticised, most notably by Victorian Premier Steve Bracks, for lacking financial rigour in its development. The criticism now, as we correctly assumed, is that the buyback has become mixed up with the politics of the Nationals over who gets what. With Dr Henry's comments, it is now in dispute if what the Howard Government has proposed is the most efficient way to secure environmental dividends for the river system. What may be needed is a more considered, Keating-style rural adjustment scheme to get unviable farmers off the land. Unfortunately, Dr Henry, who remains one of the most respected bureaucrats in Canberra, did not spell out what the Treasury advice had been on water. But he did say his department was now back at the centre of the action on climate change. At a time when the Government has been much criticised for its politicisation of the public service, notably with the AWB bribery scandal and the children overboard affair, it is heartening that at least some in the bureaucracy are still prepared to offer fearless advice.

Rudd: Howard ignores the big picture (The Australian 05 Apr 07)

The speech by secretary of the Treasury Ken Henry, on the federal Government's refusal to embrace the commonwealth Treasury's advice on climate change, water and, more broadly, the continuation of economic reform, tears at the heart of the credibility of John Howard's claim that his Government deserves re-election based on its experience in economic management. The commonwealth Treasury is no ordinary agency of state. As a former commonwealth public servant, I know from experience that the Treasury is staffed with the most competent policy elite that can be attracted to the Australian Public Service. They are part of a tradition that sees their role as the continuing custodians of the nation's long-term economic wellbeing, providing robust advice to the government of the day, irrespective of the political complexion of that government.

The Treasury, like all agencies of state, also recognises the role of the democratically elected government to accept or reject the advice it is provided. But both the tone and content of Henry's address underline the fact that on two core economic policy challenges facing the nation in the coming decade (climate change and water scarcity), the Howard Government and its Treasurer, Peter Costello, are happy to throw Treasury's advice to the wind. And we can only conclude the reason for doing that has been Howard and Costello's chronic addiction to short-term political advantage against the long-term economic interests of the nation. Of course, we understand the government of the day is not bound to accept lock, stock and barrel what Treasury may advise. But to remove it entirely from the policy equation on two such critical challenges is beyond belief.

For some time Henry has spoken of the three Ps: population, participation and productivity, all of which expand the supply capacity of the Australian economy. Together with the Productivity Commission, the commonwealth Treasury has attempted to shape the public policy debate on the country's economic future in these terms. It is a framework with which Labor, as the alternative government of Australia, is broadly comfortable.

On population, Labor recognises the importance of migration and fertility rates to sustain long-term economic growth given the acute nature of demographic change that will occur in the decades ahead. On participation, the Intergenerational Report warns of a projected drop in the Australian work-force participation rate from just under 65 per cent today to just more than 57 per cent by 2047. One of the best predictors of people entering and remaining in the work force is their completion of compulsory schooling. On this measure, Australia has begun to stall badly. Our completion rates are poor against Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development competitor economies. We need to turn this corner, and part of turning this corner lies in Labor's commitment to improving numeracy and literacy through early childhood education. Another way of lifting participation is to lift the affordability and availability of quality child care. Once again, this is a gaping hole in the Government's handling of the particular work-force participation challenges faced by women.

The third P is productivity. Since I became leader of the Labor Party, addressing the decline in productivity growth in the Australian economy has shaped much of Labor's policy work. Australia's recent productivity performance has been poor by both our own historical and international standards. According to the Intergenerational Report, average annual labour productivity this decade is likely to be just 1.5 per cent, which will make it the second worst decade for productivity growth since 1950. In addition, benchmarked against the economy of the US, Australia's labour productivity fell from a peak of 85 per cent in 1998 to just 70 per cent between 1998 and 2005, almost completely losing the relative productivity gains of the 1990s. And this poor performance has in large measure been masked by the extraordinary dimensions of the one-off, once-in-a-generation resources boom. The temporary nature of this contributor to Australia's recent economic growth performance is also importantly referred to in Henry's address.

Until now, it has been federal Labor that has argued that the Government's economic agenda has been driven in large part by political short termism. That argument is confirmed by no less an authority than the commonwealth Treasury. Howard's claim of superior economic experience lies crushed by this cold, hard evidence that experience yielded to arrogance a long, long time ago.

Anglican Church 'not safe' for gay Christians, by Benedict Brook
Sydney Star Observer (861, 5 Apr 07)

The Anglican Church in Australia has admitted it may "not be a safe place" for gay and lesbian Christians and that insensitive Church leaders have made gay parishioners "too vulnerable to speak publicly".

The admission comes in an interim report documenting the Listening Process--a drive by the global Anglican communion to understand the needs of gay and lesbian members of its community. However, far from listening, the report compiled by Dr Muriel Porter, a member of the governing body of the Anglican Church in Australia, says some sections of the Australian Anglican Church have actively ignored the views of gay and lesbian parishioners.

According to the report, it has been almost impossible to discern the experiences of gay clergy and lay people because "the processes involved did not enable this kind of listening, or because gay people felt too vulnerable to speak publicly. In some cases, responses to gay people who attempt to communicate their experiences have been insensitive."

Porter said attempts by diocese to listen to the views of gay and lesbian people were often a "scarifying experience" and that one person had told her the listening process "became a time of shouting rather than listening".

But Porter told Sydney Star Observer the news was not all bad. "Most bishops actually took this seriously and were very caring in one-to-one listening with individual gay people," she said.

The problem, Porter identified, lay higher up the Anglican food chain, where opponents to the Listening Process would orchestrate vocal campaigns. Porter said the negative voices were in the minority, "but enough to make bishops very wary because they are concerned they don't want to hurt gay people in the name of listening".

But is the church itself a "safe space" for gay people?

"I do know of some churches that are most certainly safe places for gay people," said Dr Porter, "but in public forum, no, it is not a safe place and that is a matter of deep shame for the church."

Rector of St Luke's Anglican Church in Enmore, the Reverend Gwilym Henry-Edwards, said "the leaders of the Anglican Church should realise differences in sexuality exist and it's not going to go away by shouting at people. It's different from diocese to diocese but in some places homosexuality is dismissed out of hand; so for people who are gay it is not a safe place for them to come out."

The Anglican Church has been racked by indecision over the question of homosexuality since the openly gay Gene Robinson was installed as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. Many African and Asian churches, vehemently opposed to wider recognition of gay people, have threatened to break away from Canterbury. In an attempt to bridge this ideological divide, the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, wrote in a preface to the report that the church "is challenged to show that it is truly a safe place for people to be honest and their dignity respected, whatever serious disagreements about ethics may remain".

The next obstacle for the Listening Process report is October's meeting of the Anglican General Synod in Canberra.

Gay people . . . are now being systematically targeted for execution by Shia death squads. The killers are hell-bent on turning the country into a fundamentalist Islamic state, cleansed of all "impure, unIslamic elements." Some operate within the police and others independently. All owe their allegiance to firebrand, militant clerics.

Large parts of Iraq, including many Baghdad neighbourhoods, are now under the de facto control of fundamentalist militias and their elite death squad units--the Islamist equivalent of the Nazi SS.

Gay people are not the only victims. The militias enforce a savage interpretation of Sharia law, summarily executing people for what they denounce as "crimes against Islam". These "crimes" include listening to western pop music, having a fashionable haircut, wearing shorts or jeans, drinking alcohol, selling videos, working in a barber's shop, homosexuality, dancing, having a Sunni name, adultery and, in the case of women, not being veiled or walking in the street unaccompanied by a male relative.

Two militias are doing most of the killing. They are the armed wings of major parties in the Bush and Blair-backed Iraqi government. Madhi is the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, and Badr is the militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), which is the leading political force in Baghdad's government coalition. Both militias want to establish an Iranian-style religious dictatorship - or worse.

Some of the anti-war left in Britain and the US support Muqtada al-Sadr, despite his goal of clerical fascism and his militia's involvement in death squad killings. They hail him as a "national resistance hero" (sic) for fighting the US and UK occupation of Iraq; callously ignoring his militia's sectarian murder of innocent Sunni Muslims, women, gay people and others. The allied occupation of Iraq is bad enough. But victory for the Madhi or Badr militias would result in a reign of religious terror many times worse.

The execution of lesbian and gay Iraqis by Islamist death squads and militias point to the fate that will befall all Iraqis if the fundamentalists continue to gain influence. The killing of queers is the canary in the mine--a warning of the barbarism to come.

Saddam Hussein was a bloody tyrant. I know. For nearly 30 years, I campaigned in support of democratic and leftwing Iraqis who were struggling to overthrow his regime. Where were Bush and Blair in the 1980s? Not protesting against Saddam.

While Saddam was in power, discreet homosexuality was usually tolerated. There was certainly no danger of gay people being assassinated in the street by religious fanatics. Since his overthrow, the violent persecution of lesbians and gays is commonplace. It is actively encouraged by Iraq's leading Muslim cleric, the British and US-backed Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. In late 2005, he issued a fatwa ordering the execution of gay Iraqis. [Since removed?] His followers in the Islamist militias are now systematically assassinating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

Lesbian and gay Iraqis cannot seek the protection of the police. Iraq's security forces have been infiltrated by fundamentalists, especially the Badr militia. They have huge influence in the interior ministry and the police, and can kill with impunity. Pro-fundamentalist government ministers are turning a blind eye to the killings, and helping to protect the killers.

. . . The UK-based gay rights group OutRage! is working to support its counterpart organisation in Baghdad, Iraqi LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender). Despite the great danger involved, Iraqi LGBT has established a clandestine network of gay activists inside Iraq's major cities, including Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Hilla and Basra. These courageous activists are helping gay people on the run from fundamentalist death squads; hiding them in safe houses in Baghdad, and helping them escape to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The world ignores the fate of LGBT Iraqis at its peril. Their fate today is the fate of all Iraqis tomorrow.

After conducting an inquiry into Thorpe's dossier and after further analyses the Australian Sport Anti-doping Authority (ASADA) decided to close the file, considering there was no conclusive scientific evidence on which to proceed. This opinion is not shared by the International Swimming Federation (FINA) which has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in an effort to reopen the Ian Thorpe file.

the initial suspicions generated by these findings, however troubling they may appear, could turn out to be inconsequential. Given current knowledge there is no real scientific means available for pushing the case any further. Unless, that is, the FINA his holding other evidence or test results on Thorpe.

USA: David Hicks pleads guilty on one count. AI observer attends arraignment at Guantánamo
27 March 2007, AI Index: AMR 51/052/2007

At a hearing in Guantánamo on 26 March 2007, in his sixth year of detention and at the start of the US administration's second attempt in the last three years to try him before a military commission, Australian national David Hicks pleaded guilty to one specification under the charge of "providing material support for terrorism".

This plea was made after years of indefinite detention, isolation and allegations of torture and ill-treatment, and after a day in which Hicks' legal representation was reduced by the military judge overseeing the commission. After the plea, proceedings were adjourned and were expected to be reconvened later in the week after the details of the plea had been worked out.

David Hicks was one of 10 detainees to be charged under military commissions established under President George W. Bush's Military Order of 13 November 2001. Those proceedings were halted in November 2004 by a US District Court judge, and ruled unlawful by the US Supreme Court inHamdan v. Rumsfeld in late June 2006. In early March 2007, David Hicks was the first person to be charged under the Military Commissions Act, legislation signed into law by President Bush on 17 October 2006 in response to theHamdan ruling.

On 26 March 2007, David Hicks was arraigned on charges that he had never previously faced, in a system whose rules were issued two months ago. He came into the commission room in tan prison uniform and flip-flops with his hair hanging half way down his back. At his table was Major Dan Mori, his military defense counsel, Joshua Dratel, his civilian defense counsel, and Rebecca Snyder, his assistant military defense counsel.

When the military judge, Marine Colonel Ralph Kohlmann, asked David Hicks if he wanted to keep his current legal representation, Hicks answered that he did, and that he wanted them provided with more assistance. What followed was a direct result of attempting to create a system of justice based on a roughly 200-page manual and which will operate in something approaching a legal vacuum.

Although the afternoon started with David Hicks asking for more support for his legal team, the result was the exact opposite. First, the military judge raised a challenge to the participation of Rebecca Snyder. While insisting that he was not issuing a ruling at this time, Colonel Kohlmann asserted that under his interpretation of the rules she could not represent David Hicks as military defense counsel since she was a civilian in the reserves. He gave David Hicks a choice -- Rebecca Snyder could stay and consult but not advocate on his behalf, or she could leave. David Hicks told the judge he did not want her at the table if she could not represent him.

Next, the judge raised an issue with David Hicks' civilian defense counsel of three years, Joshua Dratel. He stated that Dratel had not complied with the commission rules because he had not signed the necessary certification. Joshua Dratel argued that the qualification of a civilian defense counsel under the Rules for Military Commissions requires that in order to appear before a commission, civilian counsel shall "Have signed the agreement prescribed by the Secretary [of Defense] pursuant to 10 U.S.C. § 949c(b)(3)(E)." The issue at hand was that the Secretary of Defense had failed to issue such an agreement. Colonel Kohlmann had issued an order that could be signed in its place, but Joshua Dratel argued that, not only was this order invalid since the judge did not have the authority to issue it, but also that it would violate Dratel's ethical obligations to sign an agreement that had not been created. Colonel Kohlmann, as he had previously with Rebecca Snyder, decided that Joshua Dratel did not meet the criteria necessary to practice before the military commission. Dratel was offered the opportunity to stay on as a consultant, to which he replied "I am not a potted plant." When asked if he wanted Joshua Dratel to stay on as a consultant, David Hicks replied "I am shocked because I just lost another lawyer", adding that he was left only with "poor Mr. Mori."

An afternoon that started with a request for increased resources for the defense thus resulted in the reduction of David Hicks' legal team by two-thirds due to regulations that had not been promulgated and rules that had not been tested.

These exchanges were observed by a room that included journalists, NGO delegates, Australian attorneys, Australian government and diplomatic officials, as well as David Hicks' father and sister. David Hicks is the only detainee at Guantánamo to have had visits from family.

At the hearing, Major Mori challenged the military judge's fitness to preside over the proceedings, arguing both bias and the appearance of bias. The judge ruled himself fit to serve, dealt with scheduling matters, and adjourned the proceedings.

Approximately three hours later, the commission was reconvened and David Hicks entered a guilty plea to one of two specifications of his charge of "providing material support for terrorism". The specification alleges that between December 2000 and December 2001, Hicks intentionally provided material support foral Qa'ida, and that this conduct took place in the context of an armed conflict. Yet the international armed conflict in Afghanistan only began in October 2001. The Military Commissions Act effectively backdates the "war on terror" to make offences committed even before 11 September 2001 triable by military commission.

David Hicks pleaded not guilty to a second specification, namely that during the same time period, he provided material support or resources for an act of terrorism.

The military judge questioned David Hicks as to whether his plea had been influenced by the removal of two of his three attorneys earlier in the day. Hicks replied that it had not. However, after more than five years of virtually incommunicado military detention, and facing unfair trial procedures, serious questions must be asked about whether such a guilty plea can have been a purely volitional act.

The maximum penalty that David Hicks faces is life imprisonment, but the prosecution has said that it does not intend to argue for a life sentence. Under the terms of a reported arrangement, Hicks would serve any prison sentence in Australia. The guilty plea thus begins a process which will end in his return to his home country, some predict before the end of the year. In this regard, what transpired yesterday can also be seen as part of an exit strategy from a source of diplomatic tension rather than of judicial proceedings at which justice would either be done or be seen to be done.

Yesterday's proceedings do not bode well for the 60 to 80 people that the government claims it will prosecute under the military commission system. The proceedings reaffirm the need to close the Guantánamo detention camp as a matter of urgency and to end the lawlessness that it has come to symbolize.

The military commissions should be scrapped. Guantánamo detainees should be charged with recognizable criminal offences and brought to fair trial before a competent, independent and impartial tribunal, such as a US District Court, or else released with full protections against further abuse.

Jumana Musa observed David Hicks' arraignment for Amnesty International. She is a lawyer and a staff member of Amnesty International's US section. She is a fluent Arabic speaker.

For further information, see USA: Justice delayed and justice denied? Trials under the Military Commissions Act, AI Index: AMR 51/044/2007, March 2007, http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR510442007.

After the legal drama in his initial hearing today, David Hicks surely would have reflected on the fact that years after his initial plea of innocence, he was still locked in a cell 1.8m squared. Any normal Australian, facing a system weighted so heavily against them and broken by five years of unimaginable privation, is likely to have signed a document that would get them out of Guantanamo--regardless of their guilt or innocence.

David Hicks' guilty plea is not justice served, nor does it necessarily reflect Hicks' guilt -- it is simply further evidence of a rank system, and Australians can smell it from afar.

Almost every eminent jurist and legal body in the country has condemned a tribunal that has more in common with a circus than justice. Australian and international jurists agree this system was designed to guarantee convictions. It should come as no surprise, then, that it has. It reflects a system that is no more than justice on the make--offending basic legal principles of independence and impartiality.

This is evidenced by the shenanigans at today's arraignment. Hicks' civilian lawyer was dismissed as he refused to sign a document that compromised his own ethical standards. It would also be highly unusual in any normal court for a counsel to question the presiding judge over their impartiality--as Major Mori had to, concerning Judge Kohlmann's rulings.

This is what happens in a flawed system where the tribunal, the "jury", the chief prosecutor, the charges and the plea agreements are determined by the executive branch of government--the same Administration with so much invested in Hicks's conviction.

The Australian Government should not think today's guilty plea lets them off the hook. They have diminished Australia by legitimising an unfair system by allowing an Australian--guilty or innocent--to languish in detention for five years, only to face a severely compromised legal process.

. . . whereas the Nigerian Parliament is currently examining a Bill entitled the 'Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act', imposing a five-year prison sentence on anyone who 'performs, witnesses, aids or abets the ceremony of same sex marriage', but also on anyone involved publicly or privately in positive representation of, or advocacy for, same sex relationships; . . .

. . . Calls on the Nigerian Parliament not to adopt the proposed 'Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act' in its current form, since it contains infringements of the basic human rights of freedom of expression and opinion, in particular since it envisages a five-year prison sentence for anyone involved publicly or privately in positive representation of, or advocacy for, same sex relationships; . . .

In Nigeria the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act 2006 is passing through the legislature. The House of Bishops has supported it because we understand that it is designed to strengthen traditional marriage and family life and to prevent wholesale importation of currently damaging Western values. It bans same sex unions, all homosexual acts and the formation of any gay groups. The Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria has twice commended the act in their Message to the Nation.

Should it (the church) support the end to the slave trade? Some said 'no' and turned to the Bible for justification. But just as the Church was able to search its soul and overcome this to support the abolition of slavery, it ought to be able to support justice and inclusion for lesbian and gay people.

Shamefully the Anglican Primate of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, has promoted this legislation, condemned by UN officials as "an absolutely unjustified intrusion of individuals' right to privacy" which goes against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The culmination of months of work on what is known as "The Listening Process," a process begun in response to the mandate of Lambeth Conference 1998 Resolution 1.10, and subsequent Primates Meetings, is now set out on the Anglican Communion website for use around the Anglican world. The Anglican Consultative Council, at their meeting in Nottingham, requested the appointment of a facilitator for this work.

Each of the summaries has been compiled in co-operation with the Primate of that Province. Facilitator Canon Phil Groves of the Anglican Communion Office said, 'The summaries have drawn upon public statements and further research. Each Primate has approved the final text.'

The Anglican Church of Australia has responded to Lambeth Conference 1998 Resolution 1.10(f) through research publications prepared by the General Synod doctrine Commission. The first, Faithfulness in Fellowship: Reflections on Homosexuality and the Church, published in 2001, offered 10 essays on various aspects of the issue. A study book based on the essays and published in 2003, was designed for parish use. Lost in Translation? Anglicans, Controversy and the Bible, a further set of essays reflecting on aspects of biblical interpretation as it impacted the issue, was published in 2004.

Its response to clause (c) of the same resolution, on the commitment to listening to the experience of gay people, has not taken the form of a national process. Nor have diocese-wide processes generally been adopted; where they have been, they have faced some difficulties. Three of the 23 Australian dioceses have undertaken broad based programs, located either within Synod meetings, clergy conferences, or in directed parish programs. In other dioceses, "listening" has been initiated at parish level mainly. In the majority of dioceses, however, the listening initiative has been the diocesan bishop's, with most bishops taking seriously the need to listen carefully to gay people in the church at least, and in some cases, in the wider community as well. Most diocesans have been keen to offer sensitive pastoral care whenever possible, and have encouraged their clergy to do likewise.

In those dioceses where more broadly-based listening processes have been tried, reports suggest it has been difficult to discern the experiences of gay people, either because the processes involved did not enable this kind of listening, or because gay people felt too vulnerable to speak publicly. In some cases, responses to gay people who attempt to communicate their experiences have been insensitive. This has happened in synods and other wider church gatherings, and not just in parishes. Some dioceses have hesitated to introduce broader listening programs because of this. Understandably, bishops are reluctant to expose vulnerable people to insensitivity. The Church, it seems, is not a safe place for gay people. As one diocesan spokesperson has commented, the "listening process" in his diocese 'became a time of "shouting" rather than listening'. Though some bishops of rural dioceses have suggested that insensitivity may be partly a product of a conservative rural environment, the evidence indicates that it is also a factor in large city contexts. The Anglican Church in Australia may need to reflect seriously on this situation and how to overcome such insensitivity.

As part of an investigation carried out on behalf of the General Synod Standing Committee, a group of 20 gay Anglicans -- clergy and laity -- expressed the view that any process that exposed them to public labelling as homosexual people would not allow them to speak freely and confidently of their experience as gay Christians. Clergy in particular felt vulnerable about "outing" themselves in the present climate, even with sympathetic bishops. They suggested that if the Church was serious about listening to gay Christians, then it needed to adopt a two-stage listening model:

(1) Each diocese should establish a "listening" process that invited gay clergy and laity to speak of their experiences as gay people and Christians in a confident environment, where the only non-gay person present was an independent lay facilitator. The facilitator's written record of their experiences would take particular care to protect their anonymity.

(2) This written account could then be offered to the wider Church.

• The Preamble acknowledges human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity, establishes the relevant legal framework, and provides definitions of key terms.
• Rights to Universal Enjoyment of Human Rights, Non-Discrimination and Recognition before the Law: Principles 1 to 3
• Rights to Human and Personal Security: Principles 4 to 11
• Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Principles 12 to 18
• Rights to Expression, Opinion and Association: Principles 19 to 21
• Freedom of Movement and Asylum: Principles 22 and 23
• Rights of Participation in Cultural and Family Life: Principles 24 to 26
• Rights of Human Rights Defenders: Principle 27
• Rights of Redress and Accountability: Principles 28 and 29
• The Principles set out 16 additional recommendations.

The Prime Minister's own position in this affair is regrettable. It centres on one question: why was Senator Santoro appointed a minister in the first place? . . . In truth, Santo Santoro, once called a "factional godfather in the Liberal Party", was more likely appointed to the ministry on factional grounds, to satisfy party requirements rather than being the best person for the job. As it happened, and presuming Mr Howard knew of the senator's background, the senator's appointment put political convenience before any need for checks and balances on past performance. The Prime Minister must accept some of the blame for appointing a minister with a questionable record.

Still Life with Cockles and Shells

(Italian, c.17th; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)

Life breathes in this painting like a child
pretending not to be awake,

or a skink metamorphosed to a stone
but for the flutter in its flank.

You have to lean and listen for the heart
behind the shining paint,

the lips half-open, and the glittering eye.

Velvet of the night. A bald parrot on a parapet
watches to the east.

Ships listing on the waves
neither leave nor approach.

Someone has slain
five other birds: beaks, half-closed,

agonise in all directions.
A wash of unearthly light limes the sunken feathers.

What dreams the painter makes: I seem

to see inside the night
after Apocalypse,

when every soul has risen and sped off,
the violent seas at rest,

ships anchored and abandoned,
shells emptied of their monopods.

Or else the world has ended, but in
some other way;

and the parrot turns to give her
human greeting to the dawn.

Judith Bishop

Why Liberation from Dictatorship May Take Some Time

Our Great and Fearless Leader
(may His Name be forever praised!)
like a wise farmer has planted
many fields full of ears

In the particles of dust
from the sandstorms
He is also present; if we would breathe
we must do so very carefully

In those distant clouds
in the heavens above us
hidden cameras record
our every activity

Even the birds on the city rooftops
as well as those in the distant villages
cock beady eyes and fly swiftly
to inform Him of all that we say

Now foreigners come, bearing (they tell us) freedom
-- but freedom is only a word we have heard fluttering like a feather
on the lips of the dying

Bruce Dawe
The Australian, 14-15 Jan 06

Where on God's earth do ecclesiastic outfitters dig up their models?! You know, those people employed to model cassocks, albs and the like for their catalogues?

All was not lost when the thurifer set fire to the sacristy carpet. The Mother's Union used the remnant to fashion a new cassock for Fr Hugh.

Very many thanks to John Lewis for spotting this one (source: F A Dumont, p.59). He writes: "Have you seen the latest catalogue from F A Dumont? Laugh? I nearly sprinkled myself with holy water."

Love is a gift from God. Faithful love strengthens community, grants help and a joy to us all, providing mutual support and deepened affection in good times and in bad. You have chosen to live in partnership, to live in trust and love, to be responsible for each other (for home and children) and to stand faithfully at one another's side. Therefore your union needs the help of God, and should be cherished in tenderness and care.

or

Love comes from God. The ability to love is God's gift to humankind. Entering into partnership is a shared undertaking to preserve and deepen your love for each other, to share each other's lives in good times and in bad, to create a warm and welcoming home together, (where children receive the security they need). It means being faithful to one another, to live in trust and love. Therefore your union needs the help of God, and should be cherished in tenderness and care. In prayer and worship, in the word of God and the sacraments you will find strength for your journey together.

Source of love, eternal God, creator of heaven and earth, when you created all things, you also created humankind to live in love. You gave us grace to be stewards of all you created by your love. In Christ you gave us an example of faithful love and friendship, and you are with us all days of our lives, Look mercifully upon this couple who stand before you and ask your blessing. Help them to live in love and peace, in faithfulness and companionship, and with respect for each other. Enfold them in your grace and power and grant them eternal glory in the life to come. Through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

or

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day, for the joy and hope it brings. We pray for NN's and NN's union. Let their lives together be filled with trust and respect for each other. Help them to create a warm and welcoming home, Where (children can live safe and) friends and family find fellowship. In times of hardship, bring them closer to you and to each other. Help them to forgive one another and grant them day by day joy and strength from your hand. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The restrictions in the bill are so draconian and oppressive that it could result in a potential flood of gay Nigerians fleeing to other countries. The main targets would be other countries that Nigerians often travel to, such as Britain.

"Already we are seeing an increase in homophobic behaviour and attacks, because people feel they can get away with it. The climate is already becoming intolerable. Unless the government tones down its language and cancels the bill, we are going to see a flood of refugees as people flee for their lives". Over the last few months, since the bill has been proposed, Davis Mac-Iyalla has already received a series of death threats regarded as credible and has been forced to go in to hiding.

"We are already getting reports of an increase in attacks on people who are merely suspected of being gay--people who are not even being 'caught in the act'. This climate of fear will simply drive many people to take desperate measures to find somewhere--anywhere--where they can at least live without imminent fear of death just for existing. For many people, even being the prospect of being an illegal immigrant in Britain will seem preferable to a life of perpetual terror and suffocating oppression in Nigeria."

Changing Attitude Nigeria has already received a report of an increasing number of Nigerians seeking English partners on gay dating websites in recent months as gay Nigerians try to seek safe passage out of the country.

What I knew to be "Anglican" will disappear to be replaced by a conciliar infallibilism coupled with evangelical fundamentalist theological commitments--the worst of Rome and Geneva. This is not "Anglicanism" but something entirely new and frankly more disturbing than Rome or Geneva because hegemonic in conformity of thought and practice in a majoritarian way.

Should this legislation be passed, with only one constituent Church of the Worldwide Anglican Communion, the Anglican Church of Canada, having formally objected as a whole, the name "Anglican" and "Episcopalian" will become synonymous with an inability to handle disagreement honestly and openly without punitive measures, without resorting to vile persecution.

forswear using the terms "Anglican" and "Episcopalian" to describe myself until a firm turning away from (repentance) in word and deed occurs, and repudiation without qualification is voiced in the highest echelons of this constituent Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole. This shall be a part of my fast for a season, even if it should be a lifetime.

Perhaps not . . . Resistance certainly is, especially that of the firm but gentle "no" so characteristic of Benedictine tradition that holds our way of life together accountable to someone more than ourselves.

I'm all too clear that the Church is a mix of sinning saints, myself among them. It's not about purity, but there are matters that cannot simply be gone along with without seriously threatening the very heart of what it means to be Church. This is one of those matters, and it reaches to the heart and soul of koinonia in ways similar to the way the Deutsche Christian went along with the National Socialist state or the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa was considered excommunicate by the wider worldwide councils of churches for its support through theologizing of Apartheid. We can disagree about much, but to harm bodies in the Body is anathema. This is not the way we go about urging one another or correcting one another or questioning one another as fellow images of God. That these bodies are already some of the most reviled in many parts of our Communion and world only adds to the sting.

. . . I cannot and will not go along with the mealy-mouthed apologias, the handwringing, the silences by our bishops, including our primates while this draconian legislation nears passage. The passing of this legislation and refusal to object is a scandal to the Good News of Christ Jesus and makes it all the more difficult for those of us who care about bringing the Good News to God's lgbt children to do so in its quot;Episcopalian"/"Anglican" wrapping.

Resolved, that this Synod of the Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn, noting the [likely] introduction in Nigeria of laws denying freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and other human rights to gay and and lesbian people and those that support them;

1. is disappointed and ashamed that:
   
   
   • the leadership of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) has supported such laws;^[1] and
     
     
   • the leadership of the other churches of the Anglican communion has largely been silent in response to the [proposed] laws and the Nigerian church's support of the laws;^[2]
     
     
2. unequivocally affirms the human rights and freedoms expressed in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights;^[3]
   
   
3. is opposed to the Nigerian law and encourages other Anglicans to oppose it;
   
   
4. disassociates itself from any decision or action by any Anglican or other church in support of the Nigerian law; and
   
   
5. requests its delegates to the forthcoming General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia to seek the General Synod's support of a resolution in similar terms.

1. Message to the Nation / Communiqué, Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Aremo, Ibadan 22-35 February, 2006.
2. The Anglican Church of Canada has stated its opposition to the Nigerian laws. While not mentioning the Nigerian laws directly, on 4 March 2007 the Executive Council of Episcopal Church (of the US agreed to "urge the US government to grant asylum to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, or those advocating for their civil rights, who seek such protection, and commit the Episcopal Church to aid in their resettlement."
3. Applicable articles of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights include Articles 1,2,7,12,18,19, 20(1) and 29(2):
Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status . ...
Article 7. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 20 (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
Article 29 (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

Explanation

The Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill/Act 2006 of the Federal Republic of Nigeria prohibits and refuses recognition of "same sex marriage"including "the coming together of two persons of the same gender or sex in a civil union, marriage, domestic partnership or other form of same sex relationship for the purposes of cohabitation as husband and wife." Celebration of "same sex marriage" in any place of worship is specifically prohibited. However, this proposed resolution of the Synod of the Diocese of Canberrra and Goulburn is directly concened with this ban. It is acknowledged that the churches are not of the one mind on such matters.

More troubling is the support of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) for section 7 of the law, which says that:
"1. Registration of Gay Clubs, Societies and organizations by whatever name they are called in institutions from Secondary to the tertiary level or other institutions in particular and, in Nigeria generally, by government agencies is hereby prohibited.
"2. Publicity, procession and public show of same sex amorous relationship through the electronic or print media physically, directly, indirectly or otherwise are prohibited in Nigeria.
"3. Any person who is involved in the registration of gay clubs, societies and organizations, sustenance, procession or meetings, publicity and public show of same sex amorous relationship directly or indirectly in public and in private is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a term of 5 years imprisonment."

Sub-section 7(3) in particular is a dangerous violation of basic human rights and should be opposed by the churches, not supported.

On 23 February 2007 Senior United Nations officials^[4] stated^[5] that the proposed legislation would endanger the lives of those engaged in, or believed to be engaged in, same-sex relationships, who would as a result of the law be "more susceptible to arbitrary arrests, detention, torture and ill-treatment and expose them even more to violence and attacks on their dignity." They said that the proposed law, heard before could deny any person taking part in a same-sex relationship the enjoyment of their economic, social and cultural rights.

The United Nations officials also stated that the legislation contravenes several Articles of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Article 1, which declares that '(a)ll human beings are born equal in dignity and rights,' would be breached, as the Nigerian law codifies discrimination and persecution on the basis of sexual orientation. Freedoms of assembly and association, as well as individuals' freedoms of expression and opinion, would be denied. Local advocates of human rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people could also be imprisoned under this law, if passed.

4. Hina Jilani, the Secretary-General's Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders, Doudou Diène, Special Rapporteur on Contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Yakin Ertürk, Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, and Paul Hunt, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.
5. United Nations Press release HR/07/25, 33 February 2007

The Anglican Primate of Nigeria, one of the most powerful churchmen in Africa, needs to clarify his stance on a Nigerian anti-homosexuality bill he initially supported, which assigns a five-year prison term not only for practicing gays, but also for those who support them. Akinola either needs to publicly renounce, in strong terms, his early support of the bill's punitive clauses and to amplify the rather tepid concern he later expressed about them, or else he needs to explain why he's not doing so . . .

The Nigerian legislation was introduced in 2006, and promptly embraced by almost every church in that country. This included Akinola's, which does nothing without his say-so. Akinola's acceptance of the bill caused considerable discomfort in the 73-million member Anglican communion -- even among fellow conservatives, some of whom undertook a quiet campaign to change his mind. . . .

The Nigerian bill, although troubling, did not seem worthy of more than a couple of paragraphs when I wrote a recent profile of Akinola, for two reasons: By last December, it was considered unlikely to pass, partly due to international outcry -- the U.S. State Department, for instance ,expressed concern. And within days of the Virginia vote, Akinola moderated his view. In a welcoming letter to the Viginia churches -- also released in Nigeria -- he admitted, "We recognize that there are genuine concerns about individual human rights that must be addressed both in the framing of the law and its implementation."

In the heat of Nigeria's presidential election campaign, however, the bill has been revived. According to Stefano Fabeni of the Washington-based organization Global Rights, the Nigerian legislature is supposed to be considering a new, "harmonized" version of the bill, that may or may not include the five-year penalties. Fabeni also asserts that on February 14, during a discussion of the issue, the Christian Association of Nigeria, to which Akinkola's church belongs, argued in favor of letting the penalties remain. In any case the old version, with penalties, has already passed two readings in both houses of the National Assembly, and will become law if it passes a third reading in the Senate. The deciding vote could take place at any time within the next few weeks. So, now would be a good time for the habitually forceful Most Rev. Akinola to be a bit more forceful.

A few months ago, Nigerian religion expert Abieyuwa Ogbemudia said to my colleague Gilbert daCosta, "It is incredible for any church to even tolerate homosexuality and survive in Nigeria. Your church would be dead in the water." Akinola, however, has proven himself in the past to be a brave man. He took a strong and important stance against Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo's bid for an extraconstitutional third term. He needs to be brave again and speak out against the penalties in the Nigerian bill. If he truly has concerns about human rights, he should express them with vigor. Failure to do so ought to prompt his new Virginian congregants to give a second thought to their choice of Akinola as their shepherd.

I raise a salute to that lifesaving human compromise, the open secret. . . . For gay men in the 20th century the open secret was sometimes literally a lifesaver. It was the narrowest of territories: the half-acre that lies somewhere between absolute denial and outright confession, between dishonesty and disgrace. This was a hard place to be in 1970, a narrow line to walk. If our oh-so-modern, who-gives-a-damn, 21st-century gays, of whom I am one, suppose that these men were not brave, that they were not trail-blazers, not part of the struggle, then we don't know the half of it.

And some of us, it seems, don't. Already I hear the cry -- "living a lie", "set back the cause", "self-oppression", "an insulting stereotype" -- from a gay lobby that has taken about five minutes to forget what a dark age England was for us, what light an Inman, a Kenneth Williams, a Danny La Rue or, from America, a Liberace brought into it, and how outrageous, how valiant, those people were.

About five minutes to forget, too, that the people who wanted these men taken off the stage, screen and wireless, were not the gay-rights campaigners but the bigots and guardians of conservative morality. "Sexual perversion", they said, wasn't entertainment: it was wicked and dangerous -- and bad taste. The BBC, contemplating making a series of Are You Being Served?, tried at first to insist that Mr Humphries was removed.

How fast we forget context. Always a bit of a giggle to their own era, the Inmans, La Rues and Williamses of the last century are now disowned by their newly brave inheritors: the lately and boldly Out.

John Inman's breath had barely left his body before right-on spokesmen for that imaginary thing, the "gay community", were berating the "self-oppression" and "stereotyping" of homosexuals that Inman's Mr Humphries helped to reinforce. His smutty innuendo, his jokes about fairies and handbags, his limp wrist, camp wit and simpering delivery are, they claim, everything we need to shed.

Yes, they are. Of course they are. They are now. But they weren't then. Then they were a light in the dark. Between the words, these men insinuated a wordless language of their own; they made a nonverbal statement, a shyly comical way of saying: "This is who and what I am; this is my tribe -- and, look, I'm famous and life is fun." . . .

Thus did the shame and the ghetto depart, taking with them (but slowly) the tagging and the typecasting.

We gays can shed these stereotypes because we have outgrown them, because we have won the space and public respect to dispense with prison clothes and walk out of the virtual ghettos in which gay people used to bunch for mutual affirmation. We don't need to belong to a gang any more, to drink in the same pubs, congregate in the same occupations or dress or talk in ways designed to help us recognise each other, and help the outside world to guess without the unpleasantness of having to ask. We are no longer under siege. Everything can be talked about today. But yesterday, when things weren't said, things had to be said without words. Men like Inman found the showbiz shorthand to do it. God rest their souls.

A poisonous piece of legislation is quickly making its way through the Nigerian National Assembly. Billed as an anti-gay-marriage act, it is a far-reaching assault on basic rights of association, assembly and expression. Chillingly, the legislation -- proposed last year by the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo -- has the full and enthusiastic support of the leader of Nigeria's powerful Anglican church. Unless the international community speaks out quickly and forcefully against the bill, it is almost certain to become law.

Homosexual acts between consenting adults are already illegal in Nigeria under a penal code that dates to the colonial period. This new legislation would impose five-year sentences on same-sex couples who have wedding ceremonies -- as well as on those who perform such services and on all who attend. The bill's vague and dangerous prohibition on any public or private show of a "same sex amorous relationship" -- which could be construed to cover having dinner with someone of the same sex -- would open any known or suspected gay man or lesbian to the threat of arrest at almost any time.

The bill also criminalizes all political organizing on behalf of gay rights. And in a country with a dauntingly high rate of HIV and AIDS, the ban on holding any meetings related to gay rights could make it impossible for medical workers to counsel homosexuals on safe sex practices.

Efforts to pass the bill last year stalled in part because of strong condemnation from the United States and the European Union. Now its backers are again trying to rush it through, and Washington and Brussels need to speak out against it. Nigeria is Africa's most populous country and one of the most politically influential. If it passes a law that says human rights are not for every citizen, it will set a treacherous example for the region and the world.

Statement from Changing Attitude Scotland

Published March 6th, 2007

Changing Attitude Scotland welcomes the opportunity to respond to the recent Communiqué from the Anglican Primates issued in Tanzania.

In particular, we welcome:

• the news that the Listening Process is making progress in some provinces and we affirm the urgent need for a process of listening to the experience of lesbian and gay people, to begin in the Scottish Episcopal Church;
• the fact that the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church has gone on record as saying that our College of Bishops believes that the US based Episcopal Church has already made an adequate response to the requests made of it by the Windsor Report.

However, we are saddened that:

• notwithstanding their commitment to listen, the Primates did not take the opportunity to meet with any openly gay or lesbian people during their meeting, even though they were happy to meet with those who are opposed to the inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the church;
• the Anglican Communion has been broken by the actions of those Primates who refused to receive communion during the duration of the Primates' Meeting;
• the final communiqué has presented an unreasonable ultimatum to the US based Episcopal Church;
• the communiqué has nothing to say to condemn the actions of the Church of Nigeria in its support of proposals to criminalize gay and lesbian people in Nigeria.

Much has been made of the fact that if the US based Episcopal Church draws back from its full inclusion of lesbian and gay members, then Primates from foreign jurisdictions who have made incursions into the USA may feel able to withdraw. We believe that maintaining the integrity of artificial ecclesiastical territorial borders is not worth the sacrifice of the integrity of an inclusive church.

On the same day that Changing Attitude Scotland received the communiqué from the Primates Meeting in Tanzania, another significant document was received--the new liturgy for blessing same-sex couples from the Church of Sweden. The Church of Sweden is in full communion with the Scottish Episcopal Church. Through its own synodical process, the Church of Sweden has now agreed a text for the blessing of gay people. We note that there has been no condemnation of the actions of the Swedish Church from the Anglican Primates during this extensive process nor from any of the bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church. We are glad that this is so and recognise that this illustrates very clearly that the actions of the Primates towards the US based Episcopal Church are primarily political rather than theological.

It is our experience that whilst Anglicans angrily debate human sexuality to the detriment of God's mission in the world, God is quietly and persistently raising up gay and lesbian people of faith in all denominations and with a full rainbow spectrum of theological outlooks. Furthermore, increasing numbers of lay and ordained, straight and gay people have come to the belief that being gay or lesbian is no bar to being baptized and therefore no bar to full participation in Christian life and ministry.

It's no surprise that the Prime Minister is considering reforming access to government benefits for same-sex couples. Based on his own brand of conservatism, John Howard should support equal recognition for same-sex couples.

In 2005 Howard gave a speech to launch the publication The Conservative. He articulated his interpretation of conservatism, its values and how it is held in Australian society. The Prime Minister discussed the role of institutions and said conservatives "believe that if institutions have demonstrably failed, they ought to be changed or reformed". There is little doubt the institutions charged with respecting the legitimacy and choices of same-sex couples have failed them. Government institutions are perpetuating discrimination against same-sex couples in superannuation law, Medicare payments, migration law and taxation. Liberal values and a belief in small government should promote downscaling these benefits, but if they are to be available, they should be provided without discrimination.

. . . Howard aligned his personal values to the values of average Australians: "(We) live in a classless society (where) a person's worth should be determined by a person's character and hard work." Those Liberal MPs pushing for reform have shown that, as yet, the PM's words have not been put into practice. . . . Same-sex couples have paid their taxes, taken responsibility for their lives and are active contributors to society. Unlike other debates in society, the lapse in mutual obligation in this debate is not on the [part of?] individuals. The Government cannot say the same for itself.

. . . Pushing gay rights is hardly Howard's wheelbarrow, but the move to provide government benefits to same-sex relationships shouldn't cause social conservatives discomfort. . . . Whether conservatives believe sexuality is by choice or design, respecting individual choices is a shared position of conservatives and liberals.

The ACT Government's bill was designed to enrage the federal Government and be overturned for Labor's political benefit. Had a state [as distinct from territory] government passed the same bill it may have stood, but sections would likely have been in conflict with federal law and the federal government's constitutional responsibility to define and establish marriage.

Voters may not support gay marriage but they don't believe same-sex couples should be locked out of government benefits. Debate on gay marriage has been suffocated by a failing to consider why government is regulating marriage in the first place.

[I]t is deeply disappointing and distasteful that the Prime Minister seems determined that when it comes to social recognition, same-sex couples should forever be second-class citizens, entitled to lesser recognition and unable to publicly celebrate their enduring relationships.

Indeed, so determined is Mr Howard to ensure that same-sex couples are not accorded real as well as symbolic equality, that he has gone out of his way to overturn the very first law in the country that delivered such equality, and is now threatening to overturn the second attempt to legislate.

The Church of England's assembly on Wednesday affirmed existing teaching that homosexuality is no bar to full participation in the church but avoided the fractious debate within the Anglican Communion about accepting gay sexual relationships.

A motion approved nearly unanimously by the governing General Synod disposed of language including a commitment to "respect the patterns of holy living to which lesbian and gay Christians aspire," but affirmed "that homosexual orientation in itself is no bar to a faithful Christian life or in full participation to lay and ordained ministry."

Bishop Michael Perham of Gloucester had urged the synod not to take a side in the debate about whether people in gay relationships can be good Christians or, as in the U.S. Episcopal Church, serve as a bishop. "This is not the moment -- it is very clearly the wrong moment -- to shift our formal position and give any sense of winners and losers on an issue on which we are finding it hard to reach consensus," Perham said.

John Ward, a gay member of the synod who supported the amended version, had asked the assembly "to say explicitly that we can and should have an open and Godly dialogue with one another about human sexuality and that we should create a safe place for this to happen without fear." Ward, whose voice trembled at times during the debate, also said: "I have experienced people in this synod who are afraid to be seen sitting next to me."

The Rev. Mary Gilbert, who sponsored the original motion, said she was happy with the outcome as creating "an open, careful listening process about the issue of lesbian and gay Christians."

The morning vote followed two hours of emotional debate between liberal and evangelical synod members. Liberals emphasized Anglicans must support gay Christians, who they said were an important part of the Church of England, and oppose any prejudice they face. Evangelicals unsuccessfully tried to halt the debate with two procedural motions that were voted down. Some said Scripture was clear that only sex between married, heterosexual couples is permissible. Others argued that being gay should be defined as a choice, not a natural condition determined by their genetic makeup.

After a 2-hour afternoon debate, the General Synod approved a second motion that acknowledged some church members' criticism of Britain's Civil Partnership Act. It came into force in 2005, legally recognizing same sex relationships and allowing gays to virtually marry. The synod said it understood the government acted to protect gays from discrimination, but said it should have "done so in a way that avoided creating a legal framework with many similarities to marriage."

The synod scrapped a more radical motion, proposed by the Rev. Paul Perkin, a member of the evangelical group Reform, expressing "deep concern" that the act "undermines the distinctiveness and fundamental importance to society of the relationship of marriage."

Perham said the church was at a delicate moment, following the meeting of Anglican leaders earlier this month in Tanzania, which included Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion . . .

Kerry O'Brien: Are you the kind of person who works out at age 47 what you want to do with the rest of your life, or will you just take things as they come?

Rupert Everett: I think less would be more for me in terms of doing things. I don't feel very in tune particularly with the world as it is at the moment. Doing things like movies and books and things is great, but I don't know . . . the world of showbusiness, I think, is kind of tragic to be honest nowadays, and it doesn't interest me that much.

Kerry O'Brien: What are the key features of the tragedy?

Rupert Everett: It's just one big asset strip, really. If you're in a successful movie now, you have to come out with a line of panties if you want to keep the trajectory of your career going up and then after the line of panties you have to come out with something else and success is the driving force of everything. It sets some people up as having things and the people that have not are meant to look at it and admire it and want to have it and I don't think it's getting us anywhere and I think, actually, in terms of the world, we're being so entertained, out of our minds, that we are incapable of looking at actually what is happening to us.

So we were talking just before about what Americans are thinking about the war. They're not thinking about the war, they're thinking about Jennifer Lopez's butt or Britney's haircut. They can't think of anything else. They've been blobbed by all these giant conglomerates which, I think, are pretty macabre.

Kerry O'Brien: In Red Carpets you describe a quiet reflective moment when you were making a film in Colombia when you felt, "lost from my own life and, looking back, that was my endless quest; not acting, not fame, not love, just losing myself". Explain that?

Rupert Everett: I think the self, really, our self is an exhausting, anxious, conflicted, aggressive, angry, frightened thing. And we drag along all this baggage from the past everywhere and we're always anxious about what's going to happen next, how are we going to keep going, how are we going to pay this bill, how are we going to keep our children in school whatever it is. I found, very early on, particularly traveling a lot in movies, some of the most peaceful times were when you were just lost somewhere away from everything and everyone and no one really knows you or who you are or where you are and no one in your life knows where you are and there's a feeling of intense peace.

Dear Friends,

I don't know if members of this group can do much to help us in Nigeria?

This morning I got a call from an unknown caller who wanted to find out where I am at the time. I ask him to introduced himself since I don't know him and he said so you are back from your trip and off the phone on me. I called the number back and a woman picked and said it is a public call phone. My surprise is how he did get my number which is very private.

I have been talking with friends and supporters of how to go to a safe place for some time at least.

The bill to ban us in moving fast to become law.

The worst of all is that Archbishop Akinola is the master and brain behind this bill, recently he has been lobbying the presidency to put pressure on the senate and house of representatives to speed up the process in passing the bill.

This evening I have received news from Abuja that the bill is likely to be passed before the end of March. And members of Akinola staff boasting that Changing Attitude Nigeria will soon be illegal and I will be sent to prison. Most of my members are now calling and sending me mails to ask what will become of them if this bill is passed?

This is one question that I don't have the answers to right now, my appeal to everyone is to help use any medium that you can to draw the attention of the world and church leaders to this Nigerian problem.

If tears can change things I think by now I would have changed the situation of the Nigerian LGBT Christians.

If you can dear brothers and sisters please give a last minute call to your bishops or anyone you know that can add their voices to put pressures on the Nigerian government and Archbishop Akinola who is the current president of the Christian Association of Nigeria that is requesting that the bill be passed soon.

Please spread this message if you can.

Thanks
Davis Mac-Iyalla
Changing Attitude Nigeria

The press reports, blogs and posts from the conservative groups are full of distortion and spin, and thanks to a local who has translated Tanzanian Swahili language papers for me, I can tell you they are full of total invention which bears no relation to the truth. The conservatives were devastated by the covenant and the final communique. They were furious, and saying directly to us, 'you won'. And they meant it. Through spinning, they have tried to reclaim some of the ground they lost, and tell a different story for their own constituencies. . . . They achieved none of the goals they set themselves. They have not got the Communion heading down an anti-gay path . . . There is total commitment to the listening process and [Archbishop Aspinall's] report and plans were well received. In private, there was growing acknowledgement that we have to be engaged with and we are a reality in the Communion.

Yes . . . TEC has been asked to do something totally unpalatable to Integrity and all who believe in a fully inclusive church. We and they have work to do, responding by the September 30 deadline. There is work to do on the convenant, but the draft covenant contains almost nothing that the conservatives were demanding and expecting.

hands conservative elements of the Anglican communion much of what they wanted, while testing the patience of progressive members, many in Britain and North America. They must now be considering the point of remaining in an alliance of churches whose existence is a historical accident and whose values are in painful conflict. [Quite so.] The communique, issued on Monday night, reports that tension within the communion is "so deep that the fabric of our common life together has been torn". But it pulls the wounds apart further.
. . .
[O]utsiders might be forgiven for asking what the Anglican communion now stands for, apart from its own continued existence. They might also ask why, in the face of all the challenges facing humankind, not least in Africa, primates spent five days obsessing about their attitude to gay sex.
. . .
Anglicanism is evolving into two forms of protestantism: a scriptural conservatism and a more free-thinking search for modern spiritual guidance. Both have their adherents. Neither pays much attention to Dr Williams. He may not have to struggle to keep them together for much longer.

The primates of the Anglican Communion have utterly failed to recognize the faith, relationships, and vocations of the gay and lesbian baptized.

Let us pray it doesn't take another hundred years for yet-unborn primates to gather for a service of repentance for what the church has done to its gay and lesbian members today, as they repented in Zanzibar yesterday for what it did to those the church failed to embrace as full members of the Body of Christ.

Once again, the Episcopal Church is being asked to sacrifice the dignity of lesbian and gay people as the price we must pay to preserve the Anglican Communion. Once again, our answer is: our dignity is not for sale. We will not be 21st century scapegoats sacrificed to preserve unity based on injustice.
. . .
Our challenge as gay and lesbian people is to refuse to be victims. We must claim our baptismal birthright as children of God and continue to be a blessing to the Church and to the world. We are one of the means by which God's unconditional love is revealed in the world. Sharing that love is our calling and our privilege. We must redouble our efforts to extend the progress made toward our full inclusion in the life of the church.

Sure, there's a crisis at the top. . . . But alongside all this--indeed precisely because of it--there's emerging a new style of confident and unified global Anglicanism brought together by a shared antipathy to liberal values and gay sex. Not only has the present row raised the profile of the communion, it's also brought about an unholy togetherness among conservatives. The only thing that can reunite the factions is something they all hate more than they hate each other. . . . It's textbook scapegoating. . . .

[T]his manufactured crisis is a golden opportunity to create new rules to oust the progressive voice from the church . . . Thus evangelicals have a vested interest in keeping an atmosphere of crisis going as long as possible. The best way to mount a coup is to get everybody panicky and confused -- and then emerge as a strong leader, the only one able to impose order.

There are good theological reasons for the church to see itself as global . . . But there are bad reasons too. For the communion allows bishops of crisis-stricken dioceses to get on a plane and reinvent themselves as players on the world stage. Many parishes see less and less of their bishops as they clock up the air miles.

In the traditional Church of England, the parish is the unit that matters to most worshippers. And at the level of the parish, the crisis in global Anglicanism is irrelevant.

While bishops and archbishops squabble and plot, the local church gets on with saying its prayers and caring for the needy. These faithful are now being badly let down by their leadership.

In a world of division, great international movements such as churches are precious reminders that we all belong to the same human race. Through them, people from around the world care for each other in practical and effective ways. Christians are world citizens. Unity matters.

On the other hand, the church is not infinitely flexible. It cannot be, if it is to be true to its calling. It has a task to bear witness to the truth that is in Jesus Christ. There are boundaries to that truth, and hence boundaries to the Christian fellowship.

Christians sometimes have to decide that the truth of some major issue does not permit them to have unity with each other in the same way as before. We must be welcoming, but we cannot embrace indifference about doctrine and hope to survive.

This has made life very awkward for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. He has some immensely hard decisions to make involving questions of relationship. Who still belongs to the Anglican Communion?

represents a church which has broken the boundaries needed to hold the communion together. Whether the American convictions prove to be prophetic and true, or wilful and badly mistaken, they have chosen to follow them to the end. They cannot be surprised that this will cause turbulence in the communion. They had more than sufficient warning over the years.

Already Anglicans are not as welcoming of each other as we have been in the past. In a world where truth is often regarded as no more than opinion, this is a struggle over important matters of principle. The Americans have clearly voted for the truth of their convictions over unity, although they would like both. The same thing applies to those who are opposed to them.

But this is not without hope. We are seeing not a mere power struggle but the clash of deeply held convictions. It is not unchristian to have serious disagreement over truth. But here is a biblical command for us all: speak the truth with love.

Can Anglicans continue to witness to the truth and also love those with whom we differ so significantly? If so, perhaps one day we will see unity restored. The Dar es Salaam meetings may well clarify the way ahead for Anglicans.

• Have you ever thought you could be infected with HIV or have AIDS?
• In the last 12 months have you engaged in sexual activity with someone who you think might answer yes to any of the questions on the use of drugs, partner with HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HTLV, or treatment with clotting factors?
• Since your last donation or in the last 12 months have you had sexual activity with a new partner who currently lives or has previously lived overseas?
• Within the past 12 months have you:
  • Been a male or female sex worker (eg received payment for sex in money, gifts or drugs?)
  • Engaged in sex with a male or female sex worker?

• In the last 12 months have you:
  • Had male to male sex?
  • Had sexual activity with a male who you think might be bisexual?

The National Blood Authority (NBA) administers the arrangements between Australian Governments and the ARCBS and has just signed a new contract with the ARCBS for three years. The NBA's arrangements with the ARCBS are structured around ARCBS meeting state and territory requirements for the supply of blood, blood products and services. The ARCBS is responsible and accountable for how it delivers those outputs and the collection of blood to meet the needs of the Australian community. Accordingly the ARCBS is responsible for ensuring that each unit of product meets the highest quality and safety standards and conforms to the Therapeutic Goods Administration and state/territory legislative requirements.

The ARCBS has a Donor Product and Safety Committee which provides advice on surveillance and evaluation of risk which may have implications for the safety of a blood product. This advice is regularly reviewed and modified from time to time and is only based on risk factors and not on any individual's sexual preferences.

The Australian Red Cross Blood Service is again urgently appealing for donors, with supplies down to 36 hours. I am willing to donate. I'm healthy. I don't sleep around -- I'm in a monogamous relationship. But the Red Cross doesn't want my blood because I'm male and my partner is male. Does this make sense?

In light of the media appeal by the Red Cross Blood Service. this week, two correspondents, Jackie Allen and Brian McKinlay (Letters, October 25), have raised questions about why they are deferred from giving blood.

We estimate that 40 to 50 per cent of Australians are eligible to give blood, but only 33 per cent of the population do so. At the same time, demand for blood and blood products by the Australian hospital system is increasing steadily.

If a small proportion of those who are eligible to give blood, and who do not presently do so, were to become regular donors, then national appeals would be necessary only in an instance of genuine national emergency.

Decisions on donor deferrals are made on the basis of expert epidemiological advice. The donor selection criteria are also considered by state and territory health departments, in conjunction with federal health and regulatory agencies.
[...]
In terms of the issues raised by Mr McKinlay, the deferral policy is related to sexual activity and not sexual preference. Individuals are deferred, for 12 months if they have engaged sexual activity; male-to-male sex is one of these activities.

Ensuring Australia has one of the safest blood supplies in the world is the primary concern of the blood service and all decisions to allow or defer individuals from giving blood are made on this basis.