Tag Archives: Country: Australia

TheAge.com.au: Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi says he has been “proved correct” that legalising same-sex marriage would lead to demands to endorse polygamy.

France24.com: The Australian government has announced new guidelines on gender recognition which state that individuals should be given the option of selecting “male”, “female” or “intersex” on their personal documents.

Family Research Council: Regnerus responded to the reports out of Australia, criticizing it for its methodological weaknesses. Unlike Regnerus’s survey, the Australian authors refused to use a random sample and instead recruited participants at local gay and lesbian groups.

The Age: That is the initial finding from the world’s largest study on the children of same-sex parents, under way at Melbourne University.

Middle East Forum: This is the second in a four part series of posts written in response to Geert Wilders’ visit to Australia in early 2013. In a previous post I contrasted Geert Wilders’ view that ‘Islam is the problem’ with the claims of many Muslims who preach with equal conviction that ‘Islam is the solution’, and examined evidence of the negative characteristics associated with belief in Islam, including disadvantaged human development outcomes.

Religion Clause Blog: In Thaler v. Amzalak, (NSW Sup. Ct., May 27, 2013), the Supreme Court of the Australian state of New South Wales set aside an award by a Bet Din (Jewish religious court) in a commercial dispute.

LifeNews: A man who may be the only late-term abortion practitioner in Australia has lost his medical license for a year after he was found to be inappropriately prescribing addictive drugs to patients.

NPR: There’s growing pressure in Australia for the government to legalize gay marriage after New Zealand became the 13th country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage earlier this month.

AdelaideNow.com: During consultation the council received feedback from 119 residents, through written submissions and a survey. About half (61) wanted the prayer to remain while 58 respondents wanted the reference to the “Almighty Father” removed.

LifeSiteNews: Progressive think-tank Australia21 has released a report that calls on Australia’s parliaments to embrace euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Catholic Culture: Health officials in Australia have recommended a heavy government subsidy for the abortifacient drug RU-486.

The Australian: As revealed in The Australian, the report released yesterday recommends that the government promote the message that “multiculturalism entails both a respect for cultural diversity” and a commitment “to the framework of Australian laws and values which underpin social cohesion”.

SMH.com.au: Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott are to be placed under renewed pressure to support gay marriage rights with the Greens intent on making the popular reform a key election issue.

Altmedia.net.au: With increasing attention brought to polyamorous relationships by members of of the Liberal Party, a formalised Polyamory Action Lobby (PAL) has been founded to combat the image of poly people as relationship bogeymen.

Doug Cook at MercatorNet: Australian activists for same-sex marriage have always insisted, that it will not lead to polygamy or polyamory. Never, ever, ever. Gay marriage is just like traditional marriage, except for the sex of the spouse. Activist Rodney Croome wrote last year that “studies show most LGBTI people want to be part of a two-person marriage, while partners in polyamorist relationships (most of which begin as heterosexual unions) say they don’t want their relationships recognised as marriages.” Former Greens leader Bob Brown described a push for polyamory as “nonsense”. | Hat tip: Ruth Institute

The Express Tribune: Babies born to Indian surrogate mothers for gay and single Australians may be left stateless and unable to leave the country after New Delhi changed the rules on surrogacy, an expert has said.

AP: Australia’s highest court on Wednesday narrowly rejected the case of two Muslim activists who argued they had a constitutional free-speech right to send offensive letters to families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan

Religion Clause Blog: The by-law was challenged by two street preachers.  In Attorney-General (SA) v Corporation of the City of Adelaide, (HCA, Feb. 27, 2013) . . .

Religion Clause Blog: The Australian reported last week on the controversy over the scope of exemptions for religious organizations in proposed Australian civil rights legislation.

Business Week: “A man cannot enter into the state of marriage as defined with another man just as a woman cannot enter into the state of marriage with another woman,” the judge wrote. “The redress for these circumstances lies in the political and not the legal arena.” . . . Sex discrimination depends on a comparison between the treatment of the person of one sex with the treatment of the opposite sex, Jagot wrote in her ruling. “There cannot be discrimination by reason of the sex of a person because in all cases the treatment of the person of the opposite sex is the same,” she wrote.| Margan v President, Australian Human Rights Commission [2013] FCA 109

The Australian: RELIGIOUS organisations running schools, health and aged-care services face losing key exemptions to Labor’s new anti-discrimination laws under recommendations that could see them sued by people who disagree with church ethos.

Herald Sun: PROTESTERS clashed violently with police and guests tonight before a speech by controversial anti-Muslim Dutch MP Geert Wilders.

Herald Sun: A PERTH GP investigated after he led a group of doctors opposing gay marriage on health grounds has reportedly been cleared by the Medical Board.

The Age: ANGER at plans for a mosque and evangelical church to be built side-by-side in Melbourne’s east has spilled over amid claims Islam ”directly contravenes our freedom values”.

National Catholic Reporter: A statement by Australia’s Federal Attorney General Nicola Roxon that the national royal commission into child sex abuse should look into requiring Catholic priests to break the seal of confession in cases of serious sex offenses generated much discussion inside and outside the church, even as Roxon tried to downplay the issue.

Christian Post: A new study from Australia showed that women who underwent an abortion were more likely to struggle with substance abuse than those women who did not have an abortion. Results of the study were made public by Kaeleen Dingle, of the University of Queensland, during a recent conference of the World Psychiatric Association in Melbourne.

Sydney Morning Herald: NSW is one step closer to a vote on legalising same-sex marriage, MPs from across the political spectrum giving official notice of new legislation.

ABC (audio): For years gay and lesbian people across much of regional Australia have kept a low profile in their communities for fear of violence and harassment, but things are starting to change. Increasingly people in country towns are organising Equal Love rallies in support of gay marriage rights. On Saturday the border town of Albury-Wodonga held its first rally and it was the largest gay and lesbian event in the town’s history.

Catholic Culture: Australian editorial writers have stepped up the pressure on Church leaders to discard the confessional seal in cases of sexual abuse.

Religion Clause Blog: The Australian reports today that parents will appeal a decision handed down last month upholding the Special Religious Instruction program in the public schools in the Australian state of Victoria. Religious bodies offer 30 minutes per week of classes.

LifeSiteNews: A controversial pro-life group at one of Australia’s highest ranked universities has been barred from affiliation, funding and advertising by the university’s student union.

The Australian: TASMANIA is getting no hints from federal Attorney-General Nicola Roxon as its upper house considers an investigation into whether a state-based same-sex marriage law would be constitutional.

AP: The speaker of Australia’s Parliament resigned Tuesday under criticism over a sexual harassment lawsuit against him . . . Slipper had agreed to stand aside from his parliamentary duties since April over a Federal Court suit that alleges he sexually propositioned his gay media adviser James Ashby.

ABC.net.au: The Premier Colin Barnett says the right wing Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, is not welcome in Western Australia.

ABC.net.au (includes video): Two evangelists have become the unlikely standard bearers for free speech in Australia as they fight a council ban on their preaching.

Australian: FAR-RIGHT Dutch politician Geert Wilders has postponed a speaking tour of Australia until early next year after Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said he would not block his visa, sparking concerns his “hatred” would lead to more protests and violence.

Australian: For the first time, the Government’s paid parental leave for fathers will be extended to dads who whose partner is another dad. Two women who become mums are also eligible for the paid leave.

SMH.com.au: Gay marriage advocates have vowed to keep campaigning as numbers mount against them in the first attempt at pioneering state-based same sex marriage.

The Australian: SAME-SEX marriage bill should pass NSW parliament after party leaders announced they will let members have a conscience vote, members of a cross-party working group say.

SMH.com.au: The lower house of the Tasmanian Parliament passed its Same-Sex Marriage Bill at the end of last month. Everything now hinges on its upper house, which will debate the bill on Wednesday next week. The outcome is uncertain and the vote is expected to be tight. Of the 15 members of the upper house, 13 are independents, and most have yet to declare their hand.

ABC.net.au: Tony Abbott’s parliamentary secretary, South Australian Senator Cory Bernardi, has been forced to resign after making comments in the Senate that if same sex marriage was allowed it could lead to people wanting to marry animals.

Brisbane Times: BOTH Houses of Parliament are set to defeat attempts to legalise gay marriage this week but advocates, including the cabinet minister Penny Wong, believe it is only a matter of time before Parliament catches up with the majority of public opinion.

SMH.com.au: THE Premier, Barry O’Farrell, will allow Coalition MPs a conscience vote on a bill to legalise same-sex marriage, which a cross-party group of MPs will introduce this year.

SMH.com.au: The Senate is about to begin debating proposals by four Labor senators to legalise gay marriage. While support for same-sex marriage is stronger in the Senate than in the House of Representatives, campaigners are pessimistic about the bill passing when it goes to a vote this week.

SMH.com.au: Both sides of Parliament have united to condemn the violent protests in Sydney, saying Australians would be shocked and sickened by the riots.

SMH.com.au: An anti-abortion conference has been gatecrashed by a group of feminists who threw a ballet shoe at a keynote speaker, as tensions rise over the approval of a controversial pregnancy termination drug.

David Van Gend at The Australian: One does not overturn the foundational institution of society – trashing a child’s right to both a mother and a father, and crushing a parent’s right to teach their child right and wrong – as an act of psychotherapy for depressed citizens. Professional help and neighbourly kindness is needed, not gay marriage and gay sex-education.

The Age: Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop has questioned whether the gender imbalance caused by the selective abortion of female foetuses could hinder the rise to affluence of China and India.

ABC News: Northern Territory Labor Senator Trish Crossin is co-sponsoring another same-sex marriage bill in the Federal Parliament.

SMH.com.au: The head of the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) Jim Wallace says smoking is healthier than the lifestyle that would be promoted by same-sex marriage. Mr Wallace made the claim in a debate on marriage equality with Greens leader Christine Milne at the University of Tasmania today.

Zenit: Any healthy or decent society rests on three pillars, professor Robert P. George of Princeton University told a group gathered in Sydney earlier this month. George spoke at the John Paul II Australian Leaders Forum on Aug. 11.

LifeNews: Why not? He or she is just a ball of cells, a blastocyst. Why would you even care? Maybe because the lives of “spare” IVF embryos do matter. Let Australian Jen Vuk’s testimony to her growing anxiety over what to do with her last frozen offspring speak a warning to the practice of the mass production of embryos in IVF.

SMH.com.au: THE abortion pill RU486 will be widely available to Australian women after the Therapeutic Goods Administration approved an application to import the drug by the reproductive health group Marie Stopes International.

Religion Clause Blog: In the Australian state of Tasmania, the Tasmania Law Reform Institute has recently released a 101-page report on Non-Therapeutic Male Circumcision.

LifeSiteNews: An Australian judge has ruled that conception occurs at implantation – when an embryo embeds itself in the wall of the uterus around 9 days into a pregnancy – rather than fertilization – when it is created.

SMH.com.au: A bill to legalise same-sex marriage will be debated in Parliament today, sparking concerns by the Greens that the government may be trying to bring on an early vote in an attempt to push the politically fraught topic off the agenda.

Florida Courier: The Florida Supreme Court will hear arguments Oct. 2 in a possibly first-of-its-kind case pitting two lesbian partners who used in-vitro fertilization to have a child but later ended their relationship. The case could be unprecedented in Florida because the fertilized egg of one woman was implanted in her then-partner, who gave birth.

AP: Prostitutes have the right to work from motel rooms in an Australian state, a court said after finding the owner’s refusal to rent to a sex worker was discriminatory.

ABC.net.au: Tasmania’s Premier Lara Giddings says it is possible the state’s move to legalise gay marriage may end up in the High Court . . .

A link to the broadcast and listing of contributors is here.

Australian: SUPPORT for same-sex marriage has risen to its highest level, with a new poll revealing nearly two-thirds of the community want change as pressure continues to build on Julia Gillard in the wake of Tasmania’s move to introduce its own laws.

Catholic Culture: A legislative committee in Australia’s state of Victoria is questioning whether the government should honor the confessional seal.

OnIslam.net: The largest mosque in the Australian state of Victoria has sparked a controversy by calling on Muslim women to encourage husbands to take polygamous wives instead of divorce.

LifeSiteNews: On June 28, I (Alex Schadenberg) was in Hobart Tasmania meeting with members of the Tasmania state parliament concerning the announcement earlier in the week that the Labor/Greens coalition government will once again be debating the legalization of euthanasia in Tasmania.

Australian: A LIBERAL Party branch that could endorse Tony Abbott’s gay sister as a candidate for Sydney lord mayor has written to the Opposition Leader, urging him to allow his MPs and senators a conscience vote on same-sex marriage.

LifeSiteNews: For the first time since researchers began gathering the statistics, Australian women are reaching the end of their fertile years having had fewer than two children.

LifeSiteNews: Nick McKim, the leader of the Greens in the Australian state of Tasmania has announced that he will be introducing a euthanasia bill that will be co-sponsored by Premier Lara Giddings, the leader of the Labour party.

LifeSiteNews: The Communist Party of Australia has weighed in on that nation’s debate over marriage, stating that redefining the age-old institution is a vital pillar of the Marxist war against capitalism and the Church.

Stock and Land: “Abortion is an unpleasant and harrowing experience for women and to hear it is happening repeatedly makes your hair stand on end,” Josephine Quintavalle, of the UK’s Pro-Life Alliance, told the Daily Mail. “These figures show that sadly, abortion is being seen by many as a form of contraception.”

Daily Mail: IVF treatment early in adulthood dramatically increases a woman’s chance of developing breast cancer, research suggests. Women who started taking fertility drugs and went through IVF around their 24th birthday were found to have a 56 per cent greater chance of developing breast cancer than those in the same age group who went through treatments without IVF.

Wesley Smith at First Things: When IVF began, we were told it was only to permit infertile married couples have children. It has since expanded geometrically to become an industry that also includes eugenic options, commercialization of gametes and uteruses, and facilitation of what were once called alternative lifestyles.

Herald Sun: The matters finally reached the Court of Appeal, where it was decided that bisexuals could claim vilification on homosexual grounds depending on the case. | Owen v Menzies & Ors; Bruce v Owen; Menzies v Owen [2012] QCA 170

SMH.com: For the first time, Australia’s same-sex couples who describe themselves as “married” have been recorded in census data.

Wall Street Journal: Australia is turning its back on religion. That’s the latest finding from a census completed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which shows more than one-fifth of the nation’s 21.5 million inhabitants now claim to follow no religion at all.

How Appealing links to reports and the ruling. Religion Clause Blog links to the ruling and provides a brief summary.