Pericles, I agree with you that of course Reist is not obliged to discuss anything she doesn't want to discuss. For me, however, this particular refusal seriously undermines her credibility.

As she is a public figure urging moral values on society, I am quite within my rights to question her credibility on any grounds I feel are relevant. I have no obligation to remain silent if I'm uncomfortable with her values.

I don't know if her campaigns are as they are because of her Christian beliefs. That is the question I'm asking, that she will not answer.

While Reist doesn't baldly assert they are Christian, she also refuses to say that they are not. It wouldn't be very difficult to state that her campaigns are nothing to do with her faith. She has not done this.

What she does say is that people thinking her campaigns are influenced by her faith will damage the campaigns. This is not an answer to the question, and it doesn't tell us if her campaigns are founded in Christianity or not. It only tells us that she doesn't want people thinking they are.

If the campaigns are solidly founded in the Christian faith, that is no reason for disqualifying them out of hand, I agree. However, I need to know what Reist's vision of a moral universe is. If it is entirely based on Christian values I have big problems with that, and the first one is, what kind of Christian values, as there are many. Fundamentalist? Homophobic? Anti choice? Liberal?

Reist can very easily resolve all this speculation about her agenda by saying if it's based on her Christian beliefs or not, and if it is, what kind of Christian beliefs.

I understand that some people don't care one way or the other. But some people do care, I'm one of them, and we have a right to ask the questions and have them answered before we decide if we are supportive of Reist's moral values or not.

Pericles,
I think you are getting close.

Feminism is very much a derivative of Marxism, and of course Marxists were very much into interrogation and mind control.

The person was interrogated for their beliefs, and if those beliefs did not conforms to the party’s beliefs, then systems of mind control and “re-education” followed.

Millions died in those “re-education” camps.

People have a right to their privacy and their own private thoughts and beliefs, and do not have to give those beliefs to some feminist or feminist party to see whether their beliefs conform to the feminist's beliefs.

Religion and religious feelings may not be something that can be adequately expressed verbally anyway, but a Marxist/feminist may not be able to understand this, or understand feelings.

just for the record, though I agree with your premise that your faith informs your life and viewpoints etc, i feel your attitude is an attacking attitude. (I say this because my earlier post stated that i agreed with nearly everything you had said... this is to qualify that i don't (personally)agree with the way you have said it).

Jennifer as another former christian I'm not so certain that it's viable to seperate out which parts of your thinking are christain and which are not. There may occasionally be specific parts of your thinking were that's the case but for the most part my experience was it's all so interwoven that it's not easily seperated out.

By the same token I doubt that most non-christians are readily able to seperate out specific parts of their thinking from their own background vs purely reasoned conclusions nor do we generally require disclosure of all the factors which might have contributed to certain viewpoints. A rape victim might hold similar views but not necessarily realise the degree to which that horror impacted on their thinking nor be required to disclose that.

No fan of MTR's on a number of fronts. As others have already pointed out I think that the real issue is the very negative approach she takes to male sexuality and her apparent desire to impose maternalistic impositions on the rights of others (both men and women).

Where there is a clear conflict of interest it should be declared.

On the other hand I wonder how many of MTR's feminist supporters felt the same way when it was Tony Abbott as health minister who's faith appeared to be impacting on his thinking. Was his faith off limit's as a topic of discussion?

R0bert

The thing about "Tony Abbott as health minister who's faith appeared to be impacting on his thinking" was that seems to align closely with MTR and what she was espousing at the same time.

They both focused on certain selective aspects of RU486 without indicating they had sought balanced medical advice from, say, a college (or other collection) of gynecologists/obstetricians about its use.

Jennifer, you said: "we have a right to ask the questions and have them answered before we decide if we are supportive of Reist's moral values or not."

No, you have a right to know what those moral values are, not how she came to have them. Either you agree with her points or not. You don't have to agree with her entire belief system to agree that, I don't know, maybe that pornography objectifies women. Either you think it does or doesn't. What's Christianity and which brand MTR adheres to have to do with it? Maybe she's non-denominational. But you don't have any "right" to know.

All the same, I think MTR should be more open and she certainly shouldn't have sued you. She sued you?! But the principle stands - you don't have a right to know anything more than she cares to tell you.