Good on you Lyle. You will be an asset to the Australian Conservatives and to Australia.

So many pages....
So little said.

ateday,

In most cases you can get all you need to know by reading the first paragraph then going straight to the last one. A lot of padding that advances nothing goes into most articles - word requirements.

Menzies was a liberal and a very different pony from conservatives. VERY DIFFERENT!

The conservative element need to know the brand of born to rule/divide and rule politics has had its day! Ditto the religious right! And riding to victory on the coattails of the genuine liberals in the coalition!

It's a very long time since we had progressive conservatives.

J.C. was very strong, I believe, in his condemnation of the other variety. Like those money changers in his father's house.

He seems to be on the public record stating one can't serve both God and mannon. And one doesn't need to look very hard to see most conservatives serving mannon? Negative gearing anyone? Subsidized Super? A granny killling GST?

Being able to quote chapter and verse from some holy book and decide to speak for God or know his mind? Doesn't make one a christian.

But may well make one a hidebound, pulpit pounding hypocrite, which I believe is an apt description of most of the conservative element in today's society?
Alan B.

Pretty true; all of it!

A deeply unimpressive manifesto.

>A nation unsure of its past cannot be confident it has a future.

So there's a single acceptable view of our country's history that we all must subscribe to unquestioningly? That doesn't sound like freedom to me. A mark of a mature and open society is the ability to question and debate the facts and meaning of history.

>They knew that without Christian faith there can be no virtue

What a peculiar notion. So presumably Gandhi, Buddha, Socrates, Spinoza (and for that matter Moses) were without virtue?

>When you are called a hater by the Green Rainbow Left for simply for believing that marriage is between one man and one woman, that is not rational debate.

I'm not calling the author a hater because believes that, I'm calling him a hater because he wishes to impose that view on others who don't share his view.

"I'm not calling the author a hater because believes that, I'm calling him a hater because he wishes to impose that view on others who don't share his view."

JBSH ignores the fact that he and his 'haters' have actually had their views 'imposed' on people who are against SSM - LEGALLY.

I wish I had your way with words.
I might try and write some fiction with no base in fact like your essay )which i did not attempt to read all the way through). I would prefer to read some Harry Potter or May Gibbs or the bible if I wanted good fiction.

Lyle and his fellow travellers have had SSM imposed on them in the same way that I've had ice hockey imposed on me.

I'm free to disregard ice hockey and it's enthusiasts, and no one can compel me to participate in it, like it, or approve of it.

Similarly, Lyle and his mates are at liberty to avoid, ignore, criticize and boycott SSM. He just can't stop other doing it, or object when people criticize him for his views.

Hear, hear and well said, JBSH!
Alan B.

The United States Constitution does not contain the word, God. That is because those who wrote the Constitution were aware that in a democracy the religious beliefs of its citizens are none of the government's business. Thomas Jefferson who was quoted by the author expressed many views on religion. In my opinion a very good one was:

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

Jefferson did not prefer Christianity over other forms of superstition.

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

Lyle, I wish you knew what Jefferson was talking about.

Bang on david f.

I think if Lyle is looking to the founding fathers of the American constitution for support in his dogged pursuit of a state with more overt Christian primacy, he'll get a little bit uncomfortable with some of the beliefs he'll do doubt find among those distinguished gentlemen. To wit, Tom Paine, and Thomas Jefferson

“It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.”
― Thomas Paine

“One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."
- Thomas Jefferson

It's not about self-indulgent individuals like JSBH; it's about our society, particularly the young, who are being denied the wisdom of 2,000 years, denied the history of the consequences of foolhardy behaviour.

Applied "conservative" Christian politics 101.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~spanmod/mural/panel13.html
Remember that what is pictured on this image was "authorised" in the name of "God" and for the "glory of 'Christ'" by various Papal Bulls.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~spanmod/mural/panel21.html

Nothing has changed except that the technology and weapons used to accomplish it are far more powerful, and the propaganda used to justify it all is now wall-to-wall all pervasive.

Actions speak louder than ideas.

Given that you want to uphold family values while your leader, Lyle, spits on those values, are you then planning to kick him out of the party, or at least from its leadership?

Your leader, Lyle, has interrupted the lives of about a million Australian families by sending robots to ring their phones without consent (how conservative... robots!).

When the phone rang, the victim-families could have been praying, meditating, or having some quiet family quality time: perhaps they were just reading their children bible stories when the phone interrupted? perhaps they were just teaching them how to resist what leftist teachers tell them in school? Perhaps they were just disciplining their children so they learn to behave more wholesomely and avoid sin? Perhaps they were just saying grace over the dinner table when the phone rang? Or perhaps they were just having a nap so they can be less tired and grumpy and be able to smile and be kinder to their family. A million families were forced to stop whatever they were doing in order to listen to Bernardi's robots.

---

Our freedoms, including religious freedoms, were compromised long ago by anti-discrimination laws - rather than by the recently-amended Marriage Act. Where have the conservative parliamentarians been all those years? It is only now, when anti-discrimination laws begin to threaten CHRISTIAN values that they are suddenly startled from their deep slumber.

How do people who are not Christian fit with your party, or would they even be allowed to remain in Australia had this been completely and truly up to the Conservative Party?