Ttbn

In everyday life we are free to hold a low opinion of people for all sorts of reasons. But in institutional setting such as schools and the workplace we provide legal protections for people not to be discriminated against on the basis of characteristics such as race, gender or sexual orientation. The core of this issue is that it pits two important and mutually incompatible rights against each other.

Alan

There are several theories on the cause of homosexuality. It is interesting, but in the end I don’t think it really matters. It is clearly has some basis in biology and is not a lifestyle choice, as was once wrongly assumed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation#:~:text=While%20scientists%20do%20not%20know,%2C%20hormonal%2C%20and%20environmental%20influences.

I hope we’ve moved past having to argue that it’s not “their fault”. It is who they are. While kindly intended, the risk in that kind of argument is treating homosexuality as some sort of disability or biological abnormality.

Slavery and oppression of women were universal in ancient middle eastern cultures (and elsewhere, as far as I know) and it is unrealistic to expect that the bible’s authors would use their writings to argue for abolition and gender equality. And, the Bible is not primarily a moral handbook. Peter Sellick has written of this on OLO far more eloquently than l can.

https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=22230&page=0

Martin Luther King said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”. I hope that Christianity at its best contributes to that process. So far as I know (I’m willing to be corrected) the first societies formally abolish slavery were predominantly Christian countries. Many Christians were prominent abolitionists who used the Bible to support their arguments – eg “In Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28). When Christians try to apply the core principles of our faith – love your neighbour, do not judge, serve others – it is good for society. Unfortunately, we often fail to do that.

Dear Rhian,

There were people in the pre-Christian world who thought slavery was a bad thing. I visited Delphi in Greece. There were many inscriptions there from people who announced that they had freed their slaves. In the year AD 9, the Emperor Wang Mang (r. 9–23 AD) usurped the Chinese throne and, to deprive landowning families of their power, instituted a series of sweeping reforms, including the abolition of slavery and radical land reform. In the New Testament Paul advised slaves to be obedient to their masters, and Jesus never condemned slavery. British industry benefited by supplying factory-made goods in exchange for enslaved people. Profits made in the slave trade provided money for investment in British industry. Banks and insurance companies which offered services to slave merchants expanded and made cities such as London very wealthy. The south in the US Civil War was more Christian than the North. They used such myths as 'the curse of Ham' to support their pro-slavery ideology. Although there were Christians such as Wilberforce who opposed slavery the historical record of Christianity toward slavery is no better and possibly worse than that of the non-Christian world.

Rhian,

If, as you say, "we provide legal protections for people not to be discriminated against on the basis of characteristics such as race, gender or sexual orientation" what is all the fuss about?

Some people are complaining that they are being discriminated against, but you are saying that "we provide legal protection" for such people.

What we need is a list of instances of people who have actually been discriminated against by religious organisations, and how many of them have taken their complaints to the Human Rights Commission for action.

But, this article by Greg Bondar is about the rights of religious schools etc, to have:

. the freedom to employ people of their faith,

. not to be forced to employ anti-Christian and pro-LGBTIQA+ activist teachers who are hostile to the school's biblical beliefs

. not to have the activist teachers indoctrinating beliefs hostile to the school's moral and ethical teachings on the nature of sex, natural marriage, and family

But, you and others have taken the opportunity to turn religious freedom around to supposed freedoms for people definitely out of line with Christian and other religious beliefs to be employed by, or take part in, Christian or other religious organisations.

Greg Bondar, as National Director of Family Voice Australia is concerned about having a Bill to protect religious organisations - not a Bill to protect people who want to hijack religious organisations and force their way into areas when they don't need to be, when there are plenty of schools, employers and so on who will take them in.

Rather than deal with the theme of the article, you have gone into bat for the 'other side'. Religious freedom mean's freedom for religions to act in accordance with their beliefs, not freedom for others to dictate to them or white ant them.

Posted by Rhian
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=22448#390429

Comment 1-
There are several theories on the cause of homosexuality. It is interesting, but in the end I don’t think it really matters. It is clearly has some basis in biology and is not a lifestyle choice, as was once wrongly assumed.
I hope we’ve moved past having to argue that it’s not “their fault”. It is who they are. While kindly intended, the risk in that kind of argument is treating homosexuality as some sort of disability or biological abnormality.

Answer 1- We don't know what the cause of homosexuality but we do know that most people are not homosexual and believe it is incompatible with their lives. But homosexual culture apparently believes in the ideology that the masses must be forced to accept homosexual culture as normal. The possible reasons for homosexuality range from physical changes in the brain due to testosterone in the womb, to psychological (see Jordan Peterson's interview with a sad semi-transitioned girl), to ideological exploitation of human weaknesses. There are birth illnesses that are in a sense similar to homosexuality- but that doesn't mean that we necessarily focus on the illness- but we shouldn't treat it as normal. Children are in a process of finding their identity but parents have a right in my view to influence this process. Ideologues that operate through schools appear to believe that they have a right to influence childrens sexual identity and beliefs- I believe this is probably evil. Sounds very similar to Mao's march through the institutions. Interesting that leftists often ascribe everything to nurture over nature but in this case they seem to ascribe it to nature.

We can't fix everything- and we should try to be kind, but some use peoples better nature to destroy them, some will never want to fit in dynamically opposing whatever the community does to adjust to the "needs", then they blame the community for being prejudice- sounds very similar to Trotsky's concept of permanent revolution- at some stage it needs to be recognised that to adapt to people and counter cultures in the name of anti-prejudice comprises your own principles and culture and community. It seems that the only solution here is to create a semi-autonomous region so that those people can government themselves according to their own principles. But if their aim is to destroy the host then obviously they won't agree to that.

Comment 2-
Slavery and oppression of women were universal in ancient middle eastern cultures (and elsewhere, as far as I know) and it is unrealistic to expect that the bible’s authors would use their writings to argue for abolition and gender equality.

Answer 2-
Perhaps most people were oppressed in ancient cultures.

Comment 3-
And, the Bible is not primarily a moral handbook.

Answer 3-
Perhaps Rhian isn't in the position to say what The Bible is primarily. And I think perhaps Rhian misunderstood Galatians 3:28.

Our sexual bias is determined by 4 sex centres at the base of the brain, two for females and two for males. Sexual attraction and drive or libido.

If the wrong 2 are firing, then the sexual attraction will be for the same sex.

We can surgically burn out any inappropriate sexual basis and make relate solely to the gender of the individual.

Instead, we spend a veritable fortune on try to alter the gender to fit what the individuals feels is them.

We could do a simple procedure at birth to eliminate inappropriate sexual bias.

In males we could simply burn out the two female responders and ditto male responders for female babies.

A tiny electrode is inserted, and an equally tiny electric current is used to do the painless job.

In adults it is possible to see what sexual centres fires/lights up via thermal imaging up utilising sexual stimuli to establish for all time, that sexual bias is never ever a matter of choice, regardless of what the truly ignorant and their equally abysmally ignorant holy books say!

It's like an erection, breathing or your heartbeat, a truly autonomous natural reflex.
Alan B.