Kevin, your openly professed christianity has been a worry to many from the left of politics, with the fear that it might morph into a yankee-syle fundamentalism that would corrupt the politics of the left, as it has the right in the USA. The Bomber dismayed many with his moral vacuity at the 2001 election during the Tampa crisis, especially as he is also an openly professed christian.

And might I remind you and the Bomber, in parenthesis, that the "Lord's Prayer" has no place on the floor of our parliament, and neither should your god be mentioned in our constitution - see the Indian constitutional preamble and the new South African constitutional preamble for examples of how a truly secular state should characterise itself.

However, the horrors that are unfolding on the domestic political front in the USA under the crazed, god-bothering Bush administration, and the indications that similar distortions of public policy are unfolding here under the Howard hegemony, suggest that maybe we do need leading christians from the left to directly confront christian fundamentalism and its creeping perversion of secular democracy, with a muscular defence of left wing values based on the best of christian principles that we can all agree to, atheists and non-christians included.

Perhaps these times will suit you after all...

I am an atheist who is not the slightest bit concerned with the religious right. Labor's values are the values of others, primarily minority groups of every persuasion. Labor's values have become so vague and confusing, and avoids standing for anything. Think 'tolerance for diversity'. What the hell does that mean?

I agree with Kruddy that religion really has no place in politics in this country. Whilst not an athiest I'm not exactly what you'd call religious either, but it does worry me for some reason when pollies start publicly leaning on God. I don't know why it makes me uneasy and perhaps it shouldn't. Of course it also worries me when committed athiests spruik their beliefs as well. Athiesm is just as much a religious belief as anything else and a lack of God is probably just as scary as a surfeit of same.

The “progressivist” bile that permeates the post-Whitlam ALP has clearly distorts Kevin Rudd’s conception of “family values”. While clearly a vague term, “family values” to mainstream Australia (that is the antithesis of the self-absorbed bourgeois liberal-Left elite) connotes that basic tenet of social conservatism: the traditional family unit/community.

Given the ALP’s severe ideological dislocation with its historical electoral support base – i.e. “mainstream” Australia, it is not surprising many ordinary Australians have abandoned it at the ballot box and local branch meetings.

So long as the ALP hierarchy looks down upon ordinary socially conservative Australians as boors and imbecilic underlings, and the Coalition maintains a relative socially conservative policy platform, the ALP will continue its dismal electoral performance. While it might gain more fervent support from inner city liberal-Left elitists (as it did in the October 2004 election), it will continue to lose the support of mainstream Australia.

With the impending return of yet another progressive hack to the leadership post, the great leaders Curtain and Chiffley will no doubt turn in their graves.

Jimmy's post used the very tired cliche "elites" to describe the left-wing of the ALP and, I presume, leftists like myself outside the ALP.

I'll tell you who the elites are in this country: Kerry Packer, the Murdoch family and wealthy senior politicians like John Howard and Tony Abbott. And it is their values which are being shoved down my throat. Not the other way around. After all, as a working class gay man I have no power to alter family law or marriage legislation. But the Howard Government does.

I am sick of the cliche "family values" which hides a whole host of ugly anti-gay, anti-woman policies. And the term is also a smokescreen behind which Howard and co can hide disasterous economic outcomes such as a record level of homelessness and increasing casualisation of the workforce.

If the ALP seriously started attacking the hypocrisy of "family values" and Howard's anti-family policies they might have a chance of winning. As it is, they merely echo Howard and then predictably lose election after election.

I find Kevin Rudd's article amazing. It is similar to the bitter complaints coming from the Democrats in the US. The Democrats and ALP share an obsession with the Religious Right.

I didn't see any comment from Kevin Rudd about the Religious Left who support the left wing policies of the ALP. The Religious Left are much more politically active than the Religious Right. I suspect that the silence on this left wing group is because they support the ALP.

The Religious Right don't need a lecture from Kevin Rudd on morals. But if the ALP want the support of the Religious Right they need to make their policies attractive to them. I would suggest the ALP do not enjoy the support of the Religious Right because their policies are not attractive to them.

As for the Federal ALP's electoral problems, they need to decide whether they are going to continue being lead by the crazy Left of the Party or start to move into the mainstream. Over to you Kevin Rudd.