coach what do you mean by moderate imams? FH's definition or yours. I'm guessing your version of a moderate imam is a former imam who has see the light of christ shining through your witness (some sarcasim in that comment), repented of his muslim beliefs and become a born again christian (probably penticostal but I'm not sure of that yet).

Likewise just because FH did not give the particular response you wanted does not mean that he is being evasive. BD did not respond the way I wanted to questions I asked recently (and often won't even respond to Scout's questions). In the case of the questions I asked BD I'm assuming that he answered the questions the way he understands the issues. I think BD was not being evasive but rather responding out his own understanding of the issues which I take to be something like "God can't be bad so therefore everything he does is good".

Can I also point out that most of us probably have got the message that you think your message and god are pretty special. Shouting it loudly repeatedly may not actually help anybodies willingness to accept that message. Maybe a demonstration of "the fruits of the spirit" might be more in order. Sorry not a lot of christain examples I can point to here. In my view Sells comes closest and every now and then BD gives it a go (more practice might help). Maybe you could have a look at the tone of most of FH's posts and his tollerance and politeness in the face of persistant abuse and attack - you might have to put aside your distaste for the actual content of those posts.

R0bert

Hi Leigh,
I guess it is a matter of perspective, i'm of the (possibly delusional) belief that the government is representative of the population and therefore legislation does reference it. I think that is the idea anyway, whether or not it works like that in practice is another debate.

Con

Thank you for your article.

As a "baby-boomer", I grew up with: Italians, Greeks, Ukraines, Czechs (spelling?), Yugoslavs. They were mostly farming families. We all went to a public school together. We played marbles together. We played sport together. We had fun.

Each morning, the School Principal lined us up on dots around the square. He rang the bell and raised the flag. We sang the National Anthem - together. And then Mr Fisher would check: handkerchiefs, lunch, shoes. If kids did not have any of these he notified his wife, who provided same.

What a happy family we had. In their stilted language, they called themselves "Aussies". They were so proud. Religious preferences were not an issue (except between the Catholics and the Anglicans!).

Leigh's comment about hyphenated Australians is spot on!

Cheers
Kay

Why do we even bother with multicultualism? Its a waste of time and more of a political stunt to gain economic growth in trade as well as a few more votes for a party to gain senate seats than to actually help our social growth as a nation.

There needs to be balance and all i see at the moment is black and white. No grey, if it were up to me i would be reforming our immigration/education/industrial growth dramaticly with indiscriminate and fair rules. Allowing Australians 95% of the workforce in a buisness or company for and just 5% of immigrated labor for a small buisness 10% for a company.

Also more to the point, i absolutely agree on Mulims having to forfeit their culture for our "western ways" simply because Its ou country and if you dont like it leave... blunt as a cudgel on a soft babys head.
specificly what are western ways in a multiculture society anyway? Its not like we march down the streets with pitchforks and tearing into pork all day long.

"And the twin failure of multiculturalism and integration is written in the stars.". So the answer is....?

(There were meant to be three question marks there but the auto-screening system said "There is no need for than many question marks. Remove them to continue." Graham Young - it should be "that many question marks" not "than many question marks". Please fix this up for the pedantic among us.)

Con,
Your name is right.
White Australia has been trying get the black Aborigine to cast off anything incompatible with Western culture for 225 years. Politicians even had the white Australian Policy enshrined in legislation.
What we could do is legislate to take the Muslim babies off Muslims if they do not cast off their non-Muslim ways. Just an idea.