True Howard is partial in what he uses and when but so is labour!

The name of the game is winning and if a moral quote serves use it if critical divert attention or deny, quoting of course relevant authority. Such authority can usually be found though searching the Bible can be tedious and searching the legal literature certainly is!

Labour was on the back foot over the Iraq venture and was somewhat subdued in opposing, and anyway most Australians emotionally anyway see the USA connection as necessary and protective.

At the time the evidence for denial of the UN was masked by the media hype, none the less a return to ‘might is right’ was seen by a number of lawyers. The rest of us probable more emotional under the use of fear rather than fact as a driver, not uncommon in politics.

So if you want the high ground you must tell the whole story not politically cherry pick!

Peter I can't help feeling your voice has been muted since joining a political party. Your music was upfront, what about ceasing financial support for all things religious, we could start with schools.
While watching parliamentary broadcasts I choke with the hypocritical reciting of the lords prayer, and what about the presence of the church in the front row when Horta was inaugurated after the prime minister was outed "because he was educated in a country known to be socialist"

How much involvement did the church have? After my reading seems to me he was doing an admirable job in building an economy in spite of Australia's greed and need to control all things gaseous.

I miss the political the sense in your music.

fluff

I am only one of those ordinary citizen that provide the backbone to our society.
There is no fuzziness about where the demarcation lines are, they are quite simple to me.The fundamental difference is our democratic values versus religious values.
Our elected representatives have every right to wear their religious beliefs on their sleeves but it should never be forgotten that they do represent the cross section of the community that elected them.
They have a moral obligation to represent the diversity of their electorate including people that have no religious affinity.
It is presumptuous to believe that any religious philosophy has the monopoly of being right.
Some politicians make a lot of fuss about our so-called Judeo-Christian values.The fundamental values have become an excuse to re write History and proclaim the superiority of these values.
It is only our democratic values that permit the explosion of American type of evangelical missionaries promulgating the gloom of a decadent society if Judeo-Christian values are not adhered to.
Perhaps the best example of a " decadent society " could be taken from a country that does actually separate Church from State.
France is not doing better than anyone else but it certainly is not doing worse.
It is about time that politicians that wear their democratic values under their sleeves roll them up.
Ordinary people like myself are ready to back them.

Nobby

Dear Peter

I admire the clarity with which you have pointed out the failings of the Howard regime in its two-faced conditional acceptance of conservative church dogma when it suits.

I note that even pacificts have had to embrace violence and that raises its own questions about slavish reliance on churchy dogmatic approaches to problems best tackled with secular objectives.

I hope your voice is heard in many forums and your call to balance is appreciated and endorsed by a thinking electorate.

I take it Peter has no hassle with people wearing their secular religous values or non values on their sleeves. Wake up, people believing in God can not and will not put their Creator in one compartment of their lives while those who don't believe in God and in fact want to play God are not ashamed to promote their values.

Peter you avoid moral issues such as the murder of approximately 80000 unborn babies in our nation each year and then want to get on some high horse about the morality of keeping someone locked up who trained with the Taliban and was prepared to fight against Australian soldiers. You speak about the war in Iraq knowing quite well that Mr Beazley would of also sent troops in also.

Much of your party agrues about the separation of church and state and then you speak about what Australia's Christian response should be. You, Mr Rudd and many in the Coalition who name the name of Christ certainly send out a lot of mixed messages

Pete, if I were you I'd concentrate on understanding the complex issue of how to vote.

Fancy that, no prosectution. It must be nice being above the law. I bet the great unwashed wished that they could get a free pass instead of being fined.