Mjpb,

You completely failed to address Rob and others' concerns with your previous email.

Your statement that you've heard of a magazine article promoting the advantages of being gay and your anecdotal experience of someone giving you a gay sales pitch do not justify your earlier assertion: "... if you read a few threads in these forums homosexuals are constantly promoting."

You're being dishonestly alarmist.

mjpb, "When was the last time you had to dodge someone on the street to avoid a tract? That used to happen in my lifetime but I haven't seen it for a long time. Have you?" - probably about three weeks ago and I've not used my normal city train station much in the last two weeks. We still get them around Brisbane streets fairly regularly.

A lot of local churches also have a habit up having large sign boards out the front where the minister puts his witty comment for the week to show passing motorists. Often evangelistic in nature.

Others have already made the point about the difference between your claims of homosexuality being promoted on OLO vs having heard about an article somewhere (or some people giving you their testemony). I have seen some guys on this site expressing views about women similar to the ones you mention but to the best of my knowledge they are straight guys who have been badly burned by the family law system. Not really gay promotion.

I can't see any "flood of gay persuasion communication". Barely a trickle as long as I don't look at a section of the magazine rack at the newsagents.

My understanding is the more traditional church schools such as the Anglican ones tend to have staff members from a variety of beliefs but that most of the newer ones associated with evangelical churches tend to go for an all staff are christains approach. I've seen a number of documents from different schools which all have the same message.

Some samples of regional schools I'm familiar with.

http://www.kings.net.au/college_Site/staff.htm and http://www.kings.net.au/college_Site/philosophy.htm

http://www.redlands.qld.edu.au/Overview/school_main.htm

http://www.calvarycc.qld.edu.au/Main.aspx?ArticleID=b41f0330-1ce5-41c1-8804-965600f91c9f&AreaID=a958b018-ae0d-427c-b893-628537325981

http://www.calvarycc.qld.edu.au/Main.aspx?ArticleID=9dc26e32-e85f-40bf-9738-965600f8d98c&AreaID=a958b018-ae0d-427c-b893-628537325981

http://hcc.auzgc.com/mission.asp
http://hcc.auzgc.com/staff.asp

That should give you a start on the evangelism and employement discrimination stuff.

Part 1 of 2

R0bert

Part 2 of 2

mjpb,

Christmas and Easter but also a variety of other public celebrations. I gather Billy Graham's boy was out not so long ago. You could also consider christain prayers in parliment.

I don't know the public funding for differing christain events but did hear the other day that a muslim event being held up here had received a large sum of money to help stage that event ($20K I think). That may come out of a different bucket to the ones the churches can get at.

w - I don't think that it is the case that all donations to churches are tax deductable. Churches get a bunch of tax and rates breaks but general offerings did not used to be tax deductable.

R0bert

“You completely failed to address Rob and others' concerns with your previous email.”

Rob can take care of himself. But what concerns does he have that need to be addressed?

”Your statement that you've heard of a magazine article promoting the advantages of being gay and your anecdotal experience of someone giving you a gay sales pitch do not justify your earlier assertion: "... if you read a few threads in these forums homosexuals are constantly promoting."”

They were just a response to "I've not seen a single post on OLO (or any other type of communication) where a gay is suggesting that I should become one."

Is it possible you have skipped a few posts including the promoting discussion?

”You're being dishonestly alarmist.”

I hope not. What are you alarmed about? Bosy apparently denying human rights or something to do with the concerns you referred to?

“about three weeks ago“

There you go. O : It still happens.

”Others have already made the point …”

Please everyone feel free to read everything I write even if I address it to Snout.

Thank you for elaborating on the school thing and for distinguishing between the types of schools.

“That should give you a start on the evangelism and employement discrimination stuff.”

That is probably a good way to characterize it.

”Christmas and Easter but also a variety of other public celebrations. I gather Billy Graham's boy was out not so long ago. You could also consider christain prayers in parliment.”

I expect Billy’s boy’s audience were probably mainly Pentecostal and it wasn’t broadcast on TV but it was presumably technically public (does the audience pay a fee and does that change anything?). The public are entitled to watch the proceedings of parliament (if they can stomach it) so that is public too …

mjpb, you may be correct about the make up of the audience at Junior Graham's do but I've always had the impression that dad at least was not penticostal (I don't know much about junior).

You are correct I've not read every post and may have missed a gay promotion thread but I'm fairly confident that if such posts exist they are very rare compared to the ongoing attempts to evangelise by some christain posters.

"Please everyone feel free to read everything I write even if I address it to Snout." was that a tongue in cheek comment, if so don't expect anything posted on a forum to be private. Not sure if I understood you there.

We've drifted somewhat off topic here. My central point is that BD's original premise about the judicary and minorities falls kind of flat when you consider how extreme and biased the views of some others can be.

The suggestion that homosexuals should be denied housing because somebody else might not want to live next to them being a case in point. I make the point that some christains might be a lot more difficult to live next door to than a gay couple (but not all). I've supported that view with some reasons and we seem to have got bogged down in debating the fine points.

BD does have a point, the judicary needs to keep their own issues out of their jobs and should be accountable for that. Where he misses is in the idea that christain white guys are better able to do so than others.

R0bert