WA election on 9 March, 2013

The Western Australian election is on Saturday 9 March, 2013.

Check out our WA Election page - with the Christian Values Checklist, links to the official election website and candidate lists - and information on Legislative Council VOTING TICKETS.

Click here.

Abortion advocate admits life begins at conception

In a recent article in Salon.com to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the US Roe v Wade abortion decision, Mary Elizabeth Williams conceded that life begins at the moment of conception. However, she maintains that the choice of the woman takes precedence over the life of the baby. She concludes her essay, "And I would put the life of a mother over the life of a fetus every single time — even if I still need to acknowledge my conviction that the fetus is indeed a life. A life worth sacrificing."

We need to know how these people who support abortion actually think - and what is behind their arguments.

* Read Mary Elizabeth Williams article at Salon.com  (also attached)
So what if abortion ends life?

Albert Mohler responded to the article, in a piece titled,  “So What if Abortion Ends a Life? Rare Candor from the Culture of Death"
He wrote, "The question is horrifying, but the argument was all too real. In a recent article, Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon.com conceded what the pro-life movement has contended all along — that from the moment of conception the unborn child is undeniably a human life. And yet, Williams argues that this unborn human life must be terminated if a woman desires an abortion. The child is a life, but, in her grotesque view, “a life worth sacrificing.” . . .

* Read Albert Mohler’s article: So What if Abortion Ends a Life? Rare Candor from the Culture of Death 

Naomi Wolf made a similar admission in 1995
This isn’t the first time that supporters of abortion have conceded this – in 1995, feminist Naomi Wolf admitted that life starts at conception, and urged fellow abortion advocates to “contextualize the fight to defend abortion rights within a moral framework that admits that the death of a fetus is a real death.” However, she still claimed it was still a woman’s right to have an abortion.

Read Naomi Wolf’s 1995 essay, Our bodies, our souls. 
Originally published on October 16, 1995 in The New Republic.

Free speech - and Geert Wilders

It’s amazing that, right here in Australia, meetings have to be held in secret because of security risks and a fear of protests; and venue operators are refusing to rent their premises or cancelling contracts and pulling out of hosting lectures for fear of reprisals.

Criticism by political leaders
Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who is currently on a speaking tour of Australia, is being criticised by commentators and politicians. Various political leaders have said he is a ‘right-wing extremist’ (the Attorney-General) or his views are ‘abhorrent’ (Prime Minister) and some are warning he could be prosecuted under Victoria’s Racial and Religious Tolerance laws. The Victorian Minister for Multicultural Affairs said, “He is wrong, he is misinformed”. A Coalition of community and church groups has issued a ‘statement’ supporting ‘multiculturalism (and opposing him). Details of these comments are below. Read the letter - click here

Protests planned
Apparently left-leaning socialist activist groups are planning protests at Geert’s Australian meetings – and using social media to promote the protests (for example, see this Socialist Alliance blogspot post.)

Free speech?
What happened to ‘free speech’? What happened to the statement attributed to Voltaire, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” You may not agree with everything Geert says, but we need to uphold free speech whilst we still have it. If you are in Melbourne, Perth or Sydney you might want to hear him speak this week – click here.

On Geert Wilders...
Geert Wilders has studied Islam in detail. His book, Marked for Death, explores the origin of Islam and highlights how Islam is a political ideology. For the past nine years, following death threats, Geert has lived in a government safe house, being transported by his bodyguards in an armoured car to his office at the Dutch parliament. Geert is a secularist, describing himself as an agnostic, but in his book he highlights the benefits of the Judeo-Christian culture.

Geert has an insightful Opinion article in The Australian today.

Sam Solomon - former Muslim
Travelling with Geert is Sam Solomon, a gracious Christian man from the UK who is very concerned about the spread of Islam. He also works with Christian Concern in the UK.
Sam knows about Islam from first hand experience – prior to becoming a Christian, Sam was a Muslim and an Islamic jurist, having studied shari’a law for 15 years.
Read more about Sam’s story here.
Sam has written about Islamic immigration (book and review) and testified at the US Congress and the British Parliament.

We had the privilege of meeting both of these men at lunch today and found them to be gracious in their speech and manner.

More on those critical comments from leaders
However, many of our political leaders, and much of the media, don’t even want to listen to the message, let alone take notice of it.

Some of the critical comments from our leaders are very concerning:

* Prime Minister Julia Gillard was reported, by The Australian, as saying yesterday that Geert Wilders views are “abhorrent”.

* Last week Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said, on the ABC, that Mr Wilders is a “right-wing extremist” (source)."radical, right-wing racist."

* A coalition of 24 groups issued a joint statement today, opposing the visit, saying they supported Victoria's "multicultural and multifaith community". The statement said, "We welcome challenging ideas and debate, however, inciting hatred and animosity towards specific cultural or faith-based communities has no place in Victoria." The Coalition included the AFL, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne, the Victorian Multicultural Commission, the Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, the Victorian Council of Churches and the Islamic Council of Victoria (source).

Read the letter - click here

* The Chair of the Victorian Multicultural Commission, Chin Tan, said "To the extent that he might may say something or in a particular manner that has legal implications, I'm sure someone or the police may take it up.'' (source)

* The Victorian Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Nick Kotsiras, said, “He is wrong, he is misinformed”. (source)

* Lateline’s Tony Jones did an interview with Geert last week. The tone of the interview was somewhat ‘hostile’, but Geert responded well to the statements made. (Lateline interview)

Concluding comments...

Did any of these leaders go to hear Geert Wilders or ask to meet him whilst he was in Australia? Have they read his book?

We have just had a situation where an Australian Senator, Nick Xenophon, was deported from Malaysia and everyone was up in arms. But they want to ban Dutch MP Geert Wilders, or at least his ‘views’, here in Australia!

Regarding the intense security surrounding Mr Wilders’ visit, as Andrew Bolt commented this morning, “If criticising Islam requires this much protection, there must be something to criticise.” Andrew Bolt blog.

Media articles:

FIRST, Geert Wilders in his own words:
Islamification of Western societies threatens everyone's freedoms, The Australian, 18/2/2013.

Media reports:

Protests likely as controversial Dutch MP Geert Wilders changes venue, Herald Sun, 18/2/2013.

Dutch MP Wilders asked to learn from Vic, AAP, 18/2/2013.

Doors slamming on anti-Islam MP, The Australian, 18/2/2013.

Islam - 'Peace Conference' in Melbourne in March

A major Islamic festival is scheduled for 15–17 March in Melbourne. The event, called the ‘Australian Islamic Peace Conference’, will be held at the Melbourne Showgrounds. Islamic organisations and imams from across Australia are involved with the event, which is being organised by the Islamic Research and Education Academy (IREA).

Billboards are now going up around Melbourne and people are expressing concern about the conference.

The organisers say it will be the ''largest, the biggest and the best-ever Islamic event in the history of Australia'' and are expecting 20,000 Muslims and others to attend. Waseem Razi, of IREA, says the conference aims to “unite Islamic organisations’, “build bridges between Muslims and mainstream Australia” and to “build bridges to secular authorities” (they’ve invited politicians, police and the Lord Mayor!).

On the Aussie Muslims website, Mr Razi says, this is “the need of the Hour - Unity of Muslim Ummah. This will be the first time that the entire Ummah of Australia will be truly coming together.” In the lead-up to the conference, organisers plan to train 1,000 Muslims in ''dawah'' or proselytism for Islam.

The conference will feature Muslim speakers – however, a range of people from other faiths (including Anglican and Catholic Archbishops) have also been invited to participate in an ‘Interfaith Dialogue’ in an effort to promote ‘’interfaith harmony’.

Along with numerous international speakers, one of the featured attractions is Dr Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, the imam at the mosque in Mecca.

In December 2012 there was an article about the conference in The Age, by religion writer Barney Zwartz, reporting on this conference. In the article, Dr Mark Durie, an expert on Islam, expressed concern at the inclusion of Dr al-Sudais. He pointed out that the imam has made strident statements against Jews, calling for their annihilation and referring to them as 'scum' and ''rats'. The article reported that Dr Durie said he 'believes Dr al-Sudais should be refused a visa.' The Age headline said 'Fiery imam invited to speak here'. 

The organisers responded, saying the imam wouldn’t be ‘speaking’ – he would just be reciting the Koran in Arabic!

In his blog, Mark Durie elaborated on what Dr al-Sudais said about Jews; that Dr al-Sudais had referred to them as “‘the scum of the human race, rats of the world, violators of pacts and agreements, murderers of the prophets, and grandsons of apes and pigs’ (see here for a contemporary Kuwaiti news report, and here for MEMRI’s translation).” (Link to Mark's blog.)

Dr Durie gave details of passages from the Koran that speak unfavourably about the Jews in the way the imam does – and asked if the imam will be reciting those passages at the ‘Peace Conference’.

Mark concluded, “What sense are the people of Melbourne meant to make of the proposition that they needn’t worry that the preacher has called for the annihilation of Jews, because he was only speaking Arabic? 
"If something is offensive in English, it is no less offensive in classical Arabic, however expertly and mellifluously it may be intoned.”

Please PRAY and ACT about this conference -
Pray that Australians will be discerning about the 'peace' message of this conference.
Ask the Immigration Minister, Brendan O'Connor ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) not to grant Dr al-Sudais a visa.

Sources:
Media report: Fiery imam invited to speak here - The Age, 12 Dec 2012.

Dr Mark Durie’s article: Hatred Sounds Sweeter in Arabic?, Dec 14, 2012.

Conference details – on the IREA website.
Comments about the conference – Aussie Muslims website
Conference Facebook page – click here. (Includes photo of Billboard.)

Same-sex 'marriage' votes in the UK and France

The parliaments of France and the United Kingdom have both voted on the issue of same-sex ‘marriage’ this week. In both cases, the initial votes have supported same-sex ‘marriage’. Full details on the votes below...

Activists in Australia are already claiming that the tide is turning and that Australia needs to ‘catch up’ by legalising same-sex ‘marriage'.

PLEASE VOTE NOW: Today’s Yahoo poll highlights the continuing push…
The poll is on the Yahoo website under the heading ‘Today’s poll’ (It is under the headlines section - or search for ‘poll’.)
The question: Should Australia pass gay marriage legislation?
Please vote NO! The current vote is Yes 45% (5639); No 55% (6980)

This report provides details on the votes in the UK and France, the threat to the church, and the continuing push for same-sex ‘marriage’ in Australia.

1. France – same-sex ‘marriage’ vote
France’s National Assembly took its first vote on the controversial same-sex ‘marriage’ Bill this week. The National Assembly voted 249-97 in favour of ‘Article 1’ of the Bill – which re-defines marriage as being an ‘agreement between two people’ rather than between ‘a man and a woman’.

The Bill will be debated for another week – up to 5,000 amendments have been proposed by conservatives. The legislation also includes adoption and parenting rights. Initially, Francois Hollande’s Socialist government proposed labelling parents as ‘Parent 1’ and ‘Parent 2’ on their children’s birth certificates – but they have now conceded that heterosexual parents can have the option of retaining ‘mother’ and ‘father’.

The final vote is scheduled for February 12, 2013.
Media reports: France 24 - The Australian

2. UK House of Commons votes for same-sex ‘marriage’
The UK's Conservative government, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, is pushing same-sex ‘marriage’ through the parliament. The UK House of Commons voted on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill on 5 February – the Bill passed by 400 votes to 175.

But 136 of the 303 Conservative Party MPs OPPOSED the Bill, including two cabinet ministers, eight junior ministers, and eight whips. “Of the remaining Conservative MPs, 127 were in favour, 35 did not vote, and five registered an abstention by voting both in favour and against.”

This was the second reading (in principle support) vote. Aspects of the Bill will be examined in detail and then a third reading, or final, vote will be taken. If passed by the House, the Bill will then go to the UK House of Lords.

The Conservative government ignored the petition signed by 600,000 people opposing it. Prime Minister David Cameron also ignored the challenge from the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rt Rev Justin Welby, who said, on his first day in his new office this week, that marriage should remain "between a man and a woman". Media report – Telegraph.

The opposition to same-sex ‘marriage’ has been growing - the Church of England sent an 8 page Briefing Paper to every MP, warning of the problems and opposing the same-sex ‘marriage’ Bill. Many sections of the Conservative Party opposed the move. The Telegraph reported, “A group of 20 Tory constituency chairmen delivered a letter of protest to Downing Street warning the Prime Minister that the reform could cause "significant damage" to Tory election chances in 2015."

Christian Concern reports that more MPs voted against the Bill than expected – more Conservatives voted against it than for it; and some Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs voted against the Bill, despite pressure to support the Bill.

Christian Concern says that there is still a long way to go before same-sex ‘marriage’ becomes law in the UK. They urge those in the UK to contact their MPs – and to pray about this issue.

Praying is something we can do as well, here in Australia!

References:
- Christian Concern - Report on the vote.
- Briefing Paper prepared by the Coalition For Marriage - This 14 page Briefing provides an excellent overview of the issue.
- List of MP votes 
- Media reports of the vote - BBC

3. Threat to the church
The legislation says that churches will not be forced to ‘marry’ same-sex couples. However, concern has been expressed that homosexuals may lodge complaints about ‘discrimination’ by churches and that the law may be challenged in the European Court of Human Rights.

Already homosexuals in the UK are saying they want to get ‘married’ in Church of England churches. The media is happy to assist their cause. One male couple, who said they had been together for 25 years and had five children through surrogacy, were interviewed on ABC News and 7.30 (watch and/or read transcript). They said they were ‘practicing Christians’ and they wanted to get ‘married “in the eyes of God” in their local village church!

Although the Church of England has opposed same-sex ‘marriage’, they recently allowed homosexuals, who are in a civil union, to be a bishop (so long as they followed the Church’s guidelines on sex only within marriage!).

4. The continuing campaign in Australia
Media reports in Australia have highlighted the British vote. Ironically, we were recently told that, when Australia rejected same-sex ‘marriage’ last year, the British mainstream press hardly mentioned it!

Australian homosexual activist Alex Greenwich is already using the UK vote to say that conservatives should change their view on same-sex ‘marriage’ in Australia. He said, "It would be great to see (Federal Opposition Leader) Tony Abbott showing the same leadership on this reform as a conservative leader. It is embarrassing that Australia now continues to fall behind the rest of the English-speaking world when it comes to marriage equality.” (Media report – Daily Telegraph)

The ABC interviewed Peter Tatchell, an Australian homosexual activist living in the UK. Naturally, he used the opportunity to urge Australia to pass similar laws. Peter Tatchell is the co-ordinator of the UK’s ‘Equal Love’ campaign which is calling for same-sex ‘marriage’.

Ironically, ten years ago Peter Tatchell was very critical of homosexuals who wanted ‘marriage’. Brendan O’Neill wrote a very insightful article last year about Tatchell’s change of ‘policy’. O’Neill wrote, “What a turnaround! Ten years ago he wrote a brilliant, blistering assault on gay rights activists who demanded the right to marry, denouncing their desire to “embrace traditional heterosexual aspirations” and slamming them for having “succumbed to the Blairite politics of conformism, respectability and moderation”. He railed against the “career campaigners” who had “infused the gay movement with their own cautious respectable values”. They “crave acceptance and advancement”, he said, which is why they forefront “safe, cuddly issues like gay marriage”.”
Read Brendan O’Neill’s article.

This isn't the only thing he's changed his mind about! Peter Tatchell also USED to say that homosexuality was NOT genetic (read the article on his website). However, in a recent debate, Tatchell claimed that it IS genetic. Peter Saunders, of the Christian Medical Fellowship notes that Peter Tatchell takes whatever view is "politically convenient at the time"! (Read article)

Interestingly, Rodney Croome, the new co-ordinator of Australian Marriage Equality (the main Australian group of campaigning for same-sex ‘marriage’), used to promote the Tasmanian Relationship Register as being “beyond marriage”, saying he was “an advocate of civil union schemes that go beyond marriage (source) rather than meagrely imitating it.” At the same time, he acknowledged that some people may want full ‘marriage’. (Article, Article) 

Concluding comments

Stay tuned for updates (in our E-News) on the further votes in both the UK and France. Please pray about the votes to be held next week in France and the UK.

Please continue to be vigilant about this issue in Australia.
The homosexual activists will continue campaigning behind the scenes – as well as in public!
We must continue to communicate our concerns to our politicians.

If you didn’t VOTE on the Yahoo poll, please vote NOW – click here.