Australia’s [now ex] prime minister, Kevin Rudd, provides as good a Christian response to the corrupters of the gospel as you’re likely to hear.
He follows up here.
Update. Tony Abbott’s Liberal-National Party coalition (that is, the political conservatives) has just scored a decisive win over Labour’s Rudd in Saturday’s Australian general election. Abbott is an opponent of marriage equality.
Alas, it’s the same old story: In terms of policy, Rudd is a big tax, big spending, big government (put pro gay marriage) guy; Abbott is much more fiscally responsible but bad on equality for gay Australians.
As it has done in Britain (and, to some extent, Canada), the fight for gay legal equality has got to break free of the left and find a home within conservatism. The U.S. and Australia lag far behind in this regard. And yes, to a large extent this is because of the strength of anti-gay religious rightists in America and Down Under; but it’s also a fact that the LGBT activist movement here is run by those whose self-identity is innately bound up with being on the left and supporting the expansion of the regulatory state.
17 Comments for “Standing Up to Fundamentalism: Lessons from Down Under”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
It is a good thing when “We aren’t all like that …” Christians speak up in opposition to the haters. I wish we saw more of it, in this country and elsewhere.
posted by Doug on
A breath of fresh air. American politicians of both parties rarely say anything that isn’t a poll tested sound bite or a talking point crafted to attract some specific voter demographic. It’s sad we have come to this.
posted by Don on
I think Dan Savage’s NALT project is brilliant. You can’t sit quietly on the sidelines anymore. State your position that they’re Not All Like That or not. Silence equals approval. They have no excuse being silent anymore. And maybe this will shift the media from getting the “Christian” perspective and have it be a fire-breathing hater every time.
posted by Jorge on
Ehhhhh, this is Dan Savage we’re talking about here. He’s been known to say and do some wacky things himself. Something tells me it’s not a good idea to take his side too many times in a row. It may create a precedent allowing moderate Christian conservatives to take the side of their radicals in turn. In the war between the far-left and the far-right, sometimes silence speaks the loudest.
Still, by Mr. Savage’s account, it wasn’t him who approached the “Not All Like That” Christians in the first place…
posted by Tom Scharbach on
A good idea is a good idea, whomever it comes from …
I hope, without much expectation, that the NALT project will be as successful as “It Gets Better” has proven to be.
NALT provides a vehicle for pew Christians (long effectively silenced by the media attention focused on Tony Perkins, Brian Brown, Bryan Fischer, Peter LaBarbera, Janet Mefferd and the rest, to the exclusion on Christians who actually practice the faith) to speak up for themselves. It has got to help if it catches on.
Whether or not NALT is the right vehicle, it is time for pro-equality Christians to start speaking up loudly and clearly.
posted by Jorge on
My point was he claims they were the ones who told him “hey we’re not all like that.” If someone’s fool enough to try to tell him that, then the world deserves its fate.
Dan Savage may well turn out to be this generation’s Harvey Milk, only instead of a leadership of direct influence, he is leading by example. Well, I don’t know if Milk did or didn’t do the same thing. Anyway, he has the ability to say something, and the world will hear it. Quite a few people have that power, and most of the time it echoes for about fifteen seconds because they’re not really worth listening to. Dan Savage has the ability to turn what he is saying that the world will hear, into an action that reproduces itself. Into something that can be imitated. Into something that, even if you don’t agree with his exact spin, you take the idea to create, and compete against him. Thus, when people agree with him, the results are tremendous.
Okay, that was too much optimism and hope. Back to work!
posted by Tom Scharbach on
My point was he claims they were the ones who told him “hey we’re not all like that.”
Savage said that whenever he was paired on the newscasts or in a forum with someone like Tony Perkins, he would, a few days letter, get letters and/or e-mails from Christians telling him “We’re not all like that …” In typical Savage style, he’d tell them to tell that to Tony Perkins, because it was Perkins who was claiming to speak to all Christians. That’s sweet.
I suspect that anyone who has paired off against anti-gay Christian spokes in public has had the NALT experience. I “debated” Julaine Appling, Wisconsin’s version of Perkins, in 2006 during the anti-marriage amendment battle, and I was inevitably approached by a few NALT Christians during the days following the forums. Not too many, but enough to make me wonder. I think that is probably a pretty typical experience, but I don’t know for sure.
The puzzle for me is why NALT Christians don’t speak up, or at least haven’t. If a local equivalent of Tony Perkins, Maggie Gallagher or Pat Robertson had the chutzpah to claimed to speak for all adherents of my religion, I’d be out raising hell about it.
If someone’s fool enough to try to tell him that, then the world deserves its fate.
I don’t have a clue as to what you mean by that, but I’m reminded of the meme that if we all got what we deserve, we’d be in real trouble.
Dan Savage has the ability to turn what he is saying that the world will hear, into an action that reproduces itself.‘
What Savage does is provide a use social media to provide a vehicle for people to speak for themselves in a way that amplifies the message. That’s the genius of what he did with “It Gets Better”. He gets it going, and then gets out of the way.
posted by Houndentenor on
I think Dan has been effective because he is so much of this time. It’s not so much what Dan says (although I read his column and listen to his podcast so I obviously find that interesting) as that he has unleashed the power of people telling their own true stories and sharing their own experiences. That’s far more powerful than anything he could say himself. The new project works the same way. it’s one thing for some so-called leader of some sort to make a claim. It’s another for thousands of people to tell their own stories and express their own feelings. This is the power of the internet age. Everyone has a voice. Dan has tapped into that in a way that most activists have not. The top down approach is not going to work in the 21 century. And why do we still need it? Why have just one voice when we can have thousands?
As for NALT Christians speaking up, where would that happen? The media outlets are not interested in presenting such voices. They’d rather put on a gay activist and an anti-gay preacher and have them yell at each other. CNN is bringing back Crossfire. Of all the things we DON’T need right now. Enough with people screaming bumper sticker slogans at each other! No wonder people are turning to other sources for information. There’s no actual news in such programs.
posted by Mark on
But, alas, it looks like Rudd’s going to lose the election, even as a majority of Australians favor equality and the opposition Coalition leader is strongly anti-marriage.
A depressing reminder that in the end, there are very few examples of anti-gay politicians because of their anti-gay views, even when those views are out of step with the electorate.
posted by Mark on
That is: very few examples of anti-gay politicians *losing* because of their anti-gay views.
posted by Houndentenor on
Not as long as our “friends” and “family” are willing to throw us under the bus for the promise of a small tax cut, no.
posted by Doug on
IMHO Stephen would opt for the tax cut over equality.
posted by Houndentenor on
Since I first saw this video (an Australian friend tweeted the link before it went viral), I’ve been trying to imagine this exchange going this well in the American political environment. I can’t. Either both would use a more caustic tone or the ally would hem and haw, equivocating and fumbling while gay people did a facepalm. It was interesting to hear someone answer what is a valid question (in that it is one on the minds of so many voters) calmly and articulately. And it rather makes me ashamed of what passes for politicians and political commentators in our country. We need to do something about that.
posted by Tom Jefferseon III on
1. Their is nothing stopping gay conservatives in America from starting up their own interest groups. A quick search online, suggests that several groups, blogs, etc do exist.
Their are LGBT liberals, conservatives, greens, libertarians, marxists and socialists. The more interesting question, is how much ‘cred’ (which often translates into money/influence) do these groups have with the conservative movement and the LGBT community?
I think that most progressives — with a basic understanding of American Civics101 realize that (a) some LGBT people are conservative and while we may ‘agree to disagree’ (b) if support for LGBT rights is limited to members of either major party, its impact will be limited.
Yet, the problem (I suspect) is 1. A sense among progressives and center-left LGBT folk that gay conservatives cannot really bring much to the table beyond more partisan Democratic vs. Republican ‘tit for tat’.
This is a sense that probably comes from the fact that gay conservatives do not seem to be taken seriously by the Republican Party or the movement in general.
The Democratic Party has made the progress that it has on gay rights, because gay Democrats spent decades getting involved with the party (from what looks like the 1970s – 1990s) and working to change things.
In contrast, their is a preception that too few gay Republicans have been willing to do a similar thing within their own party and that too many are willing to reward anti-gay candidates because they do agree with the candidate about say, taxes or foreign policy or seem to trust fox news….
posted by Tom Scharbach on
And yes, to a large extent this is because of the strength of anti-gay religious rightists in America and Down Under; but it’s also a fact that the LGBT activist movement here is run by those whose self-identity is innately bound up with being on the left and supporting the expansion of the regulatory state.
Well, Stephen, it seems to me that you can approach this from two angles: (1) get pro-equality conservatives active in the Republican Party, starting at the county level, moving to the state level and eventually the federal level, recruiting pro-equality conservatives to break the dominance of the anti-gay conservatives over the Republican Party, and/or (2) get pro-equality conservatives active in the “LGBT activist movement” (however you define it) and break the dominance of “those whose self-identity is innately bound up with being on the left” (however you define that).
Doing both would be preferable to doing one or the other, but doing either would be preferable to doing nothing other than complaining, which is what you are now doing.
Get to work. Do something. Do anything. But do it.
posted by Don on
I believe it all has to do with temperament. Those who lean conservative are suspicious of radical change, generally. Although the Tea Party wing proposes some of the most radical choices on the menu today, it is a belief that it would be better if things were “like they used to be” that allows them to not process it as a radical policy prescription.
Gay marriage is perceived as a huge change. In a way, it is. But mostly it isn’t at all. The conservatives I know pine for the days when there were no birth control pills and women were married and stayed home until the children went to school. Then they returned to be teachers or bank tellers and met the kids after school at 3 pm.
Progressives have an inclination that change is good. Conservatives do not. It shouldn’t be surprising at all that gays and lesbians lean left as change would benefit them significantly. Whining about it is an indication of not understanding the core motivations behind both parties’ coalitions.
posted by Houndentenor on
Which explains why the Tea Partiers are almost all old white people because those “good old days” sucked for minorities, women, gays and just about everyone else.
You are right about gay marriage not being that big a change. Most people will not notice any difference in the world around them unless they are benefiting from the extra wedding business or are asshole relatives hoping to screw their relative’s partner out of his/her inheritance. Other than that the world will go on pretty much like it did before.