Writings

A collection of 345 posts

Writings

Dumpers and Martyrs and None of Us Saints

There were a lot of contenders for this week’s column. The inevitable arrival of paid maternity leave on the list of scuttled government initiatives because of the global economic crisis was one. Minister Stephen Conroy’s decision to capitulate to the demands of the religious right and censor everyone’

Writings

Beyond the Nuclear Family

Catch Leslie and a whole range of diverse families in this new educational DVD by the Victoria Educational Association. More information about this resource might be available on their website http://www.vea.com.au/. Or contact vea@vea.com.au. Publication history > Beyond the Nuclear FamilyVictoria Educational Association

Writings

Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Courage

The Bali Bombers are dead. When news of the executions came over the wireless I found it hard to shed tears. These men were murderers and tears are evidence of compassion. My opposition to the death penalty is motivated by more principled and practical concerns. Much attention was paid in

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Climate Change: It’s about the economy, stupid

Catastrophic climate change is the moral issue of our time. If we flub it, it is our children who will be denied their most basic inheritance – a habitable and sustaining planet. The response of business groups and the federal opposition to the Government’s release of treasury modelling showing the

Writings

Leslie Debates Abortion on SBS Radio

Hear Leslie and medical doctor Brigid Mckenna, the policy officer for the Sydney Catholic archdiocese’s Life, Marriage and Family Centre on SBS World View Forum. http://www20.sbs.com.au/podcasting/index.php?action=feeddetails&feedid=12&id=18137 [http://www20.sbs.com.au/podcasting/index.php?

Writings

Church and State Should be Separate

Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. This week, in a rare moment of bi-partisanship, the Federal Government and Opposition joined forces to reject Speaker Harry Jenkins’s call for a debate on whether the Lord’s Prayer should continue to be said at the start of

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Organ Donation Can Pose a Conflict of Interest

For millennia, religious authorities have defined death as the stilling of the heart and the absence of breath. But all that changed in the 1960s when organ transplants became medically feasible. In the wake of a Japanese surgeon being charged for a double murder for a failed attempt to transplant

Writings

Grace A Measure of Our Moral Fibre

“That was very gracious,” a friend of mine whispered at the conclusion of a speech I gave recently. We were at a function that my organization-which had done a lot of heavy lifting to achieve a shared goal-had arranged to thank other individuals and groups who contributed to a successful

Writings

To Make a Difference, Stay Don’t Go

I love a good resignation. The drama! The flounce! The sense of moral superiority! Better then a day at the races to watch, and to be the one resigning! I feel giddy just thinking about it. So my attention was snagged when the high-profile resignations of the chief executive of

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The Bill Henson Debate: Looking After Our Children Without Hysteria

Yesterday was a big day for my child. The start of term at the primary school he has attended since kinder, and the first day of work for the principal. Oh, and the day he had to fight through a media scrum to get through the front gate. Yes, my

Writings

Domestic Violence is a Two-Way Street

In the early 1990s I worked as a researcher for an organization dedicated to finding accommodation for young, homeless women. Many of these young women were escaping violent homes and, if they were lucky enough to get a bed in a refuge, they often found more violence there. My female

Writings

Whose Time is it Anyway, Peter?

Peter Bloody Costello. Thank heavens the man is about to exit the national political stage because, quite frankly, I’m not sure I could take another minute of him. It’s not the smirk. My problem is the sense of entitlement. The standard analysis of Costello’s failure to challenge

Writings

Conscience Rights Must Be a Two-Way Street

Denying another’s freedom while exercising one’s own is hypocritical Is it ever right to use one’s freedom to deny the exact same freedom to others? What if those others are people you are sworn to serve and protect? Such questions may not be front of mind for

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Conscience Votes Entail Responsibilities, Not just Rights

Lord help me, here comes another conscience vote. This time, it’s about whether our Federal MPs think it’s OK to spend our taxes on the cost of an abortion necessary to save a woman’s life, or to evacuate her uterus of a fetus that is already dead,

Writings

PM’s Cheap Answer to School Problems

The education revolution promised by Federal Government continues to piss me off. First it was a computer for every secondary school student; then it wasn’t. These days, the so-called digital revolution means that at some point in the next five years two students will share one computer, if the

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Heavy Cross to Bear for Gay Donors

Political activism is often a thankless task. It’s worse when the cause is not just controversial, but shrouded in stigma and shame. Yes, a lot of hard work goes into raising cash for breast cancer research or to send disabled athletes to Beijing, but at least it’s easy

Writings

Beware, it’s a bitter pill we swallow

They’ve done it again. For the third time, scientists have found evidence that the contraceptive pill may be inhibiting women’s capacity to conceive in more ways than one. Worse, it may be playing havoc with their love lives. The most recent findings, published in this month’s Proceedings

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Men, Abortion and the Sin of Moral Arrogance

Abortion is back in the news, with a bill now before the Victorian parliament that, if it becomes law, will give women with problem pregnancies of less than twenty-four weeks the right to decide for themselves. Whenever abortion is at issue, questions about the place of men in the debate

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Ethical Carnivores Care for Animals Too

Have you heard about Lucy? The intensively-farmed sow with the intelligence of a three year old who, in a series of Australian radio ads, tells of a life so miserable that she wishes she could “close [her] eyes and not wake up.” Many would see the Lucy ads as a

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Hey girls, be ladies and enslave yourself to men

Are you a foul-mouthed, domestic disaster of a young woman who cares more about footy than fashion, enjoys sex and can drink a bloke under the table? Then you should know that the Australian version of the British reality TV show, Ladette to Lady, is looking for you. Good on

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Teaching our Kids the Difference Between Science and Faith

Moral Maze: Teaching our Kids the Difference Between Science and Faith Defeating the religious right’s latest attack on reason and evidence requires beating them at their own game. The current site of the controversy is the US, where Louisiana has passed a law requiring the education bureaucracy to assist

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FairtTrade is Fair Enough

However cynical, petty, ideological and pathetically out-of-date it may be, the attack by right-wing “think-tanks” on fair trade just won’t go away. As most coffee-drinkers know, Fairtrade (and its new competitor Rainforest Alliance) are dedicated to increasing the ethical footprint of western consumers by encouraging them to buy products

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Don’t trust politicians with your human rights

You might think I am the sort of person who has always favoured a charter of human rights, but it isn’t so. Having come of age in the land of the free, I had witnessed first hand the social ructions caused by the Supreme Court’s invalidation of laws

Writings

Hating Gays is a Choice, Not a Biblical Dictate

Their strength is waning, but there is still a depressingly large number of powerful men in the west, spread across a range of denominations, spewing raw hate and naked prejudice at gay people. All in the name of Christ. We are talking about the sort of hate that gives rise

Writings

Feel Good, Do Good - The Merry Makers

OK, I admit it. I cry easily. My eldest’s grade 6 graduation ceremony provoked a flood. Even k.d. lang’s version of Hallelujah can do it. When the face of the little fella in the Worksafe Victoria ad lights up because his Dad is safe and home, I