Monday, June 14, 2004

Fundamentally speaking

We seem to be moving towards a rebirth of the '50s here in Australia and elsewhere in the World (read USA). This would not necessarily be alarming except that it is accompanied by a move towards 50's morals - and last thing I knew, we'd moved on a bit since then. I suspect that some fundamentalists would not agree that this was truly 'progress' what with women having easy access to abortions and women wanting to have babies with each other, and wanting to marry each other. And boys too ... wanting to marry each other that is. So, rather than accepting this diversity and that some folks can be different yet not hurt anyone, there is a move by Church and State to rectify the situation ... by turning the clock back 50 years.
And no wonder the Church and State seem so aligned in this. According to a report by John L. Allen Jr in the National Catholic Reporter (Vol 3 No. 42), during his recent trip to Rome President Bush asked a top Vatican official to push American bishops to speak out more about political issues, including same-sex marriage.
The article also notes “Bush supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and has urged Congress to take swift action. Since polls show that in several battleground states in the fall election a majority of voters is opposed to gay marriage, some Bush analysts think an aggressive push on the issue will help the president’s prospects.”
Is it possible that there is a political motivation (or several) here?

No comments: