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I sit down to write having just returned from a meeting with the federal shadow minister for health, Catherine King (left), in her Ballarat office, where I accompanied a friend who wished to register her concern for the alleged bullying of staff at Ballarat Hospital, late-term abortions, and the introduction of the Safe Schools Program. I sat quietly whilst my friend tried to air her concerns for the first two issues, and was placated by the shadow minister breezily talking through her with information about a new administrator having been appointed at the hospital and that any late-term abortion would only be performed if the health of the mother were at risk.
Then, after about ten minutes, the issue of Safe Schools came up and the shadow minister dismissed the furore surrounding the program, as absolutely unfounded, and that the program was simply about anti-bullying. She said that most of the people making the fuss had not actually read the program and were just making things up. She made a big deal about supporting the LGBTI ‘community’, and made no bones that federal Labor supported the Safe Schools Program.
At this point I took my opportunity to speak, saying I had read the Safe Schools Program material carefully and adding that all sorts of issues concerned me. The instructions for breast-binding and penis tucking, for example, and role-playing of homosexual relationships. The references to gay websites and encouragement to visit them, I noted, were all presented as if homosexuality is the norm, and heterosexuality, well, just straight and boring.
I had to talk through Ms King at the same time that she was talking through me. I was rebuked for even daring to speak, as it was my friend who made the appointment with her. Several times Ms King informed me that she had taken “offence” at my comments. I referred to the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse and the distress it has caused in Ballarat and ventured the view that the introduction of any program dealing with sex and gender, such as Safe Schools, must tread very carefully, as such a syllabus might easily be used to ‘groom’ children.
My local member’s reaction? She spoke darkly of the legal consequences to which I might be subjected for uttering such unacceptable thoughts.
Yet my points remain valid. Much of the testimony presented to the Royal Commission documents the sly and insidious ways abusers traded on the innocence of children and Safe Schools strikes me as offering infinite possibilities for more of the same. Many of those young people will have zero sexual experience, and the program itself encourages experimentation. This is fertile ground for pedophiles pushing the line that a lack of interest in the LGBTI lifestyle is tantamount to intolerance. Pedophiles, I told Ms King, will be delighted that politicians are doing so much to help them identify potential victims and, perhaps, exploit them.
While Ms King huffed and puffed at my politically incorrect sentiments, what she didn’t do was refute that Safe Schools is an ‘enabler’. Set to be compulsory in all Victorian school children by 2018, it demands that children not criticize or ‘bully’ those who might display divergent sexualities. It preaches that gender is a ‘social construct’ (even though the evidence for this is poor and contested) and that we should live in a society where homosexuality is considered ‘normal’ ( even though 94% of the population is heterosexual). Within the hothouse confines of the Sociology Department at La Trobe University, where theoreticians of alternate sexuality romp in a landscape of their own academic creation, things are not as they are in the real world. The proof of this came only late last week, when Safe Schools’ chief architect, the avopwed communist Roz Ward, “resigned” in a hurry from her advisory role with the Victorian government after captioning a picture she posted on Facebook of the rainbow flag flying over Victoria’s parliament building. Her comment: “Now we just need to get rid of the racist Australian flag on top of state parliament and get a red one up there and my work is done.” Why would any reasonable person doubt Safe Schools’ potential for abuse is a grave concern?
Alas, my perception is that Ms King is anything but reasonable. Her monologues were punctuated by continual attempts to silence me with accusations of ‘offense’ (for claiming that homosexuality was not ‘normal’ in our, pardon the academic jargonese, “heteronormative” society). I’m sure my memory has not failed me when I say that, at one point, she even mentioned defamation proceedings as a possible repercussion for my intolerant and unacceptable opinions.
As my friend and I left Ms King’s office the encounter prompted the thought that I had arrived with one concern, Safe Schools. Now I was heading home with two: where can a citizen turn when his elected representative rejects out of hand as inappropriate, and hence unworthy of civil discussion, a perspective widely shared in the community it is her job to represent?
Mr McCauley, While I understand the frustration with your visit, let’s be honest, did you expect anything else? A progressive SJW luvvie Lei-bor hack as a local member and you expected what? I loved her alleged threats of legal action, classic luvvie. They will use “the law” to shut down dissent or opposing vews not matter how valid but don’t like it when it is used against them; that is oppression or racism or some other “ism”. Just convince everybody you know and more not to vote for her. One assumes of course the so-called safe schools rubbish will be rolled out in muslim schools first to test public reaction.
We can all be too nice in these confronting situations. What has to be said loudly is that homosexuals and other gender-based variables represent a tiny proportion of the population and are therefore, by definition “abnormal.” The fact that a tolerant society no longer discriminates against them legally cannot disguise the fact that they are “odd”. How the rest of the population reacts to them may be unpredictable and is entirely up to them, within the law.
Thanks for going public with your meeting Patrick. Anyone who cares about free speech and conservative values in general ought to be fearful and nervous at the direction we are heading as a society. Are there really too few courageous conservatives left to stop this juggernaut? Thank goodness for Quadrant, IPA and a few other individuals who are trying to stem the tide. I’m finding so many are not interested in reason and logic and are happy to go along with airy-fairy thinking and not looking at the consequences which are bearing down upon us.
I had to whiff the smelling salts at your use of the word ‘Member’ – and with a capital ‘M’.
Our only hope is to garner support as a cultural minority in need of protection from the abusive and violent majority. Even better is you can discover even the tiniest bit of first nations blood in your veins. Ancestory.com may help with this, as apparently your DNA can be traced back 200,000 years! So everyone must have some! As for me I would love to reinstitute a cultural practice common amongst my ancestors. As a hint, watch the “Vikings” Ragnar v Earl Harald.
Catherine King. I remember watching her on Q&A one night in 2014 with my retired businesswoman/psychologist sister. My sister listened to King talking and then she said quietly, “It’s obvious she’s never been out on a wire; never had everything on the line for a business or any other endeavour. She’s a protected species and only this gives her the luxury of holding the views that she has”.
Yes, I thought those were salient comments.
I have no problem at all with homosexuality. Some reasonably high proportion of the population is so inclined. No big deal. It seems much more acceptable with young adults. Some 45% in a UK survey identified as something in between on a scale of gay to straight.
What I object to is insisting that children are sexual beings. This seems to confuse the space needed to be curious and explore the world in imagination with a maturity that is simply absent and an innocence that must be respected. Children must be encouraged to develop slowly without being prematurely slotted into any sexual orientation.
Of course bullying should be prevented. The sexual intimation suffered by girls should be prevented. All manner and reasons for bullying should be jumped on from a great height. But the viewing of children as sexual beings of any persuasion is an intolerable perversion.
I’m intrigued about “something in between on a scale of gay to straight”. Do tell. I’ve had a dull life!!!
The Kinsey scale. – http://www.tuneinnotout.com/blog/the-kinsey-scale/ – But do tell. Is that your take out message?
I meant sexual intimidation of course – pressure placed on girls to acquiesce.
Judging from this article, Catherine King sounds rude, ignorant and utterly unfit to serve in the Parliament, or indeed to hold any public office in this country. But as commenter nfw pointed out above, what do you expect from her kind?
Having said that, I should point out the constitutional situation of which the author is evidently unaware. Catherine King is not the Member for Ballarat. She ceased to be an MP three weeks ago, and to the extent the article is based on the assumption that she is, it is in error. Ms King has no more official responsibility to the people of Ballarat than, say, Sarah Wade, the endorsed Liberal candidate.
This constitutional position is obscured by the fact that former MHRs who state their intention to stand again immediately after a dissolution are entitled to be paid a salary as an MHR (until polling day) and to use the electorate office pretty much as if they were still in Parliament. As the meeting was in “her” parliamentary office it would have been reasonable (but mistaken) to think of her as an MP.
King’s fate is in the hands of the electors of Ballarat, and, sadly, it is very likely that in their wisdom they will re-elect King as their local MHR on 2 July. But right now she is not your local member, she is just the shallow, vain and ignorant creature painted by the article.
This is secular humanism being played out. What are you all complaining about?
‘Tolerant’ is an interesting adjective. Peter Hitchens in his book ‘The Cameron Delusion’ makes the point that we ‘tolerate’ something we essentially disapprove of but are prepared to accept, perhaps grudgingly. So Catherine King talks of intolerant attitudes to gay/lesbian thingamabobs, but the opposite, which she presumably accommodates, is hardly full-hearted approval from the 94% normals. Well, perhaps close on seventeen hundred years of Judaic-Christian civilisation still hangs around, despite the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, despite every effort of the left to tear down everything relating to church, effective education, fine art and traditional family. Divorce has been made as easy as falling off a skateboard, and the effect of both parents working full time means that family life is pretty empty anyway, hence the increased number of disturbed children in our schools. So, yes, there is perhaps a shred of hope that the 94% tolerate same sex relationships, but after twenty years of Safe Schools, ‘tolerant’ or its opposite will become meaningless.
Ms King? You mean the great nodder. Maybe you should’ve asked her the question I asked in a letter to the Honourable Daniel Andrews MP. Premier of Victoria who proclaimed publicly that Victoria would implement the Safe Schools programme irrespective of whether Federal Funding would be given or not.
I asked him this by email at least six weeks ago and still have not even received an acknowledgement.
‘Will you assure me that this programme will be enforced in all Islamic Schools in Victoria?’