Gee, that’ll make a really great piece for satire, I thought last night. Then, after hearing this morning’s news, I thought, nah, that one’s much better. After a day’s work, and checking the news at times throughout the day, I am forced to admit that in these times of Donald and Malcolm and Barnaby and Kim and… Anyway, you get the picture… After all that, I have to confess that I really need to make notes. I used to have the memory of an elephant. I’m not sure which elephant, but whichever one it is, he’s probably pretty pissed that I’ve taken it.
Anyway, I’m having a hard time remembering any of it.
I’m sure that there’s some gem I forgot. You know, something like defending Barnaby for saying he’d never been to England – even though he’d been there just a few weeks earlier – by pointing that he was told he was going to the United Kingdom, so how was he to know where he was. Of course that was when Barnaby was getting stuck into those Green senators for not knowing that they were dual citizens. But I forgot to write that because I didn’t make notes… Just like Barnaby forgot that he went to England.
Of course, Barnaby has more important things that he’s forgotten, so because the matter is before the High Court, I’ll refrain from laughing at the man until the High Court brings down a verdict allowing him to be the subject of ridicule for the term of his natural life.
Thankfully everything in the news cycle keeps getting repeated, so my memory is sometimes jogged. Which is good, because apparently jogging is exercise and I probably need exercise so that I don’t merely have the memory of an elephant but the physique as well.
No, I was going to share with you the strange position of the Catholic Church…
In arguing against marriage equality, one of the arguments they’ve put forward is that children deserve a mother and father, so it’s against nature for people of the same sex to marry. No, their position is crystal clear: People of the same sex shouldn’t marry. They should be like priests and remain unmarried. Besides, if we allow same sex marriage, it might lead to polygamy. Which is also a strange argument, considering all nuns are “brides of Christ”.
Now, let me be quite clear here. I’m not anti-Catholic. Just like I’m not anti-Muslim. Or anti-semitic. Or anti-Nazi. Like Trump, I think there has been some violence on all sides and I want to condemn violence, whether it comes from protesters I like or protesters who deserve to be run over.
But I wonder why some Catholic leaders feel more compelled to tell us to think of the children when it comes to marriage equality, when all they could say when it came to the cases of child abuse that they could have helped prevent, all they could say was think of England.
Or something like that.
Anyway, the Royal Commission – which is Royal, so it has something to do with our head of state, so it shouldn’t be ignored – today recommended that it should be made illegal for priests not to reveal cases of child abuse which they discover through confession.
I must say – in all seriousness – that I’m with Archbishop Dennis Hart on this one. He said that confession was a spiritual matter and, as a matter of conscience, priests shouldn’t comply with this.
Of course, Dennis was attacked for his position by various Coalition members:
Turnbull told us that Hart “believes that you only have to have to obey the law” or that the Church only has to obey the law “if they agree with it!”
Michaelia Cash thought that it was “an extraordinary admission” to believe that one “is above the law”.
Peter Dutton called him a “lunatic”!
Or wait, these comments weren’t directed at the Hart, they were directed at Sally McManus when she suggested that unions should break unjust laws.
Sorry, I must have mucked up my googling. Of course, Sally was suggesting that unions should stand up when laws impinged on the freedom to fight injustice which is unreasonable, whereas Dennis was telling us that, of course, the Church should be able to grant absolution to someone who’d merely engaged in a bit of child abuse without the fear that the law would come between them and their God.
Of course the Liberals wouldn’t find that as worthy of condemnation as a union leader suggesting that sometimes people have rights that the law can’t take away.
Or rights that we shouldn’t need a plebiscite to establishment them as a right…
