Ben Langford reporting in the NT News writes:
DARWIN City Council dropped its push to remove the Lord’s Prayer from the start of meetings after a handful of letters from religious objectors.
It’s interesting how effective letter writing can be. The ACL (Aust. Christian Lobby) actually have a publication on letter writing and manipulating politicians.
The council introduced a “welcome to country” preamble to proceedings, that passed without comment. When it came time to review the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer the decision was made to keep it. Though the reasoning behind its inclusion is decidedly weak.
But Lord Mayor Graeme Sawyer said the Lord’s Prayer would remain after "a lot of community opposition to it".
He said he received "a couple of phone calls, a couple of letters" from Christians.
…
Mr Sawyer said the prayer would remain as a matter of tradition – not religion.
"It’s not there as a religious artefact – it’s there as an artefact of the Western democratic principles that Local Government comes out of," he said.
So getting this straight in my head – Darwin City council are keeping the prayer as it is an artefact of democratic principles, despite strong community opposition to it. Is that not contradictory? We uphold the principles of Democracy by being undemocratic?
I should think that Christians(committed and sincere) would find it offensive as well to have their prayer relegated to the status of a traditional passage without meaning or intent.
And the argument from tradition is weak as well, do they still say god save the queen at DCC meetings?
Well I guess they have slowly let go of the white part of white Christian privilege with the welcome to country – we just have to keep chipping away.
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Hmmm. Obviously this means that in Darwin, doing something to "Western artefacts" of this nature wouldn't be considered sacriligeous or hate-mongering on the basis of religion. Depictions od "Western artefacts" such as a crucifix with a boner under the loincloth, perhaps? This might cause outrage by even more Xtians, and a "you can't have it both ways" in a legal case might force a backdown on the prayer… or an admission that we are unfortunate enough not to live in a proper secular democracy of the Western tradition.
By the same arguments, it is easily possible to argue that public displays artistic nudity is an artefact of the Western Democratic tradition (just think of Athens), or Herms, or statues of Priapus from Rome (our basis for law)… and much more justifiable than a tradition originating from a theocratic and/or autocratic region on the wrong side of the Mediterranean to be Western.
I think this presents a huge opportunity for inventive secularists in Darwin. If anyone up there uses this as a pretext fir harmless mischeif, I hope you'll keep us informed on this blog.
While anything is possible in Darwin (too much sun and beer) I think this reveals more about the calibre of local government leadership in the Territory.
What the DCC should do is forget the silly "Lord's Prayer and so should all State Governments and the Federal Government. They should replace the "Lord's Prayer" with an episode of "Yes Minister" so they can learn "how to do it". That is if there are any pollies with the necessary intellectial equipment to understand it.
Yo. Went out to the Christian community centre on east side last night cause i was erroneously told that there was a lecture by CMI on there. Turns out it was actually a community action group they're trying to start to make people more aware of the evolution/intelligent design 'debate'. Their two top ideas for action are to a) set up a proselytizing misinformation booth at the Thursday night markets, and b) get a partition to have Expelled shown at the AS Cinema.
Whilst i couldn't be fucked going to the Thursday night markets to try and counter their crazy, i was thinking if the Expelled showing actually goes through, it might be worth turning up to the screening and handing out leaflets clearly explaining why the Expelled movie is completely BS.
You be interested in helping? If so drop me an email.
I would help only that I have moved to outback south Australia as of 2 months ago.:) Does sound distinctly worrying though.
Breaking News: EU Court of Human Rights Unanimously declares crufixes in schools violate human rights – specifically the rights to freedom of religion. This might not just apply to schools, but be applied to all state functions.
Worth reading in full…. and there are doubtless lots of bits in the judgement that could be thrown at the Darwin council – and it's not like anyone in the Darwin council has the smarts to refute the whole bench of the ECHR!