Let’s Talk About The Victimisation Of Christians
By Samuel Leighton-Dore
Disclaimer: It’s impossible for me to even begin broaching this subject without paying due respect to this brilliant article written by Rebecca Shaw for SBS.
If Scott Morison is to be believed, the conservative Christian is the most oppressed, victimised person not only in the humble island nation of Australia, but perhaps in the history of all mankind. Today he told ABC radio that he understood Penny Wong’s concerns regarding the possibility of a plebiscite – because he’s faced similar discrimination for being Christian.
“Frankly people who have very strong religious views, they have also been subject to … quite dreadful hate speech and bigotry as well,” he said.
“I understand the concerns Penny is raising, I know it from personal experience having been exposed to that sort of hatred and bigotry for the views I’ve taken from others who have a different view to me.”
He’s not alone in his self-victimisation either. Many in the conservative Christian community buy into the narrative that they’re being marginalised by a militant secularism; that they’re religious manifestations are being overturned in the name of a broader campaign for anti-discrimination and political correctness. You only have to read one of Miranda Devine’s columns in The Daily Telegraph to catch whiff of the characteristic woe-is-me gaining steady traction among a growing group of social commentators.
In one piece back in 2012 she wrote: “I believe the hostility is driven by spite, sanctimony and anti-Christian malice. This attempt to purge Christians from the marketplace of ideas is nothing less than 21st century McCarthyism.”
Oh, that famous anti-Christian malice. Doesn’t it fucking burn?
Painting themselves as victims allows for those like Devine and Morison to skip right along and actually victimise marginalised groups of people by imposing their fanatical religious views. Of course, Devine is quick to write about the gross mistreatment of Christian refugees – Who Will Care For The Christian Refugees? – but the first to drop to her knees and scream “terrorist” at the first sight of a Muslim man eating a sandwich in Vaucluse.
Similarly, the criminalisation of Gay Conversion Therapy in the United States was viewed by some as Christian parents being unfairly denied their “freedom of religion” (read: right to forcing their kid to be straight), with Matt Stave of the Liberty Counsel calling it “a slippery slope of government infringing upon the First Amendment rights of counselors to provide, and patients to receive, counseling consistent with their religious beliefs.”
Oh, and when the government and a number of high-profile businesses began shifting towards an inclusive or even secular approach to holidays, opting for Santa and Christmas trees instead of nativity scenes, the whole non-event was labeled by the right-wing Christian media as an oppressive “war on Christmas”.
Remember the religious outrage when Starbucks turned their festive coffee cups to a nondescript red and green?
“Do you realize that Starbucks wanted to take Christ, and Christmas, off of their brand-new cups? That’s why they’re just plain red,” Donald Trump said last November.
“Maybe we should boycott Starbucks, I don’t know.”
So it really comes as no surprise that, on the subjects of marriage equality and the Safe Schools program, the Christian right claim that they are the true victims of biggotry; that heterosexual Christian couples are being denied their God-given right to having marriage reserved exclusively for straight people in order to maintain the values of their religious tradition.
(There’s also the overt fear-mongering that Christian ministers will be persecuted and cruelly imprisoned if they refuse to participate in same-sex marriages once it’s legalised. And, um, this obviously shouldn’t be a competition – but wasn’t homosexuality only decriminalised in NSW like 30 years ago?)
To be fair, the erosion of some semblance of a Christian mono-culture in Australia has surely created a number of difficult challenges for Christians. I can only imagine the difficulties faced by those like my Grandmother, who was raised to be a nun in rural Australia before marrying my widowed Grandfather and raising his six children (yep, kinda like The Sound of Music), one of whom turned out to be a raging queen.
Her faith was likely challenged, which couldn’t have been easy.
And there was one girl in my grade at High School who copped a lot of shit for being Christian. Sure, most of the shit she copped was reactionary to some close-minded religious lingo. Yep, she once told me that “your anus is a one-way street; it’s for pooing, not for sex” – and yes, she continues to post the occasional meme online suggesting that for one to be both vegetarian and pro-choice is a contradiction.
But let’s forget all that for the moment – nobody should be given a hard time for their beliefs, yeah?
That’s pretty basic shit when it comes to common human decency.
The thing is, I cannot think of ONE instance in which a member of the LGBTQI community has gone out of their way to stop a member of the Christian community from living their lives the way they see fit. You know why? Because it really doesn’t affect us whether or not the family down the street says Grace before each meal. We couldn’t care less how you spend your Sunday mornings. So you close your eyes and fold the palms of your hands before bed? Fantastic. I do something with my hands before bed too – and I usually don’t feel the need to force others to join in.
We don’t stand on the street reading lyrics from a Madonna CD, grab your wrists to the sky and cry for glitter.
The subject of homophobia and discrimination is not an image that can simply be inverted on Photoshop. Unlike the anus, homophobia is not a two-way street, involving two parties of equal historic and social standing. I understand that it’s hard for certain groups to gain traction in the media without an angle of defensiveness.
Aussies love a good under-dog story. It makes sense, then, that religious groups like the ACL are trying their hardest to morph from Goliath into David. But while I love ALL my Christian friends and family members – and respect the hell (sorry) out of them for having such gorgeous conviction in their chosen faith – there’s simply no way of comparing the experience of being discriminated against as a member of the LGBTQI community to that of being a conservative Christian man.
Sorry ScoMo.
#HaHaNo.