Keeping Tabs on the Political God Botherers

Is the 'vote for secularism' waning? Miranda Divine thinks it is. She points to the rise of the Family First party as proof, and thinks media scrutiny of the organisation is extreme.

Miranda paints Family First as a moderate organisation. Certainly, its public face may appear to be, but what are they like behind that bland facade? She claims that some extremist remarks attributed to a supporter were an aberration, not the norm.

On occasions, it has to be said, Family First supporters are their party's worst enemy. When a campaign volunteer in Brisbane this week answered "yes" when asked by a Greens supporter if lesbians should be burned to death, it made headlines around the country. The party banned the volunteer and publicly rebuked him. But the story fitted beautifully into attempts to paint party supporters as dangerous crackpots.

The media has every right to ask what's behind this new political organisation. At the end of the day, Family First are in it to exercise power, ie, impose their personal beliefs onto the rest of the population. Why else would they be seeking election? If they have links to extremist religious organisations, then we should know about it.

In an election in which so-called Bible-belt preferences may be crucial, an aggressively secular media is making itself a player.

And a good thing, too. Just because it's a religious organisation doesn't mean it's immune from scrutiny. If the government has done deals with them, then we need to know about it.

Miranda thinks 'the baby boomers who control public debate in this country' fear religion. Not all political commentators are boomers, Miranda. I'm fairly sure there aren't many boomers at crikey.com.au.

The influential political website crikey .com.au, often echoed in print by journalists, has given the "God-botherers" much attention during the campaign ....

She's correct in the sense that secularists, many of whom are boomers, fear the effect that religious conservatives will have on the rest of us if they get the chance.

Boomers remember the conservative straight jacket that the country was in before the sixties. The worry that younger people who never experienced it may inadvertently cause it to happen again if they allow these religious political groups have too much influence.