RU486 Debate Questions the Extent of the Religious Right's Influence

One of the few policy decisions of John Howard's that I admire (Ok, ok ... his only policy decision I admire) is when he took on the gun lobby after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre. Conventional political wisdom at the time stated that the gun lobby's influence was substantial and political parties took them on at their peril.

Howard ignored the pundits and forced the states to certail the right of gun owners to possess automatic weapons, and the gun lobby was shown to be nothing more that a noisy fringe element. Has anyone regarded the gun lobby as a political force since?

In recent years, the lobby to be feared by political parties (apart from the Packer family) is the Religious Right, and both sides of politics are doing all they can to ingratiate themselves with the religious zealotry. However, I wonder if the influence of the conservative wings of established religious denominations and the fundamentalist churches is overstated.

The recent parliamentary vote on making the drug RU486 available is encouraging because it reflects the real influence of the conservative religious minority in the outside world. Freed from having to follow the party line, the politicians overwhelmingly voted to end the Health Minister's control over RU486. Progressive MPs substantially outnumbered their conservative colleagues.

The numbers in parliament reflect the split between the conservative and moderate elements outside it. Hopefully, the RU486 vote marks the beginning of the demise of the religious right's influence on the affairs of the broader community, relegating them to just another "noisy fringe element."

Afterthought: Well, maybe the Labor party isn't actively sucking up to the religious right, but they're not telling them to mind their own business, either. I think they should.