Israel Folau is a good… well… a Christian man, so he will not be surprised to see that his erstwhile supporters on the right have vanished.
The Gethsemane moment came after he preached at his church that the current bushfires were divine punishment for same-sex marriage and abortion legalisation. The Guardian and Nine reported on it, and The Australian gave it a mention when the big banana Alan Jones came out to chide him for, you know, saying and believing exactly the same things he was hitherto defended for.
But of course Folau had said that LGBTQ people (I’m not sure of his position on “I”, intersex folk) would burn in hell. Now he’s saying they’ll burn in New South Wales.
But here’s the thing: he said it in church. To like-minded people. The argument as regards his earlier statements was whether he had breached a contract imposed by a sports-entertainment body, with a financial interest in preserving its broad social appeal. There’s no question of that now. If Folau doesn’t have an absolute right to say fundamentalist things in a fundamentalist church, where can he?
The very reporting of it thus had a dash of liberal totalitarianism and tabloidism to it — something The Guardian is increasingly tempted and fallen to these days. But the utter and echoing silence on the right was a miracle to behold.
They really are utter, utter cowards aren’t they? They’ll pick up and use anyone for 15 minutes and then disappear them down the memory hole when need be. And need be great at the moment, because of course Folau’s fundamentalism is adjacent to ScoMo’s religiosity — the one he has come to use effectively in generating a sense of purpose that Labor is quite unable to do.
That has only been achieved by taking out practically all its content. To have a not-so-happy clappy celebrating communities burning as God’s judgement is — quite aside from referencing the Beetrooter’s shocker that two people killed in the north east were “probably Green voters” — is inconvenient. So they have washed their hands of him. Exactly when his right to speak should be defended — as part of a commitment to pluralism; that society should have the absolute freedom to propagate multiple world views, especially within closed audiences such as congregations.
Reporting the sermon he gave was completely unnecessary, and managed to combine the propagation of it far beyond its intended audience, with a sly attack on such freedom by the very act of reporting it.
Still, at least it has exposed the right’s hypocrisy afresh. Praise be!
The best thing to do with Folau is ignore him. Don’t report anything he has to say Let his comments stay in his church, with his god No one else needs to be bothered
The same approach should be taken with Abbott, Jones, Bolt, Credlin etc. None have anything useful to say, ignore them, give them no oxygen, give them no credibility.
I could not agree with you more. Why are these people given so much oxygen? Is there nothing of importance to report on?
Because reporting on it makes for the perfect distraction by the ownership class (media, big business, LNP)
The business of reporting is – never report good news /report on anything else which will titillate the reader base – and the life span of a story is usually 24 hours and a really good story dies of old age after 72 hours.
There are a lot of things that should be ignored e.g. ISIS etc would have suffocated without the life giving oxygen of reporting their atrocities which led them not more bizarre atrocities.
correction – “onto more bizarre atrocities”
I would imagine that being able to sprout BS in a church is one of the fundamental rights that the LNP via Christian Porter want to protect, and I’m ok with that. So where are his defenders now. Did I just hear a cock crow 3 times?
All very biblical, isn’t it. Almost a pantomime.
Perhaps, given that all religion spouts pointless nonsense, what they actually want is the right not to have it publicised, or worse to have it revealed that it informs the very core of your thinking.
That would reveal one as a ninny, eh ScoMo!
Folau’s statement will get quiet nods of approval from many mainstream churchgoers who will have more sense than to say it. And even more might disagree with it while holding to much more arcane and disagreeable ideas.
Prosperity theology comes to mind, and that won’t get howled down.
If the News Media and followers want to criticise Mr Folou’s beliefs and his communication of them, then why not look at Anti-Vaccers, Abortion Advocates, Climate Change Deniers/Sceptics or any group that is not ‘mainstream’? The reason I suspect is because it’s currently topical in the absence of any other news that can be sensationalised or analysed within an inch of its life, for the benefit of the news cycle.
Nine, Ten, News Ltd, The Guardian and Crikey all guilty.
I suppose the best way to confine something to its intendeded audience is to post it on Facebook. Any criticism of the post on other media can be dismissed as liberal totalitarianism or a sly attack on freedom of speech.
When you’ve nothing to say write a stirring defence of freedom of speech.
When you’ve got nothing to satirise become a parody of yourself.
I think you’ve got your facts wrong about The Australian’s reporting of the story, Guy. They didn’t merely give it a mention once Jones’ had commented. In fact, even before Jones’ comments, they reported Folau’s sermon, in full, *on the front page*, without a word of criticism about it. In other words, they gave Folau a megaphone for his peculiar and marginal views. Then the next day, they reported Jones’ comments, again on the front page, and with Jones’ criticisms confined to a few paragraphs around the edges, and largely used as an excuse to repeat the reporting of Folau’s sermon.
Far from abandong Folau, The Australian is giving him as much support as they can. I see it as of a piece with their unrestrainedly vicious campaign against transgendered people.