The government and Senator Brian Harradine deny any such deal over the abortion drug years and years ago. It's a Labor meme.
Sen. Harradine's roots were in Labor and he would cause any American Liberalometer to explode. He happens to be a Catholic and care about life issues, like many from both the major parties. I'm sure you would think that good enough to call him a `Christian fundie' and part of the `Christian Right', but non-Australian readers would think from your descriptions that he was a Protestant Evangelical with an organised church infrastructure, rather than a socially conservative unionist. The very characterisation is of a piece with the sectarian nab on the Health Minister who happens to be a Catholic, even though he says that the abortion question has been settled and I, for one, don't think that I could vote for him in conscience.
Non-Australian readers also mightn't realise that abortion remains criminal in most of Australia. Much as it is tolerated by the adoption of foreign precedents, in the context that it is basically criminal, an abortion pill requires closer supervision by Parliament, rather than the new act's pretence that the whole issue is `therapeutic' and can be farmed out to technical bodies.
The private members' bill was a power grab taking advantage of anti-Catholic prejudice.
As a Latin Mass attending geek, I think the analogy is meaningful but misplaced. I've looked at people's missals before VII and those who took the trouble to follow what was going on would have known a lot more about the liturgy then than somebody half-interested now, now that it's a no-brainer. The same is true of Latin Mass congregations today. (Though I'm less romantic about that since a friend of mine was married in Latin recently and they wanted two rings. No priest in the Fraternity of St Peter, dedicated to the traditional liturgy, had enough Latin to convert the blessing of the rings to the plural, so it was up to me.) Anybody who had made the effort to participate in the liturgy might also have become aware of the seriousness of dissent, instead of imagining it was radical to agree with Joe Protestant or Jill Unchurched.
The Catholic Church has been justly described as the world's least obscure sect and nothing about it was or is hidden by the use of Latin. The instant confidence of unknowing enthusiasts now that she does business in the vernacular has done great damage.
The use of Latin was not a self-preserving jargon but a usefully specialised vocabulary, as any use of technical terminology should be.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the ultimate in misinformation.
The government and Senator Brian Harradine deny any such deal over the abortion drug years and years ago. It's a Labor meme.
Sen. Harradine's roots were in Labor and he would cause any American Liberalometer to explode. He happens to be a Catholic and care about life issues, like many from both the major parties. I'm sure you would think that good enough to call him a `Christian fundie' and part of the `Christian Right', but non-Australian readers would think from your descriptions that he was a Protestant Evangelical with an organised church infrastructure, rather than a socially conservative unionist. The very characterisation is of a piece with the sectarian nab on the Health Minister who happens to be a Catholic, even though he says that the abortion question has been settled and I, for one, don't think that I could vote for him in conscience.
Non-Australian readers also mightn't realise that abortion remains criminal in most of Australia. Much as it is tolerated by the adoption of foreign precedents, in the context that it is basically criminal, an abortion pill requires closer supervision by Parliament, rather than the new act's pretence that the whole issue is `therapeutic' and can be farmed out to technical bodies.
The private members' bill was a power grab taking advantage of anti-Catholic prejudice.
As a Latin Mass attending geek, I think the analogy is meaningful but misplaced. I've looked at people's missals before VII and those who took the trouble to follow what was going on would have known a lot more about the liturgy then than somebody half-interested now, now that it's a no-brainer. The same is true of Latin Mass congregations today. (Though I'm less romantic about that since a friend of mine was married in Latin recently and they wanted two rings. No priest in the Fraternity of St Peter, dedicated to the traditional liturgy, had enough Latin to convert the blessing of the rings to the plural, so it was up to me.) Anybody who had made the effort to participate in the liturgy might also have become aware of the seriousness of dissent, instead of imagining it was radical to agree with Joe Protestant or Jill Unchurched. The Catholic Church has been justly described as the world's least obscure sect and nothing about it was or is hidden by the use of Latin. The instant confidence of unknowing enthusiasts now that she does business in the vernacular has done great damage. The use of Latin was not a self-preserving jargon but a usefully specialised vocabulary, as any use of technical terminology should be.