Another piece from Paddi-O.

Telephone to glory, oh, what joy divine!
I

can feel the current moving on the line.

Made by God the Father for His very own,

You may talk to Jesus on this royal telephone.

Burl and friends

The dulcet tones of Burl Ives used to croon this little number over the radio when I was a boy. There was something comforting about the idea that Jesus was always there to listen, like the Easter Bunny ready to leave chocolate eggs at the end of my bed, or the Tooth Fairy ready to leave sixpence for a baby tooth, or the big one, Santa Claus – much more helpful than Jesus even.

(Ed). Always found more solace in Catweazle and his mystic, ” Tellingbone”

We grow up. Some nasty kid tells us that the Easter Bunny isn’t real, or that Santa is a fake, and that the tooth fairy is just your Dad or Mum. You hang on to the lies for a bit, in case fessing up will stop the cargo cult and the sixpences, the chocolate eggs and the presents will stop. Eventually the nods and winks give way to reality. Remarkably having been lied to you lie to your own and tell your own kids the same fairy stories. Religion is the same. Christians believe that Buddhists believe in fairy tales, Muslims believe that Jews are infidels all faiths reject all other faiths. Sincere atheists venerate the Dreamtime or excoriate Christianity while defending oppressed Muslims. And the whole lot leads to bloodshed, wars, atrocities, and hate.

Dear reader could only find the teeniest icon- sized miniature of Michael Digges. But as Paul Kelly famously sang; ‘From little things big things grow”. It’s all part of being small-minded.

So when a secular business, that has advocated publicly for reform to the Marriage Act to remove discrimination that makes the secular, state sponsored, contract between two people to share property and responsibility for any children they may have exclusive to heterosexual couples, bows to pressure from the Catholic Church and removes their public support for change, something is very, very wrong.

This week we learned TELSTRA did just that. Michael Digges, Archdiocese of Sydney business manager wrote to TELSTRA noting that they had publicly supported marriage reform and implying that the Church would cancel all its contracts with TELSTRA. Incredibly TELSTRA backed down, and in a weasel decision said while it supported reform it would not take a public stand in the debate. This is despite its business rivals publicly endorsing the same reform. So in one act of bullying, the Church has effectively silenced the whole telecommunications sector.

So what gives the right to the Church to do this? The Marriage Act (No. 12 1961 as amended up to Act No. 13 2013) authorises Ministers of Religion to be registered to give effect to the contract that is marriage, and makes clear that the power to remove such registration is retained by the State. It does not state that Marriage is a Religious monopoly as anybody who has attended weddings performed by civil celebrants would know. The clause introduced by John Howard reads: marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life. This is a secular clause, in a secular piece of legislation, for which the Catholic Church or any other entity does not have special claim. It was enacted by parliament and can be changed by parliament, itself a secular institution bound under the Constitution: Ch 5 § 116 The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

The Church can express an opinion, which it has, and clearly TELSTRA fears the commercial implications of that opinion, but it does not own marriage. This awful outcome presages the proposed plebiscite on marriage reform. As we witnessed over the debate on Safe Schools this will release more bile, lies and hate, much of it in the name of Jesus, and the Catholic Church. If TELSTRA has folded at the first bullying threat, how much hope can we have?

Central’s never busy, always on the line,

You can hear from heaven almost any time

.
’Tis a royal service, built for one and all,

When you get in trouble, give this royal line a call.