A Bill permitting pairs of homosexuals to adopt children was passed in the New South Wales lower house of parliament yesterday.

Premier Kristina Keneally said she “consulted her conscience” — then voted for homosexual adoption.

She said, “It’s something that I, not just as a Christian and a Catholic, but as the leader of this state, want to be able to support.”

How about that?

Such churchy-sounding attempts at fence-straddling only earn contempt from both sides of the debate.

* * *

Two of NSW’s three accredited adoption agencies — Anglicare and CatholicCare — threaten to stop providing adoption services if forced to process adoptions by homosexual couples.

The other, UnitingCare, supported the bill, saying it would benefit children etc.

*  Anglicare spokesman, Peter Kell, also trying to please everybody, said, “Anglicare is not seeking to perpetuate and condone discrimination against gay people . . . .”

As one supporting common sense on this issue, it’s a pity he spoils his credibility by apologising for being right.

* The so-called Uniting Church has, of course, got this one all wrong, as is their habit.

The fact that they call themselves a Christian group is confusing, and they should give it up.

* Worst of all is pretend-Catholics who, like Mrs Keneally, “search their consciences” and then decide that they know better than the Church and better than God.

* * *

The Bible consistently says that homosexual relations are wrong.

One famous text in the Book of Leviticus: “You shall not have intercourse with a man as you would with a woman. That is an abomination.” (“Abomination” as in “outrage” or “disgrace”)

The Old Testament also says that people doing such things should be stoned to death – indicating how seriously the Jewish religion regarded such sins.

The New Testament records Jesus stopping some Jews stoning an adulterous woman, thus endorsing more merciful attitudes.

But to the woman he said, “Go, and sin no more.”

He was very strict about sin, but compassionate to sinners who repented.

* * *

Anyway . . . children must be taught that all sex outside of normal marriage is unacceptable.

Living in a household whose adults, by word and example, flout Christian standards . . . .

That is something children must be protected from at all costs.

Each state of Australia has an official motto.

Victoria’s motto is “Peace and Prosperity”.

* * *

Prosperity?

Last week, caretaker-Prime Minister Julia Gillard told the National Press Club, “We have begun building a strong foundation for our future prosperity investing in 21st century infrastructure . . . .”

Clutching desperately at whatever straw might help her survive as PM — her best bet was to talk prosperity . . . .

Australians love being prosperous.

* * *

Peace?

One wonders what kind of peace is Victoria’s motto referring to?

Simply there being no foreign invaders and no blood in the streets?

* You say, “We’re going well. I saw no Chinese/Russian/American soldiers manning roadblocks in town today.” Perhaps not, but did you look at the label inside your shirt? Where was it made?

* You saw no bleeding corpses in the shopping mall? No, but watching TV tonight you’ll see them non-stop — on the news and in what passes for “entertainment”.

* * *

Forget all that.

What matters is internal peace.

Ask your GP how many of his patients have peace of mind? How many live 24/7 at the verge of screaming point?

Ask your children’s teacher how much class time is spent talking about (and to) their Creator.

If God exists, and we ignore him, we’ll never find peace — denying and defying the very Origin of peace.

If God didn’t exist, then nothing but hate and chaos – the opposite of peace — could be possible.

Belief makes the difference.

God created us capable of loving him. That is our purpose. He proved it by entering history himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

That being so, all life lived apart from Christ is a bit of a waste — and the pursuit of prosperity pretty irrelevant.

* * *

If one’s first aim is pleasing God, one will gladly accept prosperity if that’s what God sends.

Or poverty, if he sends that.

The Bible describes God as a “jealous” God.

To please him, we must put him first — as individual persons and, likewise, political parties and governments.

Which makes the notion of separation of Church and State a bad joke.

Deaths of Australian soldiers in Middle East war zones are increasing.

Recently three — Corporal Jared McKinney, Private Grant Kirby, and Private Tomas Dale  — were killed within three days.

We admire these men for their bravery. We feel for their distressed families.

It seems almost rude to ask the unavoidable question — what point was there to them being there anyway?

Will their sacrifice ultimately help anybody?

* * *

We must, of course, respect their sacrifice.

Many of us doubt whether we could find the courage to do what they did.

Every ANZAC Day our whole nation goes into a state of perplexity.

We all want to pay our respects . . . .

We all want to avoid glorifying war . . . especially war against those who aren’t a direct threat to Australia’s sovereignty.

* * *

Inside Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance is a “Stone of Remembrance”, engraved with the words “Greater love hath no man”.

Every year, at 11am on 11 November — the hour and day of the Armistice which ended World War I – a ray of sunlight shines through the roof, lighting up the word “LOVE”.

Those words come from the Bible — words of Jesus Christ predicting his own death — nothing to do with soldiers or war.

John’s gospel, chapter 15:

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do the things that I command you.”

* * *

The Christian message is that the Passion of Christ is the one redeeming sacrifice.

Humanity (you and I) are enslaved by sin (disobedience to God) – meriting for us punishment, as demanded by God’s justice.

Christ’s Passion has infinite merit, such that it was a kind of ransom — covering the price of redeeming us from that debt of punishment.

No other sacrifice is in the same league.

Not the death of any soldier, however courageous.

Not the deaths of however many millions of Jews in the German Holocaust.

* * *

The Catholic Church teaches that Christ’s Passion is unique, literally.

Many people find that hard to believe.

Everybody finds it hard to understand.

Even harder to explain in words.

People voting for Labor or Coalition mostly had some idea what they were voting for.

Those voting for an Independent normally try to find out what kind of a bloke he is.

What about Greens voters? How many of them could name two Greens Party members apart from Bob Brown?

Such voters were voting for somebody – somebody they knew nothing about . . . . somebody, perhaps, with whom they wouldn’t be seen dead in a ditch in real life – somebody whose basic moral ideas they would actually detest.

Bob Brown himself isn’t too sure about some of the characters endorsed by his party — some so politically and personally immature that they almost make him look good.

He is probably quite frightened of them.

And rightly so.

* * *

The Greens want to increase taxes on our major export industries, on all electricity users – and on everybody who dies.

Also to financially damage the Private Health Insurance industry and Catholic schools.

Eventually, also, to close all non-government schools and all Zoos and the one Australian laboratory that can supply radio-active isotopes for use in cancer therapy.

* * *

Already we’ve let the Greens get a stranglehold on Tasmania . . . .

Now they’ll be able to blackmail their way into getting whatever they want in Senate votes.

Yes, the Greens — who represent hardly anybody’s beliefs – got their Senate blackmailing licence thanks to Labor preferences. And their first lower house seat (Melbourne) by means of Liberal preferences.

Thanks chaps.

* * *

While almost no sane person in Australia supports Greens policies, 12 percent voted for them.

Cardinal Pell warned voters against this. So did Perth’s Archbishop Hickey.

Did you hear of any others of Australia’s 41 Catholic bishops doing  likewise?

Neither did I.

* * *

Let this disastrous election be a lesson to us.

Victorians will, in less than three months, have a chance to make the same mistake again.

It is hard to be optimistic.

Chelsea Clinton, daughter of ex-President Bill, and Secretary of State, Hilary, married Marc Mezvinsky on July 31, 2010.

A sort of “mixed” marriage — a protestant marrying a Jew.

Otherwise it was a fairly traditional, sensation-free wedding — awful for those media columnists who survive by exposing sensational scandals about “celebrities”.

One commented, “Despite growing up in the White House, Ms. Clinton appears to have emerged ‘relatively normal’. People can’t quite believe it.”

* * *

Another “celebrity”, Julia Gillard, caretaker-Prime Minister of Australia, is famously un-married — living with a de facto male housemate or whatever.

Much more newsworthy.

Much better media.

* * *

Many Australians might shrug, saying mixed marriage isn’t a problem. Living together unmarried isn’t a problem. The only real problem is if somebody stands in front of the TV when I’m trying to watch it.

Yet, deep down, does something tell us that marriage is MORE than a photo-opportunity and/or ego-trip . . . that marriage has something to do with God?

Might God, indeed, have something to say about believers marrying non-believers etc?

* * *

Has confusion about marriage crept even into today’s Church?

The up-dated 1997 “Catechism of the Catholic Church” says:

“A case of marriage . . . between a Catholic and a non-baptised person . . . does not constitute an insurmountable obstacle for marriage, when they succeed in placing in common what they have received from their respective communities . . . But the difficulties of mixed marriages must not be underestimated . . . .”

Two bob each way?

* * *

Before the 1960s, “modernisation” of the Church, the position was clearer:

“From the very beginning of its existence the Church of Christ has been opposed to such unions. As Christ raised wedlock to the dignity of a Sacrament, a marriage between a Catholic and a non-Catholic was rightly looked upon as degrading the holy character of matrimony . . . .”

In practice, however, such marriages happened even then – with the Church trying to insist that the children be brought up Catholic . . . .

Was that already the thin edge of the wedge?