On Anzac Day 2010, the dawn service at the Arncliffe Cenotaph had to be moved indoors after teenage vandals had damaged the monument the previous evening.

“The whole club was horrified,” said Arncliffe RSL president, Peter McIntosh. “We were all pretty angry; and amazed, more than anything. They must know what Anzac Day means to Australians. They just have no respect.”

Police believe the vandals swung on the flagpoles until they snapped at the base, then emptied a wheelie-bin of rubbish over the site.

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Vandals are parasites. You can’t vandalise a building unless there are builders building them.

You can’t be an iconoclast unless somebody is making icons.

Perhaps you can’t be an atheist unless there are believers providing you with a safe society in which to make your brave noises.

How about Richard Dawkins, now reportedly saying, “I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers . . . . I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity insofar as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.”

Colour change, mate — from red-rag radical to yellow-livered rat with white flag — all in the space of one panic-attack.

* * *.

A lesson from history:

If your lifestyle ignores, flouts and disregards marriage, you vandalise the foundation underlying the society whose benefits you enjoy.

Domestic violence contributes 10 percent of deaths among Australian women aged 15 to 44 — mostly in families where there is no marriage, but some kind of casual, defacto-style coupling.

Children need to grow up learning that Mums and Dads are normally married — committed to staying together for life . . . .

Otherwise the cycle of shacking-ups and beating-ups will continue forever.

A society not cherishing marriage as unique and special will get the domestic violence it deserves.

* * *

The Church must proclaim marriage as a Sacrament — part of the Natural Law, written into human nature and our universe. Some “churches” don’t.

The (Catholic) Second Vatican Council (1960’s) weakened the supernatural aspects of religion. That was, arguably, spiritual vandalism.

Soon after, in Australia, the 1970’s Whitlam government legalised “no-fault” divorce.

And now we’re menaced by the prospect of legalised “same-sex marriages”, threatening — if they eventuate — to make things worse.