By CATHERINE DEVENY
Added: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:00:00 UTC

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The article below didn’t get a run last week. To be honest, I have no problem being spiked. That’s going to happen every now and then seeing as though what I write can get pretty edgy. Nature of the beast. It’s a deeply conservative broadsheet newspaper. I accept that.
I accept the editorial policies and the factors that guide them are complex. It would be unfair for me not to mention that The Age is still the bravest newspaper in Australia, if not for any other reason than by letting a woman like me have a voice.

The whole issue of religion for me is about the infringement of human rights and the upholding the right to free speech.

I thought you’d like to read it anyway.

Christian Values

I made front page of the Sunraysia Daily last week. I know, I’ve arrived. Picture of me with big capital letters BANNED. The most shocking thing was the article referred to me as a ‘celebrity’.

Why was I banned from Mildura, one of the most cosmopolitan and multicultural places in Victoria? Full of warm welcoming people, great chat and incredible diversity? Was there are Ladies Who Take Their Husbands Surname’s Convention? No. Were The Footy Show doing a live broadcast from Irymple with special guest Tony Abbott? No. Was the 4WD, Monster Pram Leafblower Expo on in Wentworth? No.

I was booked to speak at the St. Joseph’s College Stadium for International Women’s Day until the powers at pulled the venue on the grounds that I “held views that were not consistent with the Catholic Church”.

Most priests, parishioners and the Catholic Church itself hold views not consistent with the Catholic Church.

Mildura has been host to two of the most notorious convicted pedophile priests in Australia’s history. Monsignor John Day and Father Gerard Risdale. The chid abuse was covered up by the Catholic Church and the police (more here).

According to several sources the Ballarat diocese is allegedly dangerously low on funds due to the huge amount of sex abuse payouts to victims. Funds the church raise from what the parishioners put into the collection plate more here and here.

The Catholic Church let pedophiles speak from their pulpits but ban a feminist atheist speak in it’s parish hall. Whose right to free speech would Jesus deny?

I wonder if they would come to the same decision had I been a man?

I was thrilled they banned me. And not only because banning is the refuge of those who forfeit the argument. But because by banning me they were proving my point by exposing the church for what is it. Not an institution devoted to love, tolerance, compassion, kindness and justice. But a cult about power, control and discrimination. The only thing that would make me any happier is if they burned me at the stake.
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TAGGED: ATHEISM, RELIGION