Senator Steve Fielding is the leader of Australia’s ‘Family First‘ political party. He was elected into the Victorian senate with less than 1% of the vote in 2004 thanks to a few deals he struck with the two major parties. Needless to say he has wreaked havoc in the senate, and everyone is looking forward to being rid of him when his term expires in 2011. Between denying the science of climate change and voting against the rights of women to access safe and legal abortion, he recently had this to say about homosexuality:

Fielding likens same-sex marriage to incest | The Age

FAMILY First senator Steve Fielding has compared same-sex marriages to incest, as a Senate inquiry yesterday recommended against allowing gay marriage in Australia.

A day after the first legally recognised same-sex civil ceremony in Canberra, Senator Fielding spoke out against allowing gay couples to wed.

”A bloke cannot marry his brother; it is not right,” he said. ”A woman cannot marry their sister; it is not right. A bloke cannot marry a bloke because it is not right, and a female cannot marry a female because it is not right. I don’t support this.” [read more]

This man is a stain on Australia’s political system. Please join this hilarious Facebook group in a concerted attempt to mock him.

Here’s an excerpt of today’s Sydney Morning Herald editorial on the topic of gay marriage. It beautifully covers every angle of the debate in Australia, even recognising the problems with ‘civil unions’ as opposed to ‘marriage’ recently passed in the ACT.

Whatever the gender, all marriages should be equal

SPAIN has done it. So have Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway and South Africa. All these nations have legalised same-sex marriage, without evident undermining of heterosexual marriage and the family relationships based upon it. And in Britain, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Germany and New Zealand, where the law allows same-sex civil unions or registered partnerships, there hasn’t been any shredding of the social fabric, either. Yet Australia, which likes to see itself as a tolerant, pluralist society, has not been able to go as far as deeply Catholic Spain in removing remaining forms of institutionalised discrimination against gay and lesbian people.

In Victoria at the weekend, the ALP state conference carried a motion calling on the Federal Government to amend the Marriage Act to provide “equal access to marriage, regardless of the gender of either partner”. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Premier John Brumby are resolutely opposed to taking such a step, although Victoria allows same-sex and de facto couples to register their relationships and the Federal Government has legislated to remove discrimination against same-sex couples in tax, health, welfare, aged care and superannuation entitlements.
[read more]

Also, this weekend rallies are being held in every capital city across Australia in support of marriage equality. November 28 has been marked as the ‘National Day of Action’ to coincide with the recent senate inquiry into gay marriage. For more information check out http://www.equallove.info/

Recently, The Australian Capital Territory (ACT), celebrated a legislative victory as the first region in the country to give gay and lesbian families the right to a legal civil partnership ceremony. The new law is the most progressive yet in Australia, but LGBT activists fear Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will override it.

Please help us out and vote in this Canberra Times poll:

Q: Should the Federal Government overturn the ACT’s new civil unions legislation?

Yes: 43.6%
No: 56.4%
(225 votes)

Below is a short documentary film by Chase Whiteside and Erick Stoll from New Left Media, which chronicles the final days of the on-the-ground campaign to protect marriage equality in Maine.

Part One:

Part Two:

To stay in touch with New Left Media, become a fan on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.

In this interview I discussed Greg Craven’s monstrosity of an opinion piece recently published in The Age, The Pseudo Scientists podcast which I produce and co-host, and of course the upcoming Global Atheist Convention.

I was interviewed by a lovely lady called Sue Leigh during the ‘Drive Home’ show on Melbourne’s 3CR Public Radio.

Click here to have a listen.
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I am astonished that an ex-Professor of Law, and the current vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University could produce a rant such as the one embedded below.

Brimming with insecurity and paranoia, Craven spends the entire article amusing himself by displaying the exact qualities he derides in others. In fact, the article is so bizarrely rabid, illogical, vitriolic, unfunny, misguided, bigoted and insulting that I believe Craven has brought shame upon himself, his faith and his educational institution. Could this be a prank? Poe’s Law, anyone?

A plague of atheists has descended, and Catholics are the target | The Age

Attacking Christians is not really clever, witty or funny, writes Greg Craven.

FROM time immemorial, this world has been troubled by plagues. From bogong moths in Canberra to frogs in biblical Egypt, unwelcome and unlovely creatures have the awkward habit of turning up in bulk.

Just now, we are facing one of our largest and least appealing infestations. Somewhat in advance of summer’s blowflies, we are beset by atheists. Worse, they are not traditional atheists. These tended to be quiet blokes called Algie with ancillary interests in nudist ceramics, who were perfectly happy as long as you pretended to accept a pamphlet in Flinders Lane.

No, the new hobby atheist is as brash, noisy and confident as a cheap electric kettle. They want everyone to know that they have not found God, and that no one else should. Their particular target seems to be Catholics. On the surface, this is odd, as there are plenty of other religious targets just waiting to be saved from a vengeful, non-existent deity. Smaller herds, such as the Christadelphians or the Salvation Army, might seem more manageable. But the Catholic Church has two incomparable advantages as an object of the wrath of proselytising atheists. First, it is the biggie. Taking out the Catholics is the equivalent of nuking the Pentagon. Guerilla bands of Baptists and Pentecostals can be liquidated at leisure.
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It’s been a bad week for the church-cult of Scientology, and Marina Hyde from The Guardian argues that the internet has played a significant role in its downfall. Hyde then ponders the question, if indeed the free and open exchange of ideas and content enabled by the net has been pivotal to exposing the whacky beliefs and practices of the cult, how long will it be before mainstream religions are met with a similar fate?

The internet has done for Scientology. Could it rumble the Christians, too? | The Guardian | Oct 30th 2009

Draw near, infidels, for these are dark days for the Knights of Hubbard. Do not despair entirely – the Church of Scientology remains insanely rich, has excellent and rapacious lawyers, and according to the International Scientology News, “every minute of every hour, someone reaches for L Ron Hubbard technology … simply because they know Tom Cruise is a Scientologist”. So unless the world’s supply of troubled fools is melting away quicker than the Arctic ice cap, they can probably hold off trying to lure disaffected Kabbalists into their cultish communion, after the fashion of Pope Benedict and the Anglicans. And yet, all things considered, it has not been the best of weeks for our operating thetans. [more]

Earlier today I was interviewed on ABC 774 Melbourne for Sunday Mornings with Catherine Deveny. I’d like to invite our dear Gaytheist readers to check it out and have a listen.

The topics of discussion, naturally, are the Global Atheist Convention and the recent DDoS attack that brought down its website. Enjoy!

But thanks for the publicity – anonymous person or persons who are (most likely) Christian!

The following story has been featured in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Canberra Times, The Brisbane Times, The Inquirer, The Press, and ZDNet to name a few.

Atheist websites smitten by cyber attack | The Age

Australian atheists are under attack, with the websites of both the Atheist Foundation of Australia and the Global Atheist Convention knocked offline in a major cyber attack yesterday afternoon.

The “distributed denial of service” attacks flooded the websites with traffic, forcing them offline about 5.20pm yesterday.

As of this morning, the foundation had still not been able to restore the websites.

The attacks may be related to the Global Atheist Convention, which is being held in Melbourne in March next year. Speakers include Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and comedy writer Catherine Deveny.

About 1000 tickets have been sold so far through the Global Atheist Convention website, which was set up, and is operated, by the AFA.
The AFA is billing the event as the largest gathering of atheists in Australian history but ticket sales have had to be halted for now due to the cyber attack.

David Nicholls, president of the AFA, said it was not yet clear whether the attacks were motivated by religion or conservative Christian groups’ anger at the AFA’s lobbying for a more secular society.

However, the fact that two separate atheism-related websites were hit suggested the attack was targeted at atheists.

“We have been informed that the Atheist Foundation of Australia and the Global Atheist Convention sites were the specific target of the attacks,” Nicholls said, adding he had reported the incident to the Australian Federal Police.

“This may not be just an attack on atheism, but an attack on freedom of speech.”

The company hosting the websites has disconnected them in the face of the attacks, which knocked out other websites hosted by the provider.

Now, the AFA must find a new host and Nicholls said he expected the sites to be back online within half a day.

“Our aim is to keep the Australian government, education and welfare systems secular,” Nicholls said.

“Unfortunately, some people in our society find that very confronting.”

The cyber attacks are reminiscent of last year’s major attacks on Scientology websites by a group of loosely connected online miscreants that called themselves Anonymous.

In May this year, 19-year-old Dmitriy Guzner from New Jersey agreed to plead guilty to playing a part in the attacks, which crashed Scientology websites. The final outcome of the case is not clear but he faced up to 10 years in prison.

Although the websites are down, tickets for the Global Atheist Convention can still be purchased online via http://atheistconvention2010.eventbrite.com.