In this week’s update: calls for the principal of a Sydney girls’ school to resign over gender fluidity comments, the Liberal Party wins the South Australian election, concerning developments in the Northern Territory and Queensland MP George Christensen speaks up for the unborn.
Please read on…
Elite Sydney girls’ school in crisis
As reported by Miranda Devine this week, hundreds of parents at Santa Sabina College have called for the principal's resignation after her recent comments promoting gender fluidity.
Writing on her Twitter account recently (which has since been deleted) principal Maree Herrett claimed that “Gender is a social process, a dynamic of change quite different from biological evolution.”
Santa Sabina principal Maree Herrett (image from Twitter)
She went on to promote a book that claims the concept of binary sexes — as in male or female — is “impoverished thinking”. One of the book’s editors, transgender academic Raewyn Connell, was a research associate of Gary Dowsett, deputy director at La Trobe University’s Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society – the department that created the “Safe Schools” program.
It also describes women as “people assigned female at birth”, praises “polyamory” and criticises monogamy, and promotes a “movement to assert a multiplicity of sexual and gender identities” and “unbounded fluidity of gender and sexuality (to) escape the constraints of institutionalised heterosexuality”.
Only days later, Herrett boasted in the media that the school's recent uniform change was about enabling “a variety of gender expression”.
“What I think we’re recognising is that there has always been a variety of ways of expressing your femininity or your masculinity," she said.
At a protest late last week, parents demanded the resignation of Herrett and threatened to pull as many as 200 girls out of the school.
SA election wrap
The Liberal Party won the South Australian state election over the weekend, defying the predictions of many that the major parties would need to form a Government with Nick Xenophon’s so-called “SA Best” party.
(As it turned out, the SA Best party failed to win a seat – including Nick Xenophon’s own candidacy for the seat of Hartley.)
What does the result mean for family, faith and freedom?
In the lead-up to the election, the Liberals promised to scrap the notorious “Safe Schools” program if elected.
We trust that the new Liberal Government will fulfil this promise – following the good lead of the other Liberal-led states NSW and Tasmania.
Other key issues for SA will be prostitution and euthanasia – both of which were debated by the last parliament. The prospects of such bills getting through in this term will largely depend on the make-up of the Legislative Council – which is yet to be fully determined.
It appears Liberal, Labor and SA Best will likely win 9 out of the 11 seats between them, the Greens are likely to win the 10th, and the final seat could possibly either go to Labor or the Australian Conservatives depending on preferences.
Concerning changes in the Northern Territory
According to an ABC News report, the NT has finally “caught up” to the rest of the country by legislating to allow adoption by same-sex and de facto couples.
However, as independent MP Gerry Wood has rightly said, allowing same-sex couples to marry would take away the rights of children.
"Traditions are not always something that should be thrown away because there is another way of thinking," he said.
"Every child, where possible, should have a mother and father, that is a natural thing, it is the way it should be."
Mr Wood went on to say he feared the comments would be labelled "homophobic" because he did not agree with the changes.
In other NT news, The Australian newspaper reported last week that the Territory Labor Government has started funding the contentious Safe Schools program.
The Government advised principals they would have ongoing access to training and resources to “protect same-sex-attracted and transgender students from bullying”. However, as we well know, the “Safe Schools” program is about promoting gender ideology rather than stopping bullying – a fact admitted by the program’s Marxist founder, Roz Ward.
Queensland MPs speak at Brisbane’s March for Life
Speaking at Brisbane's March for Life last Sunday, federal Queensland MP George Christensen labelled his government’s funding of abortion services in Australia and around the world as a “very low point for our nation”.
The LNP MP said he was filled with shame when he learned the federal coalition gave $9.5 million to an international “planned parenthood” agency. Mr Christensen promised he would write to Treasurer Scott Morrison to urge him to divert those funds into pregnancy, crisis and counselling services for young mums.
New Senator Amanda Stoker – who is due to be sworn in as former Attorney-General George Brandis’ replacement this week – told the crowd the true measure of a society was how it treated people who couldn’t speak for themselves.
“Children and babies may not be able to vote but we must ensure that they are heard and protected by all those who govern,” she said.
Brisbane's March for Life
To George, Amanda, and the hundreds who marched, we say thank you for standing up for unborn children!
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The Australian Family Coalition
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