One of the things that characterise Left-leaning journalists is their Cultural Marxism. And one of the chief ways in which this expresses itself is in their hostility towards anyone who is religious, and especially those who identify as being Christian. Just take, for example, the recent article, “Why extend the church’s ‘freedom’ when it’s abused what it already has?” by Richard Ackland, who argues that people of faith shouldn’t have their religious freedoms extended. Wow! They really are becoming quite the totalitarian state over at The Guardian, aren’t they?

Ackland’s main beef against people with a religious faith is as follows:

When you consider the hateful, cruel, bitter and downright false contribution of some religious voices during the recent same-sex postal survey, why would anyone want to give these institutions more open-ended ‘freedoms’?

Significantly, Ackland doesn’t give a single hyperlink or example as to what any of these “hateful, cruel, bitter and downright false contribution(s) of some religious voices” might be. However, in what has been referred to as, “Love’s Hall of Shame,” there are plenty of ‘contributions’ in regards to each of these things from the ‘Yes’ campaign.

Ackland quickly mentions, but then dismisses, the most recent example of hate-speech, which ironically, came from none other than proponents of the ‘Yes’ campaign on the very day that marriage was re-defined stating, “Miranda Devine is unhappy because people are being mean to Shelton with uplifting social media messages such as “Eat shit Lyle”.” What Ackland doesn’t tell you though, is that two of the major proponents were Fairfax journalists, Clementine Ford and Benjamin Law – yes, the very same person who said that he would like to “hate fu-k” a number of heterosexual politicians.

There are so many examples of cruelty to choose from here it’s probably just easiest to list them: smashing car windows, to threats of physical intimidation and violence, to disgusting displays of verbal abuse, to the $20,000 redistribution of funds made by an Inner West Sydney council away from hospitals and to the LGBTIQ community, to labelling people in favour of traditional marriage as “archaic, retarded imbeciles” (from a guy in Tasmania after head-butting the former Prime Minister), to the GetUp! petition seeking to see Dr Pansy Lai be deregistered as a doctor, to others being sacked from their jobs.

The bitterness was also been evident when, even an innocuous Father’s Day ad was banned during the campaign. But social media provided the perfect platform for a plethora of spiteful comments to be made against those who supported the ‘No’ campaign as Kirralie Smith personally found out. What’s more, we also witnessed numerous occasions where people who were gathered to present the other side of the issue they were repeatedly heckled, bullied, shouted down and, at places such as Sydney University, verbally assaulted. The Aussie “comedian”, Tim Minchin, was in a category of bitterness all his own when he sang that our nation was full of, “racist… bigoted… fu-king… cu-ts.”

In regards to false reporting, remember the “Stop the Fags” posters in Melbourne that even Bill Shorten said on Q&A he had “personally witnessed”? Rather embarrassingly for the opposition leader, the ABC’s own Media Watch proved that no one had actually seen them. And yet, that didn’t stop Channel Ten from ‘creatively’ doctoring photos of bus shelters in Europe to make it look like they had been plastered all over Melbourne. Even more serious though was the false report made to police by Jessica Payne, who stated that, “I suffered an injury because people drove their cars nearly at full speed into the yes campaigners here today.”

Ackland goes on in his article to argue that, “There is a long and sorry history of churches meddling in society’s freedoms and undermining citizens’ human rights and private lives.” I guess it doesn’t matter that the majority of Australia still statistically identifies as being Christian, and that in keeping with their democratic rights they would like to see their values reflected and upheld. Ackland is upset though with the following:

Quite apart from the earth being flat, in living memory we have had everything from hotel and retail trading hours organised according to church dictates, restrictions on scientific and medical research, laying down rules about women having children and not having children, and telling everyone that God disapproved of divorce – all of which is invariably accompanied by lashings of fire and brimstone.

Now contrary to popular misinformation, the Christian church has never officially taught that the earth is flat. But is it really such a problem that believers thought that people shouldn’t work seven days a week? Or that an ethical framework shouldn’t guide, and at points restrain, our scientific and medical investigations? Or that children should be brought up in the security and safety of home comprised of their biological father and mother? Or that marriages should ideally be a union entered into for life? Are each of those things really so dreadful?

The attitude of journalists, such as Ackland, towards religion is strangely reminiscent of what happened during the French Revolution. As Alexis de Tocqueville describes in his book, The Old Regime and the French Revolution:

In France… Christianity was attacked with almost frenzied violence, there was no question of replacing it with another religion. Passionate and persistent efforts were made to wean men away from the faith of their fathers, but once they had lost it, nothing was supplied to fill the void within… There is no question that the nation-wide discredit of all forms of religious belief which prevailed at the end of the eighteenth century had a preponderant influence on the course of the French Revolution. This was, in fact, its most salient characteristic, and nothing did more to shock contemporary observers.

This is also the current day agenda of Cultural Marxism. And intellectual elites, like Ackland, won’t be happy until all of our civil, and especially religious, freedoms have all been taken away.

Mark Powell is the Associate Pastor of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church, Strathfield. 

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