Have you ever tried asking a politician for a direct answer?

How many times do you write to their office before you give up?

In my younger years (in community research) we were taught that most political leaders give in and send a reply somewhere between the second and seventh attempt – and this was in the days of hand-written correspondence!

Now, I do not often write hand-written correspondence to politicians – although it would probably help if I did. But I still do write and attempt to ask questions that require a response beyond the set PR lines that are established by the spin masters within a government department.

One example took place after I read Steven Koonin’s Unsettled: What the Science Does and Does Not Say. I would quote him and his source material and send it off to climate alarmist politicians, asking them to respond to some of Koonin’s findings. The ‘kicker’ was that I also asked them to provide the comparative science basis for the alternative reasoning.

None of the politicians contacted attempted to answer those questions. So much for Enlightenment commitment…

Then there was the rabbit hole created by the last changes to abortion law. Given my previous counselling psychology experience, I gave a scenario where a woman could learn the language of ‘possible or probable mental ill-health consequences’ to ask for a late-stage abortion (i.e. post 24 weeks and up to birth). Oh, I also asked what kind of data was being kept so that this kind of scenario could be monitored, especially in the case of using this excuse for sex-selective abortion.

The result of my inquiry? The PR lines. There was no serious engagement with the given scenario. When I also asked the philosophical question about when they believed a human life began ‘enough’ to attract human rights the result was – crickets, silence, nada – apart from some garbled pseudo-care words about ‘being in line with professional bodies and how they determined their ethics’.

It was very similar when I wrote to the NSW Premier and Attorney-General about their reasoning for being able to change sex information on birth certificates for a fee. There was no attempt at any philosophical explanation of how they determined that this reflected reality better. Nor did they respond to questions about how this would confound health data – although, I did hear the Premier mutter something about keeping some kind of ‘two sets of data for health purposes’ on a talk-back radio program. What the…? Why was this never conveyed to me or the general public? How is this inconsistency of two-tier reality data explained?

I have had three attempts to receive a written response from the same people about whether I am breaking the (anti-conversion) law if I pray for a gender confused person because they have asked for it.

The first round responses highlighted the section apparently in the regulation about the prayer being sustained to be illegal. So I asked, what if the person asks for the prayer in a sustained manner or context?

This is what I received back:

‘A person may voluntarily seek guidance through prayer, and counsel, and guidance can still be given, provided it is not directed to change or suppress a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation. The Act does not ban gender transition, where such transition is in accordance with the person’s own gender identity.’

Basically, I can agree to the request for praying for and with someone if they are transitioning, but only if they know what their own gender identity is.

But wait – doesn’t the meaning of ‘dysphoria’ mean they are confused? That they do not know their gender identity? So, if the person seeks to transition one way for six months, but then changes their mind, was that six months of prayer support legal or illegal?

And what if the prayer request is to help them ‘suppress’ personal experiences that they wish not to have? Is it legal to help them, or not? And is it discriminatory to deny a person prayer support based on their gender identity anyway?

It seems to me that ‘speaking with forked tongue’ only starts to describe this kind of nonsense. But then again, it must be such a strong temptation to go down this path when the basis for decisions is the focus group, rather than making oneself accountable to something like natural law.

Ah, the life of ease in staying comfortably set within the walls of group-think while the plebs outside act like sitting ducks, sitting on the pond and not seeing the hunters hiding in the reeds of polemical camouflage. In the end, something will get cooked.