Church comments on the media
1979 B.B. Min. 53
10. Express approval to the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal for the guidelines for television which prevent previews of adult programmes being shown during children’s programmes, and that we notify the Tribunal of this.
1980 B.B. 116
3. Communicate with the Governor in Council with the request that:
(i) A review be made of the Films Board of Review in relation to that body’s control over objectional religious material presented in films;
(ii) The Films Board of Review be so restructured to ensure that a cross section of religious opinion be sought for the Board’s guidance when films come up for examination which have an obvious objectionable religious content.
1984 B.B. Min. 212
6. Express its concern regarding violence on television, and encourage Presbyteries and Kirk Sessions to monitor programmes and make known their concern, where necessary, to television station management, State Parliamentarians and other interested bodies.
1984 B.B. Min. 212
9. Authorize the Clerk of Assembly to forward a letter of commendation and support to Hon E. Bailey, MLA, for his opposition to video rental shops supplying violent films like ‘Caligula’ to children, and request his advice as to what can further be done to control this practice.
1985 B.B. Min. 75
10. Instruct the Public Questions and Communications Committee to maintain a watching brief on the issues of pornography and video material, censorship laws and legislation concerning family relationships.
11. Urge the Federal Government to ban the screening on television of all scenes from feature and other films, other than those classified for General Exhibition, between the hours of 5.00 am and 8.30 pm each day and advise the appropriate Federal Minister accordingly.
15. Express in writing to Attorney General Scott of Illinois, USA, its protest in the strongest possible terms against the production, filming and showing of any movie that supposedly depicts the “sex life” of our Lord Jesus Christ as a sordid homosexual, with Mary Magdalene played by a French prostitute with whom Christ has a blatant affair, proposed by Modern People News, of 11030 West Addison Street, Franklin Park, Illinois 60181, or any other company or group. The reason for such protest being that such a movie would be utterly blasphemous, an immoral outrage and entirely contrary to the truth. As disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ we urge Attorney General Scott to take prompt and decisive action against this moral corruption proposed within the province of his jurisdiction.
1992 B.B. Min. 116
12. Reaffirm its earlier support for Family Radio and encourage the Charges to support the work of Family Radio.
1995 B.B 74
3. Endorse the following responses –
e) that of the Moderator, with the concurrence of the Clerk of Assembly and the Convener of the Public Questions and Communications Committee in issuing a Media release objecting to the material in the supplement of the December 1994 Edition of “Cleo”, featuring a “Safe Sex Guide” endorsed by the Federal Minister of Human Services and Health, the Hon. Carmen Lawrence.
vi SAFE SEX GUIDE MEDIA RELEASE
THURSDAY 9TH MARCH 1995
Our attention has been drawn to the public debate arising from the disclosure of two separate but related issues involving so-called sex education.
The first of these was the "safe sex guide", published as a cooperative effort between personnel from the office of Carmen Lawrence, Federal Minister of Health, and a national women's magazine.
Issued ostensibly as a guide to the young, but obviously intended for a wider audience as it was touted as a "non-judgmental resource everyone should read", it received a subsidy by courtesy of Australian taxpayers of $250,000.
We strongly object, not only to the way in which this guide has been produced and funded, with the full approval of the Minister herself, but also, and more particularly, to the depraved sexual practices which are described and disseminated through its pages.
The second issue involves the publication of sexually explicit swap cards by The Queensland AIDS Council. We commend the State Government on banning their distribution.
Once again, we strenuously object to the funding of this pornographic "Bubble Boy" campaign with taxpayers' money, and even more to the nature of this sexually explicit material.
We have noted the objections of the AIDS Council, who are repeatedly considering a challenge to the State censor's ruling, but believe it is ludicrous that a society which will strenuously maintain that cigarette advertising sends a powerful message of societal approval to adolescents, will insist with a perfectly straight face that there is no moral context to the distribution of pornography in the form of popular style swap cards, which pander to voyeurism.
We affirm that the kind of "education" revealed in both these publications has nothing to do with disease control, and everything to do with normalising a sexual ethic.
They are symptoms of what Judge Fred McGuire, president of the Children's Court of Queensland, recently described as "a serious malaise in our society which threatens its very existence." "The moral dilemma," he said, "can only be resolved by an acceptance of the moral imperative. What is needed is a moral renaissance, a moral reawakening, a restoration of ordinary goodness - in short, a return to the 'good and the right way'."
We affirm unashamedly that that "good and right way" has been clearly revealed by God and is set forth in The Bible. This is true in the right ordering of society generally, as well as the specific matter of child crime which was Judge McGuire's concern.
It is especially so in the ordering of family life where God ordained the normal arrangement as being a marriage of a man and a woman, committing themselves to a life-long relationship of faithfulness and love in marriage, and the building of a home where children would be protected and nurtured in a secure love.
In a day when the position of women is receiving continued attention, we also affirm that it is the Judeo-Christian ethic, insisting that romantic love could be found and protected only in marriage, which began the process of raising the status of women from breeding animal to full human dignity. In contradistinction, the material to which we have been objecting here does nothing to uplift and enhance the position of women or of family life in our society today.
It is time to call a halt, not only to the dissemination of this morally destructive material, but also to its funding from the public purse, whether Federal or State.
For and on behalf of THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF QUEENSLAND
Very Rev Dr K J Gardner, OBE
Clerk of Assembly