The road to Hell, as the saying goes, is paved with good intentions. And it’s paid for and laid out and maintained by ‘kind’ and ‘well-meaning’ busybodies who think it’s their state-given right to pry and interfere and impose their own, bigoted version of morality on everyone else.
In Australia, we used to call them “wowsers”, describing the sort of cat’s-bum-mouthed curtain-twitchers who were absolutely determined that no one, anywhere, should be allowed to have a good time. Then, some time around the 80s I suspect, the old-school wowsers were replaced by a new breed. Dat Ol’ Time Religion was replaced by a new religion of ‘public health’ and ‘diversity’.
But, no matter what their brand of wowserism, the dire consequences of their moralistic interference are always the same.
In 1869, a “well meaning” Victorian government passed the Aborigines Protection Act under which Aboriginal children could be taken from their families for the first time.
In 2007, Bruce Trevorrow was the first member of the Stolen Generation to successfully sue and be awarded damages by the South Australian government. In 2008, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a national apology in the Australian parliament to the Stolen Generation.
In the 1950s, a “well meaning” Australian government allowed the practice of forced adoption of babies born to unwed teen mothers.
In 2013, former Prime Minister Julia Gillard issued a national apology to people affected by forced adoption on behalf of the Australian government and established a compensation fund.
And have the wowsers learned anything? Have they, bugger!
The new wowserism is rainbow wowserism. Under the banner of libertinism and ‘tolerance’ they’ve actually erected the scaffold of the most brutally intolerant ideology to infect the West since the state socialists put their black shirts away.
In 2020, “well meaning” Queensland and ACT governments passed legislation banning “conversion therapy” broadly defined as a practice to suppress or change a person’s sexual or gender identity. Now the Victorian government is seeking to pass similar, but even broader legislation in the new year.
All very “well meaning” of course. Throw in a few weasel-words about ‘kindness’ and ‘welcoming’ and we’re once again treading the well-worn path to lawsuits and national apologies.
In a landmark UK decision, Keira Bell, who is now 23 and de-transitioning after commencing her transition at 16 years, and an anonymous woman whose 15 year old autistic daughter is on the waiting list for treatment to transition, successfully sued the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust under the National Health Service for allowing children to consent to puberty blockers and gender re-assignment surgery. The High Court found that children are unable to give informed consent to such treatment. The NHS’ Tavistock clinic has now suspended all new referrals for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for children under 16 years of age.
If Australia does not heed these early warnings from overseas and passes increasingly wider so-called “conversion therapy” legislation, just like before, in decades to come there will be need for national apologies and compensation, but these acts can never restore a person or make up for wrongs perpetrated by the hand of government against them.
First of all, we should be absolutely aware that the phrase “conversion therapy” is a red herring. It’s yet another leftist motte-and-bailey gambit that seeks to present the worst fringe practises as the norm. Think of “conversion therapy” and you’ll almost certainly think of the sort of electro-shock-to-gay-gonads stuff that was quietly abandoned long before flared trousers were.
By their own admission, even the most flaming-out gays “struggle with their sexuality” during at least some point in their lives. But, should they consult a counsellor or therapist – sorry, that’s “conversion therapy”.
There are two major areas where what otherwise appears to be a sensible bill, surreptitiously diverges from what the public would accept as “conversion therapy”. The first of these is the banning of any formal or informal counselling or discussions around a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity unless this is to assist a person to transition, express their gender identity, provide acceptance, support or understanding, or facilitate their coping skills (section 5(2)). Secondly, the bill expressly bans someone ‘carrying out a religious practice including but not limited to, a prayer based practice’ (section 5(3)(b)). To engage in any of these prohibited acts can attract imprisonment up to 10 years or a fine up to $198,264 if harm to mental health is deemed to have been caused.
In typical leftist fashion, the glaring self-contradiction in their ideological garbage is completely ignored. Gender identity is “fluid”, they say – but talk to your therapist or priest about it and it’s off to the gulag for them. Secondly, it’s all “our bodies, our choice” and “the gummint should stay out of people’s bedrooms!” until they want the government to pass laws to regulate peoples’ sexuality.
Even worse, under this new law, if your child tells you that, notwithstanding the glaring lack of a penis in their My Little Pony undies, they are in fact a boy, don’t you dare say otherwise. Even pink icing on the birthday cake instead of the demanded blue will be a crime. “Don’t be silly, you’re a girl” is the sort of thing that will have the rozzers kicking down your door and dragging your kids off to become wards of the state.
In addition, the ill-conceived widening of the definition of sexual orientation included in the bill to be ‘a person’s emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to, or intimate or sexual relations with, persons of the same or another gender or of more than one gender’ could well open the door to affirmation rather than suppression of paedophilia. Clearly there are a number of aspects of this bill that have not been thought through at all.
The Good Sauce
Au contraire, I rather suspect that they have been very deliberately thought through. In the 1980s, the very ‘academics’ now running the septic think tanks who lurk behind this sort of Orwellian legislation were openly writing about the tender loving care of dirty old men feeling up little boys. Even in the last decade, they’re still at it: “Why do we need an age of consent at all? Are there diverse kinds of intergenerational sex? And are they always harmful?”
I humbly present this crepuscular pedophilia apologetic as Exhibit A in answering his own first question, m’lud.
In the meantime, the countdown to a National Apology to a generation of mutilated and damaged children begins.
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