Lucifer is my shepherd, I'll not want,

I feed in pastures green.

Beelzebub grants me rest and bids me drink

from waters calm and clean. 

Through daily tasks, I'm blessed and led

by one I have not one seen.

Restored to life each morning new,

I rise up from the dust

to follow Diabolus whose presence gives

me confidence and trust.

I praise the name of Mammon today;

in GayLord I put my trust.

When I must pass through shadowed vale,

where loss and death await,

I will not fear for Satan is there,

my shepherd strong and great,

whose rod and shaft will comfort me

and all my fears abate.

etc... See the singers in the toon above...

The bill to legalise same-sex marriage has passed the Senate, but with a sitting week cancelled in the House of Representatives, MPs will not continue debate until next week.

• 43 voted yes, 12 voted no, some senators abstained from casting a vote
• Bill passed without amendment, and will now move to the House of Representatives for further debate
• House of Representatives' sitting week was cancelled, so will not resume until Monday

The bill passed without amendment, with 43 senators voting yes and 12 no.

The bill will now be debated by the Lower House when MPs return to Canberra next week, paving the way for same-sex marriage to be legalised by Christmas.

Liberal senator Dean Smith, who authored the bill, told his Senate colleagues before the vote that while it had been a difficult journey to get to this point, the debate over the bill had been "good for the soul" of all Australians.

"We should not fear conscience. The more the debate was resisted, the more the strength was found to fight for it," he said.

"At some later point, we should reflect on how we can avoid that tortured process from ever having to happen again.

"This debate has been good for the soul of the country.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-29/same-sex-marriage-bill-passes-sena...

The querulousness of the vanquished was perhaps summarised by Ian Macdonald’s fury at Derryn Hinch’s rainbow scarf.

The Queensland Liberal really wanted that scarf off. Hinch wasn’t inclined to take it off. And so it went, as the Senate crept towards legalising marriage equality.

Calm entreaties that the public was watching didn’t disrupt one man on a mission to feel aggrieved and put upon by Derryn in his rainbow scarf, and scorned by the progressive peanut gallery who were collectively underwhelmed with Macdonald’s previous efforts to remove discrimination for gays and lesbians, and by the fact he knew a couple of atheists.

So Macdonald’s impotent outrage grew, a thing in itself, but somehow symptomatic of the impotent outrage that is now prompting a rudderless government to turn on itself in full public view.

As the Senate inched towards doing its job, delivering the outcome on marriage a majority of Australians asked for, Macdonald raged inside and, outside, various conservatives lined up to blame Malcolm Turnbull for failing to “lead” during the marriage equality debate.

By failing to lead, the critics meant Turnbull had failed to engineer a situation where more socially liberal colleagues would meekly cop the conservative position on religious protections.

In the words of the National Andrew Broad, Turnbull had been “sneaky” in the way he had handled the internal debate about religious protections. This view was backed by the still in-house dissident George Christensen, whom colleagues sense is on a mission to martyrdom.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/nov/29/impotent-outrage-...

In his speech, Mr Williamson says: "All we are doing with this bill is allowing two people who love each other to have that love recognised by way of marriage. That is all we are doing."

"I give a promise to those people who are opposed to this bill right now. The sun will still rise tomorrow.

"Your teenager daughter will still argue back with you as if she knows everything. Your mortgage will not grow," he continues.

"You will not have skin diseases or rashes, or toads in your bed, the world will just carry on. So don't make this into a big deal."

Following the speech New Zealand's parliament legalised same-sex marriage. It was the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to do so.

read more:

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42167883

Malcolm Turnbull has revealed he will support at least two amendments to the Senate’s same-sex marriage bill to guarantee that charities will not be affected and to allow civil celebrants to refuse to solemnise weddings.

The prime minister backed the amendments after pressure from conservatives to do more to protect religious freedom despite earlier saying that the cross-party bill, which passed the Senate on Wednesday, “does not impose any restrictions on religious freedoms at all”.

Despite his move, the Senate bill is likely to have the numbers to pass the lower house unamended, with the Liberal MP Warren Entsch and key crossbench MPs confirming to Guardian Australia they would vote down amendments.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/nov/30/malcolm-turnbull-...

Miranda Devine is unhappy because people are being mean to Shelton with uplifting social media messages such as “Eat shit Lyle”.

In fact, Shelton is on the look out for fresh dangers to religious freedom, such as the rise of gender fluid theory studies at universities and the lingering evils of Safe Schools.

We have Philip Ruddock’s report to look forward to early next year, so religious freedoms remain smouldering on the stove. The former Liberal Party minister, along with Rosalind Croucher from the Human Rights Commission, former federal court judge Annabelle Bennett and Father Frank Brennan are charged with deciding “whether Australian law adequately protects the human right to religious freedom” and if not, what should be done on each.

It’s a strange business, but conservatives only furiously latched onto religious freedoms when the postal survey became a reality – as though same-sex couples gaining rights meant that religious people would lose them. 

Senator Dean Smith’s legislation on marriage equality actually contains more than enough protections for religious freedom.

The new law creates a special category of “religious marriage celebrant”, which includes people who are not ministers of religion but who are free to refuse to marry same-sex couples if their religious beliefs get in the way. Ministers of religion retain the right to refuse to marry people if the marriage conflicts with their beliefs, “or in order to avoid injury to the susceptibilities of their religious community”.

So a minister may be supportive of marrying people regardless of their sex or gender, but can refuse to do so if others in the church are upset about it. The right of refusal even extends to ministers who are “confused” about ambiguities in their religious doctrines.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/14/dont-extend-churc...

Read from top...

Scott Morrison says he will fight back against discrimination and mockery of Christians and other religious groups in 2018, in comments that position him as one of the leading religious conservatives in the Turnbull government. 

Mr Morrison also promised to play a leading role next year in the debate about enshrining further "protections" for religious freedom in law, which will be informed by a review currently being led by former Attorney-General Philip Ruddock.

Read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/im-not-going-to-put-up-with-it-anymore-morrison-vows-to-defend-christianity-in-2018-20171221-h08jg8.html

So, according to our Australian treasurer, Scott Morrison, we should not mock religion. But can we ridicule politics that are based on religious beliefs? No? Ridiculising religion is not on, says Morrison forcefully with powerful conviction as he vows to fight the good oil for the Christians — and the others (read mostly Jews and Muslims). Good for him. It could seems that such rabid defence by Morrison is targeted mainly at a Mr Leonisky, who appears to denigrate religions of all kinds every day. Nothing such. Mr Leonisky does not have to mock religions. Mr Leonisky only shows that religious beliefs don’t make any sense and that the ridicule, or mockery, about religious belief is self-contained. Mr Leonisky personally does not care what people think or believe as long as the social democracy is secularly induced and maintained. Here the old religious structures try hard to regain their ascendency on governments they used to control through thrones of god. The religious ruling of the “new” democracy is more difficult as it's based on a "human idea" rather than a divine right, and the religious hierarchy uses various subterfuges to maintain its position. Morrisson here is included in this oligarchic hubris, even if he is good or bad bean-counter... Mr Leonisky prefers that the democratic agenda be motivated by greater understanding of our animality in evolution and its relationship with the quality of nature on this little planet. Anything else is hubris of the deceptive variety, even if kings and queens have held the fort since whenever they fought other pretenders, while being successful pretenders themselves, who then controlled the recording of history. 

The religious hubris in regard to a world that does not exist is on par with placebos and nocebos. The reward/punishment dynamics of religions are deceptively using the natural survival strategies with over-the-top ignorant hubris.

Evolution is a proven reality. No religious dogmatic decree has ever been proven. NONE. So what do we do? Carry on believing in a calcified art form with no relationship to our origins — or investigate the complex reality of this little wonderful planet? Nature has its own rewards and punishment. Behaviour should not be based on a belief system, though it uses false and true reactive elements. Behaviour is an arrangement between many factors of nurture and nature. If our nurture is falsified by belief, though we can still make it through life comfortably, we have buckley’s chance of understanding anything. We are deluded, whether this is good or not. Individually, Mr Leonisky could not care less. Socially we cannot accept this delusion. This is where sciences come in. One of the problem with sciences is that they are very complex and difficult. We are lazy and easy prey to fall for delusive bullshit — thus we prefer to indulge in belief rather than in understanding.

That is the real question. “Should we investigate to understand” or just believe in hocus pocus be it Christian, Jewish or Muslim? For too many people, including our treasurer, their answer is the deplorable wrong one. 

See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZDYhQ4UAnA