Stephen D'Agata

I was prompted to ask myself this question after receiving an unsolicited pamphlet from the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), in my mailbox which posed the question: ‘Do you really know what your child is learning at school.’ Now it has only been a short while since my children were at school, and I think they turned out pretty good. My late wife and I were practicing Roman Catholics, we sent our children to a Catholic primary school, and then a government secondary school.

When I say were practicing Catholics, we did go to Mass every Sunday, in my teens I was a catechist, we were involved in special ministries and youth groups, and I was elected to chair Pastoral Councils at three different parishes.

So, I think that I can claim a strong commitment to Catholicism and Christianity. That said, like many I have known who are active in the Catholic church, I am very much on the progressive side of the fence, meaning that, although I identify as a Roman Catholic, certain elements of the Catholic church will have difficulty identifying with me.

Getting back to the ACL, their concern on what our children are being taught, according to their pamphlet, stems from the mandatory Respectful Relationships program. Their pamphlet claims that the Respectful Relationships program ‘indoctrinates kids with Gender Fluidity amidst a surge in students identifying as “non-binary”.’

Now, the ACL do not provide any statistics as to what constitutes ‘a surge’, but according to ABS data, in the 2021 Census, the percentage of respondents who considered themselves non-binary, was 0.17%. In a school population of 500 students, this means that, statistically speaking, one student may identify as non-binary. Also, of those who may identify as non-binary, only a fraction of them may wish to pursue gender reassignment. So, we are hardly looking at huge numbers and there is no evidence to say that simply informing kids that gender diversity exists, makes them want to change their gender.

My message to the ACL is, that if it appears that more people are identifying as gender diverse, it is purely because we are creating society where they feel comfortable to express their true identity. The surge is not that more people want to be gender diverse, or have non-binary sexual orientation, it is that more feel okay to be open about it. We do not live in a binary world. I believe that gender is a spectrum, no-one is 100% straight and that’s the way it has always been since the dawn of time.  As a Christian, I believe that diversity in gender and sexual orientation is all part of God’s grand plan, whomever they may be.

Another thing you need to know about me, is that I have an unhealthy obsession with US politics. I look at the rise of the MAGA movement and Christian Nationalism and am perplexed as to how such radical and divisive ideas can get so much traction. These are people who see drag-queens reading books to children in a library as a bigger threat than troubled teens with access to an arsenal of guns.

But then I get a pamphlet in the mail, and I’m reminded that we have people with the same sentiments within our community and those people have the ear of many of our political leaders. It is only due our compulsory voting laws and proportional representation in our elections, that these radicals do not get hold of any real power. Although they have come scarily close.

Which brings me to the point, who exactly does the ACL represent? The ACL purports to have 250,000 members. They appear to have their origins in the Pentecostal movement, but their website does not cite any affiliation to specific Christian denominations.

Now, assuming all their members are Australian and going back to the 2021 Census, that puts them at 2.2% of all people who identified as Christian and only 1% of the total population. Setting aside the fact that most Australians responded in the Census as either having no religion or not stating a religion, at 2.2% of all Christians, what gives the ACL the right to speak on behalf of the rest of us? I have no doubt, that there are members of my Roman Catholic faith who may have some involvement with the ACL. In fact, many of the Roman Catholic hierarchy share the values that the ACL promotes. But I know that I am not alone in the Christian community in not supporting the ACL’s values.

The ACL does not have the inside running on what our creator wants or expects from us. I’m sorry to have to inform them that religion is a human construct. It is not divine instruction. First nations people on every continent have developed their own empirical beliefs to make sense of our existence on this planet. It is truly surprising how similar these empirical views are. However, over time, religion has been coopted by rulers to exploit their populations. Christianity has been the biggest culprit in using faith as a means of control and exploitation. Despite this, many of my fellow Christians have not forgotten the empirical roots of our faith. We interpret scripture as promoting a message of love and respect for all people and we acknowledge that the empirical values of other religions are just as valid as our own. There is not one true faith, but there is only one true reality. Those of us with faith believe that we will only discover what that is when our time is up and whatever it is, it is the same for everyone.

That the ACL cannot fathom how their views on gender diversity, sexual orientation, and reproductive rights, are causing harm to many of their fellow Australians, shows to me that they have rejected Christ in favour of adopting a conservative political agenda. The purpose of this political agenda is to demonise minority groups and provide the broader population with scapegoats to distract them from the exploitation by the ruling class.

Sadly, having experienced firsthand in how far the radical right of the Catholic Church will go to supress progressive ideas, I no longer attend Sunday Mass. But I still identify as a Roman Catholic because it was within the Catholic church under the tutorage of many wonderful theologians, that I developed the faith I have today.

 My Sunday mornings are now spent on YouTube live at a ‘Church Without Walls’ with the fabulous Rev Ed Trevors from Halifax Nova Scotia where I have found a congregation of Christians of many denominations and non-Christians, who celebrate the wonderful diversity of humanity that God has given us.

As to my children’s education, it was one of the proudest moments when, during the 2016 Same-Sex Marriage Plebiscite, I saw my kids politically motivated for the first time. They had no time for arguments on whether it was a good or bad thing and were incensed there were arguments to be had at all. To them, it was not something to be discussed, it was just a thing that must be. So, to the ACL, gender diversity is not an issue up for discussion, it is just a thing that is and always was.