Bacon is going to save the day. Again. Muscles had it wrong. Ice-cream has nothing on cured pig.
In full size here at Geekologie.
Category: Culture
Gay marriage, ethics and economics
The issue of gay marriage is probably going to raise its head again in the next term of government. It’s been on the periphery of this campaign, though the Greens and Family First are doing their best to bring it front and center. One of my friends emailed me yesterday saying:
“The fact we live in a country that doesn’t allow gays to marry I find completely baffling.”
He suggested any opposition is due to either homophobia or a belief in arbitrary rules.
I responded. I actually don’t have a problem with the government allowing gay marriage (what are they doing defining marriage anyway?). My concern is that churches be able to legally conduct marriages for Christians without having to also conduct gay marriages in order to keep their marriage licenses. I think there is actually a pretty sound economic argument for the government positively discriminating for stable heterosexual relationships. It turned into a bit of an email discussion – here are my points.
Why shouldn’t governments protect, incentivise, and legislate benefits for relationships that can produce children. Stable families with parental input from both genders are the “ideal” condition for raising children. Why shouldn’t positive legislation exist to promote that ideal? Economically speaking. After all, as Houston, W, says: the children are our future.
If the government moved away from defining marriage at all – and let anybody call themselves married – but maintained the benefits they provide for families and couples with children – then I wonder if that would defuse the situation? If they framed it not as “banning gay marriage” but as the provision of tax incentives for reproduction for heterosexual families.
It’s discriminatory and a restriction of the kind of freedom Christians should be advocating for to deny gay couples “partnership” rights when it comes to health and estate benefits.
I think the whole debate is framed really unhelpfully because the government has taken on more than its fair share of responsibility.
What the government should be doing is not discriminating against gay relationships, but discriminating for stable heterosexual families.
It’s comparable to indigenous benefits – I was not born indigenous, I had no say in being born non-indigenous. But I, mostly, have no problems with the government trying to incentivise better health and future outcomes for indigenous people by recognising a problem and providing financial incentives for education (Abstudy).
positive discrimination for a subset of the community is not necessarily the same as discrimination against another subset of the community. And governments do it all the time (abstudy and the other examples I mentioned before). Any policy adopted by governments comes at a cost to other proposals.
For example, the “Building Education Revolution” could be said to have discriminated against any public service that wasn’t an educational institute. A hospital couldn’t have a school hall funded under the program – because a hospital isn’t a school. It serves an important purpose and deserves government funding, but the funding will meet different needs because of the different nature of the buildings.
Equally, the program has been shown to be a lemon, because some schools (or education departments) have abused it. This abuse doesn’t mean that the program was bad for the schools that weren’t abusing it, nor does it make it a bad program (in the same way that some bad parents collect government funding). It was a policy designed to maximise the positive of schools having halls.
I also have no problem with the government positively discriminating for mothers (who receive family payments), retirees, the sick and disabled… one could argue that they should also incentivise being gay because gay couples are likely to both work, and generally1 take less time off to look after their children, and thus pay more taxes.
1I understand that some gay couples have children. I don’t think this is child abuse, but I also think different genders have different input into the lives of their children.
Why you should not vote Labor (according to the Liberals)
So, three days to go. Or something. The Libs launched their latest attack ad today. A timely reminder that J-Gill knifed K-Rudd.
I think it’s bizarre. They list all these facts about Julia. She ousted the PM with the help of the NSW Right. She’s borrowing lots of money. She has been involved in some dumb policies. And KEVIN RUDD DOESN’T TRUST HER.
That’s their clincher. Who’d have thought?
Is being trusted by Kevin Rudd key to being elected?
On gender in fiction
Two cool things, slightly related.
The first is the Bechdel Test – which is a test devised by a comic strip for lesbian feminists. But is an interesting way to approach the film industry’s treatment of women.
To pass the test a movie must have:
(1) it has to have at least two women in it,
(2) who talk to each other,
(3) about something besides a man.
This site ranks cinematic releases according to the test (a surprising number fail).
Here’s the comic:
The second little tidbit is about characters in fiction for kids and young adults. There’s a magic formula of two boys to one girl that sucks in readers from both genders – get the balance wrong and you lose half the audience.
Ben Jeapes, under a nom-de-plume, wrote some books about vampires before that was cool (they’ve since been retitled and rereleased). In this post about that rebranding (which is a little cynical, which is funny). He makes the following observation.
“The three heroes stick to the magic Harry-Ron-Hermione formula for pre-teen adventures of 2 boys to 1 girl [though there is a guest extra girl in the second book]. This is because boys only want to read about boys whereas girls will read about either gender: so, you get a boy for the boys, a girl for the girls, and another boy to make up for the girl. Sad but true.”
A case for putting the “gimmicks” back into church marketing
This may just be the former PR professional in me. But, I’m a big fan of ministry gimmicks. I love a good “love” gimmick (with a caveat that it actually has to be matched by the real thing).
When I was involved in AFES at uni we used to take the “shock and awe” approach to promoting our mission weeks. The process basically went:
1. Put up a controversial poster.
2. Put up a second controversial poster.
3. Hope somebody out there might be offended enough to put up a response poster.
4. Put up a poster promoting our talks/explaining our angle.
I think that was uni ministry marketing strategy 101, though I did hear about one group who dressed up as death (complete with scythe) and walked around the uni campus reminding people of their mortality.
That kind of gimmick, and the previously described “marketing strategy” doesn’t really do a lot for me. It doesn’t teach the people taking part anything except how to annoy people or put up posters. It is low cost, especially if you’re masked. I don’t think it really works.
One of our most effective gimmicks at uni was holding a shoe shining booth – we cleaned and polished people’s shoes while telling them about whatever event we had coming up – and explaining that we wanted to serve our uni community.
I’ve been thinking a bit lately about how churches can make positive contact with people they don’t know in their communities – and I reckon gimmicks are ideal for that. Like I said at the start – this only works if your church can actually back up the gimmick with substance, if you really do love your community and are prepared to put yourself out for them…
I think our “application” when it comes to the question of how we can serve others in Sunday School and in adult bible studies always ends up being a little inwards focused, or a bit “build it and they will come” – cooking a freezer full of meals that end up being distributed to your church family is a great way to serve one another, and kids promising to pick up their rubbish at home is also good (and a subset of “honouring your parents”). But I’m really keen for people to start thinking small about how they can meet non-Christians in a positive way, while obviously as Christians.
So here are three gimmicky ideas I’ve had (feel free to chuck some more in the comments).
1. Street Working Bee/Street Party – I like the idea of starting a community focus right outside the door of your building. Church buildings are brand assets because of their constant physical presence. If you can have all the people on your street thinking positive thoughts when they walk past, or look at, your building – then you’re on the way to getting them through the doors. But I digress. Here’s my idea – most churches have monthly working bees that attract a group of people willing to put in some hard yards to make the church facilities sparkle. Most houses in the street, and indeed most houses, would love to have a similar level of care and attention – so why not get our working bees serving others? Do the whole street. Send out fliers a month in advance advertising the availability of a few teams of workers and ask people to book in jobs. Hold a BBQ at the church at the end of the day.
2. Get matching shirts and hang out at the local supermarket offering to help people – If your church is near a shopping centre, or there’s a “local supermarket” that most of your congregation shop at, then that’s a great place to find other people who could be part of your congregation (geographically speaking). Shopping centres are our cultural Mecca. I was thinking getting a team of people obviously marked out as members of a church to hang out at the shops and offer to carry people’s bags to the car, that sort of thing, might be a really nice way to get some positive interactions happening. It’s a good chance to talk to people (and you can subtly check out what people are spending their time and money on as a way of exegeting your suburb).
3. Get your Sunday School to make something for the kids in the neighbourhood – we were talking, at Clayfield, about our new series of Church4Kids Material, which includes a lesson on service. I don’t think my suggestion made the cut – but I reckon a great way to model service for kids, and a great way to “love” our neighbours, would be for the kids to help make up a massive batch of playdough, portion it up into containers, and have the leaders deliver it to houses in the streets around the church who have kids – complete with a little card explaining why the kids at church thought the kids not at church might like some playdough, and how it’s all about serving Jesus.
What are your thoughts on employing such obvious gimmicks as a means for sharing the gospel?
World War Three: Coming this Fall…
Simone has been enjoying trawling through the YouTube Archives of the Third Eagle of the Apocalypse (also known as the guy who wrote the “End Times Anthem”).
Here are his tips on how to prepare for World War Three. And if you don’t believe him it’s probably the devil.
I love how every prophecy of Daniel and Revelation actually apply to America.
Be Cool
Apparently there’s been a bit of chatter on the interwebs (see Al, and Mikey) about how appropriate it is for Christians to be “cool”… I’m breaking a cardinal rule of cool here by talking about what cool is, and isn’t. But this sort of quote is just a little bit stupid.
“Likely, right now someone in your church is reading Blue Like Jazz or some similar book. It will resonate with them in style and content—it is cool and Christian. And it is extremely unhelpful. The only antidote seems to be twofold. The first is to reintroduce young Christians to the biblical Jesus: the person who died an agonizing death for their sins, who will tread the winepress of the wrath of God, and who listens to their prayers. The second is to begin the battle against the cool. The godly must begin to prove in the pulpit, in writing, and in their lives that Christianity is the deadly enemy of the cool.”
Now, I don’t know what planet this guy is from. I could understand if he was directing these remarks at the kind of people who think it necessary to install dirt bike jumps in church auditoriums to weakly make a point in a sermon. But that isn’t the definition of “cool” he went with.
” And the cool is the Western postmodern entertainment driven culture that has tutored our children and ourselves for the last fifty years.”
He must be really old and lame. But that’s not what “cool” is. That’s an old man’s definition of cool. That’s the definition someone comes up with looking into an idea or concept that they are not part of. Nothing says uncool like trying to define cool. Unless you want to compare it to being forty+ and having a Twilight tattoo.
Maybe my reaction against this is because I have been brainwashed by my postmodern entertainment driven culture. Cultural texts like:
Cool is almost completely subjective. It moves and changes with whatever group of people you move and change with, including within Christian subculture. It’s an ambiguous word (check out how much trouble the dictionary has defining it), and I think it could readily be applied to the life and ministry of Jesus. Even King Missile thought he was way cool… Here are some of the lyrics from a song called Jesus Was Way Cool:
“He would tell these stories and people would listen.
He was really cool.
If you were blind or lame,
You just went up to Jesus
And he would put his hands on you and you would be healed.
That’s so cool.He could have played guitar better than Hendrix.
He could have told the future.
He could have baked the most delicious cake in the world.
He could have scored more goals than Wayne Gretsky.
He could have danced better than Barishnikof.
Jesus could have been funnier than any comedian you can think of.Jesus told people to eat his body and drink his blood.
That’s so cool.
Jesus was so cool.
But then some people got jealous of how cool he was,
So they killed him.
But then he rose from the dead!
He rose from the dead,
Danced around and went up to heaven.
I mean, that’s so cool.
Jesus was so cool.
No wonder there are so many Christians.”
But lets face it – definitions of cool are pretty arbitrary unless they come from The Rock.
Jesus was pretty good at that. Our job as Christians though is to be like him (which hopefully becomes more and more a case of “being ourselves”). I just don’t see how “cool” and “Christian” don’t mesh up – unless you understand “cool” as “conforms to social norms” rather than as “refuses to be influenced by social norms” (which I guess applies to those people who think Justin Bieber or any character from Twilight defines “cool”). The only thing this post proves is that trying to define cool in order to criticise it is just not cool.
A late launch
Have you been wondering why the Labor party is launching its campaign today – less than a week out from the election? I know I have. Now I know, and it makes me grumpy.
…a loophole in Department of Finance policy means the sizeable daily travel allowances for politicians and staffers are paid out of the public purse until the day of the respective political parties’ campaign launch.
The Liberal Party and the Nationals have been carrying their own costs for a week and will ultimately be financially responsible for nine days of the 33-day campaign.
However, the ALP will continue to have public funding until the conclusion of tomorrow’s ”official” campaign launch in Brisbane, leaving Labor with just five days to pay for.
Minor parties have never looked more attractive to me.
Kanye gets New Yorkered
Kanye West joined Twitter a couple of weeks ago (I think I mentioned it at the time). His Tweets have been, shall we say, over the top. So over the top that a few people decided they would make nice captions for cartoons from the New Yorker, sparking possibly the funniest internet meme ever.
A bunch here at Huffington Post, and some at urlesque, and at BuzzFeed.
Yakuza on Yakuza 3
A gonzo journalist who spent twelve years getting to know the ins and outs of the Japanese organised crime gangs, the Yakuza, managed to sit three bona fide gangsters down to play Yakuza 3 – a Playstation game.
They seemed to enjoy the experience. The interview is here, and it’s pretty fascinating.
“M: A real fight–it’s short and it’s brutal. Over in a minute. Nobody goes around trading blows and crap like that. Usually the first guy to punch wins.
K: I like that you can grab things like ashtrays or billboards and beat the crap out of the punks bothering you. Or smash their faces into car windows. That’s what you’d really do in a fight, grab something and use it as a weapon.
S: Why doesn’t he just shoot them?
K: That would be unrealistic. Nobody is going to waste a bullet on some street punk, like the ones that keep bugging Kiyru.
M: If they wanted to make it realistic, he’d pull out a gun and shoot it and miss! Or the damn thing wouldn’t fire. That would be realistic. (They all laugh).
K: Shooting people sends a message.
M: So does shooting anything. Shooting people gets you sent to jail.
K: That’s part of the job description. ”
My kingdom for a Seahorse
My good friend Chris is a seahorse expert. Somebody made a minidoco about his work in the waters of Sydney. It’s pretty cool.
Seahorses in Sydney Harbor from Maiara Da Rocha Skarheim on Vimeo.
Ampersand food: for foods made to go together
We all know that some foods were made to go together. Perhaps the most appropriate way to recognise this is in ampersand form. Like these:
There are more here from designer Dan Beckemeyer. Via The Jailbreak.
Family Last: Why I’m not voting 1 for Family First despite being a Christian
A well meaning friend, perhaps unaware of my position on Family First, suggested that I become Facebook Friends with Queensland Senate Candidate Wendy Francis. I have met Wendy (a few years ago), I used to play football (soccer for the luddites) against her son. Anyway. I added her. She seems like a decent, hard working, Godly Christian lady, I’ve no doubt she’s a great mum. I’ve got no doubt she’s a Christian. I’ve got no doubt she’s moral. And I’ve got no doubt she’s intelligent. But I won’t be voting for her. She’ll probably end up somewhere above the Greens and the Australian Sex Party on my ballot paper (I like numbering the senate paper completely. I’m a politics geek. Sue me.). And here’s why. I don’t think she’ll make a good politician. Pretty much by her own admission. If you want a godly, motherly, intelligent amateur holding the balance of power in the senate (which might happen) then feel free to vote for her. I won’t judge you.
She’s been busy on Facebook posting 101 reasons to vote for Wendy Francis. Here are some examples.
#13 I’ve never had media training and I don’t know how to avoid or fudge questions.
#88 I really don’t know quite how to be a politician and I rather suspect I should stay that way and those who vote for me would agree
#71 In a campaign featuring robotic candidates controlled by media minders I’m a fresh contrast. It’s time for un-politicians!
My big problem with the Family First campaign (and its epitomised by Wendy’s appearance on Sunrise) is that they completely lack any form of nuance or any sense that they’ll be, if elected, governing for everybody. Not just the people who vote for them. What they say is fine (almost) coming from the mouths of lobbiests and special interest groups. But this sort of comment from her Facebook profile is just a little scary: “Atheist Prime Minister & atheist Greens with senate balance of power equals the wrong road for Australia”.
I can’t help but think that if she had media minders, or thought like a politician, she may have avoided situations like this.
“legitimising gay marriage is like legalising child abuse”
Comparing anything that’s clearly not in the same category of child abuse to child abuse is like comparing things to Hitler. We have a pretty solid definition of child abuse to work from – and we have myriad victims of child abuse in our community who must feel somewhat slighted by the idea that children with two loving parents are being placed in the same category.
Christians hate it (I know I do) when atheists suggest that Christian parenting is child abuse. So why would we, as Christians, use similar language to describe family structures we disagree with. Even if it wasn’t her who posted the message (and she says it wasn’t, but that it was a staffer) it’s the kind of amateur hour thing she seems to be proud of (based on her points above). And she didn’t distance herself from the sentiment in subsequent interviews. A little media training and political nous goes a long way.
Something can be bad for a child without it being child abuse. This lack of nuance is appalling. Is she saying that any child without a father is suffering abuse? Does it follow that any mother who leaves her husband and becomes a single parent is also an abuser? Or is it only if they leave their husband for another woman?
I sympathise with her position on same-sex couples adopting. But I think it’s a much more complex situation than can be adequately argued or justified on Twitter in 140 characters or less. Is it better for a child to have loving gay parents than no parents? Probably. As soon as you concede that point you’re on the back foot. Coming out with emotive tripe that seems designed purely to cause scandal is a ridiculous political strategy designed only to resonate with the lowest common denominator of Christian thought.
My biggest problem with Family First is that they almost completely fail to empathise with the people they oppose. Christians, by the grace of God and our parliament, enjoy incredible freedom in our country. This kind of “we speak for the majority so we’re going to prevent any minorities being represented” mentality is just scary. You know what happens in cultures that oppress and silence minorities. They start sending them to death camps. There. I made a Hitler comparison.
Politics has famously been described (probably by Churchill) as the art of compromise. By being definitively “non-compromising” and “non-political” you’re essentially saying that you don’t care about the outsider. The people who don’t hold your views. That’s not what being a senator, or being a Christian, is about.
Peter Jensen on politics
This interview with Peter Jensen on the current election is worth a listen. I’m surprised it hasn’t been spoken about more in the blogosphere this week. Perhaps it’s not controversial enough. It’s from Sunday night.
Q: Do Christians necessarily vote from the viewpoint of faith, do you think?
A: Yes we do. And fortunately in Australia it’s perfectly possible, even across the range of options, to vote from faith and to vote differently. You can not say to a Christian in Australia “you must vote for such and such a person. It’s a matter of balance. You’ll work out which way you want to go.”
He discusses Gillard’s atheism and its impact on Christian voters frankly. He discusses Abbott’s faith and its impact on voters with equal frankness.
Butterflies and Vampires
The sparkling vampires of Twilight have long annoyed vampire purists. Nowhere in the history of vampire mythology have vampires been said to sparkle like fairies.
But an enterprising student of science has made a connection by observing the behaviour of vampires in the realm of Twilight. Vampires are unusually strong for their size. Like insects. They feed on blood from other animals. Like insects.
Here are some of the important connections you’ll need to make to fully accept this brilliant conclusion:
“What about vampires’ superhuman abilities? The Tiger Beetle is technically ‘the fastest running land animal’. The strongest animal is the world is the horned dung beetle. Insects also have incredible vision; most see colors invisible to humans and bees see in color at five times the speed we’re able. Vampires and other insects don’t breathe like we do, nor do they possess a human heartbeat. As an added bonus, invertebrates are notoriously hard to kill.”
Accepting all these factors led this particular blogger (and I confess I am convinced also) to conclude that vampires are in fact butterflies.
“Vampires are gorgeous, metamorphosis is a key part of their development, and they are natural experts at camouflage and mimicry. Some butterflies have even been observed feeding on blood.
Why do they sparkle? That’s easy: Vampires, like butterflies, are covered in tiny iridescent scales.”
And thus, the sparkling that has annoyed me so, is completely feasible as another step in the evolutionary scale of these larger than life insects.