Dear Peter Fitzsimons AM,
I read your recent article about Margaret Court. In it you propose to rename Margaret Court Arena for the reason that she has stuck to her own value system regarding marriage, and said so publicly. You criticised her for not being ‘inclusive’. You then proposed that the arena ought to be named after Evonne Goolagong Cawley, who is part aboriginal.
I thank you for your considered opinion on this, and now would like to give my own, on yours.
Let me start by asking you a question. Suppose an aboriginal person had a dearly-held value system, which she believed to be the truth. Suppose she decided to stick to her value system, rather than change it to what is currently popular. Would you criticise her for sticking to her traditions and culture? I don’t think you would. In fact, I think you would praise her for maintaining her traditional beliefs. I think you would say that she had integrity.
Similarly, would you criticise a Muslim for holding onto his traditional beliefs, rather than apostatising and becoming Westernised for the sake of his comfort and wealth? I don’t think you would criticise such a man either. In fact, I think that you would praise any traditional or religious people for holding true to their values and beliefs except Christians. The Left seems to have a special scorn for Christians.
Perhaps you will get a glimpse of what so many other people in this country see clearly — that your Leftism is simply a form of anti-Christianity.
Now, on the topic of ‘inclusiveness’, which you referred to in your article. Children raised by same-sex couples will not have either their natural father or mother ‘included’ in their family. Mrs. Court actually referred to this problem herself, earlier criticising lesbian tennis player Casey Dellacqua and her partner for denying the child whom they are raising of its father. Therefore, your same-sex marriage is actually uninclusive itself. Or, do you think that a child does not have the right to have both of his natural parents ‘included’ in his family? If so, why are you so uninclusive?
(Parenthetically, why are so many of the ‘freedoms’ you on the Left promote, at the expense of the wellbeing of children? Haven’t you ever wondered that? Same-sex marriage denies children of one of their real parents. The Left also supports abortion, as well as Islam, which favours child marriage. And then there was the Safe Schools debacle.)
I wonder also if your idea of inclusivity in tennis, which is getting ever more inclusive, as you said, extends to allowing transgender women to play in mixed doubles, or in ladies’ singles? If not, why not? And if so, what do you think the attendees of matches in your new Evonne Goolagong Cawley Arena will think about that? They are ordinary, hardworking people who just want to watch a little tennis. Maybe they might feel a little annoyed and left out by all this political correctness and wish they could just watch some tennis in peace. You might say they could feel ‘unincluded’.
I and many others have looked closely at the values of your Leftism, and found it lacking. As well as being primarily anti-Christian, it mainly seems to be based on whim and emotion, and not sense.
Bill Neidjie (Big Bill) in his book Gagudju Man criticised white people for changing our values so often. Changing the values implies that those values are not regarded as the truth, nor even as particularly valuable. On the contrary, Big Bill said that the values of his people did not change. He had an excellent point. We Christians don’t change our values, or at least shouldn’t. The Bible is the Bible. This is why, when asked his opinion about marriage, Jesus did not say what was fashionable in the first century AD, or describe what everyone else was doing. Instead he quoted Genesis and said that that was how marriage was ‘from the beginning’.
But secular whitefellas like you do change your values, a lot. It is people like you whom Big Bill was talking about. What will be your next change? Whatever it will be, there is no doubt what it will be based on: whim, emotion and anti-Christianity.
Let us have the plebiscite about same-sex marriage. You know that it’s the best way to sort this out once and for all, either accepted or rejected. You know that people in Australia are divided about this issue. I would like a real debate, and so would many others. Let you on the Left put forward your arguments for this change, and let us Christians and conservatives put forward our arguments. And let people decide which argument is most reasonable and best for the country. Why not? You want to have a referendum for a republic, which means you value the people’s opinions. Why not a plebiscite on same-sex marriage?
But the Left really doesn’t want a plebiscite, even though a few years ago, many of you did — there you go, changing your values again, just as Big Bill criticised you for doing. You only wanted a plebiscite when you were dead sure you were going to win it. But then you realised that maybe you wouldn’t win it. You don’t care about the voting process. You just want to go against Christianity any way you can.
The call for same-sex marriage is not based on righting a past injustice, but on your Leftist values. Especially your anti-Christianity. The Left really is against the Church. That is why, I think, the honest comments of a Western Australian pastor stuck in your craw so much.
As to your quoting of 1 Timothy 2 to criticise Court. Allow me with pleasure to cite the full verse, 1 Timothy 2:12, as well as a little context. It’s from a letter written by the Apostle Paul, a man whose knowledge of the Scripture was perfect, but whose heart was cold as stone, until something amazing happened to him and his life turned around. Paul said, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” And it’s true that Court is a leader in her church, so I can’t fault your citation.
Let’s only mention in passing what Paul wrote two lines before, that women should adorn themselves not with finery but with good works. By supporting real marriage, Court is doing exactly that. But the problem for you is that Court is teaching, which seems to be against the Scripture.
If you’ve ever been a teacher, you might know how frustrating it is when your students just don’t understand what you are teaching. Some days they just plain old hate you, and won’t even bother listening to you. Sometimes being a qualified teacher simply does not get the job of imparting knowledge done.
Margaret Court was not Biblically qualified but she still gave you a lesson about marriage and the gospel, as well as a lesson about shooting off your mouth, and considering the implications of things that you propose. (Do you really mean that a great sportsperson ought not be honoured if he or she holds views that support of the law and long-standing tradition of a country, but which a certain group of people in the country recently decided were not ‘inclusive’ enough, using a definition of ‘inclusive’ which ignores other kinds of inclusiveness? Sorry, but any normal person can see that is foolishness. I wonder what Big Bill would have said about that way of thinking!)
Who else was going to get under your skin the way Court did, and make you write a whole article about a churchy septuagenarian whom you describe as ‘sad’? Who else was going to incite the reaction which ensued from your article, which then caused me to write this? Who else would have got you to think about marriage and even cite the Bible, which says of itself (2 Timothy 2:15), “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” I’m glad you’ve read a bit of the Bible, and encourage you to read more of it. You might find something really juicy to use against us.
It seems to me that God may well have got through to you, in his own way, and his choice of teacher for you was nonpareil. He saw what was inside you, what really inspired you write that article, what made you write the word ‘yes’ three times and then put the word ‘right’ (meaning Court’s right to an opinion) in quote marks, thinking as you did that it would somehow make your voice seem more authoritative, and not realising that it might instead reveal your hidden doubts.
One last thing. Suppose, as a result of all this, that you went down a certain new way of thinking. Say you made a minor change to your thinking only, and decided to support the plebiscite. What do you think the reaction would be? I think you know the answer. Fear of the repercussions is why you will not change your mind, even as you mock Court for not changing hers. You are not really free to think. You have to think the Left’s way. There is too much at stake for you. If you did change your view, the Left might mock you, punish you, or abandon you. You might find yourself not invited to a writers’ festival, or lose a job opportunity, or worse. Basically, you won’t be allowed freely to change your opinion without a penalty. That’s how the Left operates. Just look at their reaction to Court if you want to see how the Left treats those whom it considers think the wrong way. It’s all very 2 Timothy 3:2, if you’ll permit me one more Timothy reference. (Sorry for all the Bible references. I know they are a bit of a turn off to some people. But hey, you started it!)
That stifling lack of freedom of thought is one of the main reasons I left the Left. And if you can lose me — who called himself a feminist and read Monique Wittig and Andrea Dworkin at uni, who sometimes wished he was gay and thought about converting to Islam, who wrote to your SMH describing the US president as ‘Lord Bush’, and who truly despised John Howard — then you can lose anyone. Well, anyone who is not profiting from it, like you are.
The Left sucks, and your article proved it.
Marc Schmidt
