John Roskam dreams of a world where religious conservatives can be free to express their bizarro ideas without fear of being snickered at by cold rational secularists.

In this country [Australia], a politician speaking about religion also faces the risk of something worse than being thought a nutter. It’s just as possible that anyone who admits that their religion influences the way they vote in parliament will be accused of being a dangerous theocrat intent on introducing the moral majority into Australia.

Oh, pshaw, John. Everyone knows theocrats aren’t dangerous. They just want to siphon a bit of the power to themselves. Who wouldn’t, with God on their side?

But who’s John Roskam? Well, the executive director of the blandly-named-so-as-not-to-arouse-suspicion Institute of Public Affairs, a conservative think tank. He’s argued that culture wars are indicative of a healthy and vibrant society. Lovely. Usually the Australian system of quarantine works pretty well, but it doesn’t seem to apply to ideas from America. He also complains that

When it comes to gaining promotion, conservative candidates need to be at least twice as good as their left-wing opposition. In the face of this, conservatives simply give up.

Think someone’s having trouble getting on in Australian academia? Poor chaps. You’d think they’d empathise more with minorities.

Back to the article.

There is also a contradiction in the way the media reports political and moral statements from the churches. Contributions on “social justice” issues are welcomed, but contributions on avowedly “moral” issues are not. The implication is that it’s entirely appropriate for politicians to pay attention to religious leaders who preach about the treatment of David Hicks or the evils of WorkChoices, but when those same church leaders start talking about abortion or euthanasia politicians should ignore them.

There is a reason why people should ignore church leaders: Basing your ideas on imaginary people leads to real problems.

God is imaginary, and religions are man-made institutions. Their leaders have no more moral authority than anyone else. So I’m glad to hear them say that people shouldn’t be locked up without a trial, or that working people shouldn’t be pitted against each other to benefit business. These are things that anyone with a conscience could say are true. But if they’re going to say that abortion is wrong, or that euthanasia is wrong, I’m going to ask why they think so. And if it’s because of the presumed opinions of imaginary people, then onto the Bozo pile they go, whether they like it or not.

The Priest Class can’t help itself. All that political power, and all they can do is hanker after it. Until they argue that the political power somehow belongs to them, and enough people believe them. Too bad we have people like Roskam to make their arguments for them.