Speaking up can work...

My "Hate Mail" post yesterday did get me some comments; not to the blog, but in reply to the email. Got the following short ones from recipients, and the last one from the originator of the email. Pleased that it did make some difference; nothing substantive, but possibly a few people will be less inclined to hit the "forward to the world" button without actually thinking about what they are propagating.


Hi Darling
well I didn't reply and say that the whole thing was based on the premise that the Aborigines weren't here first....thought that my private thoughts on a democracy were best left to me!

Go Bernard ! Thank God we have thinking people in this country.

There's yet hope for our nation.... don't leave !!!

Grant darling - this email went around last year and I didn't forward it on then either.

I read The Australian most days esp Editorial, Opinion and didn't see the paper give the contents of this email any column inches.

Bernard, I don’t think I know you, which is not important. I too was on Grant’s email of yesterday, and frankly I didn’t bother reading past the second paragraph.

As .. says – don’t leave – this country needs more people like you that see this stuff for the tripe it really is!

Ditto – Go Bernard!!!

Well said Bernard

Oh allright I concede!

At the time I recieved the original email I had had an encounter that very day with a rather obnoxious fellow of international decent who had called me an Australian so-and-so simply becuase I had pointed out our rather severe water shortage as he hosed down his cement driveway and so hence I was brimming with angst!

Of course you are right Bernard & ... and I should have thought better of it.

So to all my apologies...especially to those who I have indicated my aversion to group emails of this variety!

2006 should definately be a year for greater tolerance and advancement, a little less "Aussie Gung-Ho-ism" and definately more effort towards those who are often ostracised for simply being "guilty by association".

A huge slice of humble pie from this end my loves!

Cheers

Gruntly xxxx

"Hate" mail

Yup; I get it quite often.

No - nothing aimed personally at me, but the dumbed down propaganda that is designed to appeal to the "patriotic" side in all of us.

And I get it from some remarkable sources.

From friends who have a knee-jerk reaction and just hit the "Forward to the World" button.

Got one today; it's been doing the blogosphere and certain bulletin boards since at least November of last year. Won't further ramble about what it is and isn't - I've posted it and my response back to the entire list it was sent to.

Decided that rather than just hitting the delete button, is better to actually respond and debunk.
The red is the intro from my friend, the bold italics is my reply to each para or part there of, and the small font is the forwarded "Hate" mail.

I recommend letting loose with this sort of a reply if you have the time. So much better for all involved than just hitting the "delete" key. It MAY stop others from unthinkingly spreading this unwarranted muck.

I know some of you may have seen this and perhaps there are even a few of you that may not agree with it...but I do and feel quite strongly about some of the things said in this.

Grant, darling. As we live in a democracy, we have a right to say what we feel (up to a point), and generally in a debate there is a right of reply. I hope you aren't offended by me exercising my right of reply.

Australia - The Right to Leave -

Our Country - YOU Have the right - the right to leave!

After Sydney not wanting to offend other cultures by putting up Xmas lights and after hearing that the State of South Australia changed its
opinion and let a Muslim woman have her picture on her driver's license with her face covered. This prompted this editorial written by an
Australian citizen. Published in an Australian newspaper.

This was not published as an editorial (unless the "Hinterland Grapevine" is actually a newspaper, buit can't access it as Websense classifies it as a sex site...), but has been floating around the blogosphere and bulletin boards since November last year


Quote:
IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take it or leave it I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture.

OK - I'm sure the Euroa people and all the other indigenous nations had that attitude as well. When persons travelling from lands controlled by one nation to another, they did announce themselves, and acted in accordance with time honoured protocol. Not a perfect system, but there was respect for each sovereign nation, and respect for the land.

Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.

Please don't confuse "patriotism" with media and government fuelled fear; always politically nice to have an external bogeyman at our doorstep to get people to lose their common sense or ability to think clearly.

However, the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the "politically correct" crowd began complaining about the possibility that
our patriotism was offending others. I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by
coming to Australia.

The "politically correct crowd" have been bemoaning nationalistic jingoism etc for a hell of a long time.
As for the last sentence, if it weren't for a better life, why would ANYONE come here? This shows something about the original author

However, there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand.
This idea of Australia being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. As Australians, we
have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle.

This is a really disturbing statement. We have NEVER had a static national identity. Anyone who tries to tell you that we have is falling into a Howardian nostalgia trip.
Since the beginning of white settlement in Australian there has been divide between corrupt gaolers and the convicts; between the squattocracy and the ticket-of-leave holders; between Anglicans and Catholics; between English and Irish; betwen city and bush; blacks and whites.

This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom.
Tosh.
The first 70 or so years of settlement was a fight to survive, and the levels of brutality and corruption were pretty well unparrallelled. The only reason that Australia was settled was that the American Colonies would not take any more convicts, as the treatment of convict labour by the English overlords was even more reprehensible than the then treatment of plantation slaves.
Yes, struggles to offload the cloak of authoritarianism, struggle for change, and for acceptance of diversity.
This paragraph is designed to make people think of our "titanic struggles" in glorious batttles overseas where the culture of mateship and the aussie digger was born.

Up until the end of vietnam, there was a total of 1,003,038 enlisted australians who served overseas (source :Australian War Memorial http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/statistics/1885_1973.htm); and the first overseas postings was 120 years ago (but those 770 were mainly British born soldiers anyway). There were 61,000 deaths in WWI and 39,400 deaths in WWII - of which more than half the WWII casualties were non-battle related. Hey, that looks strange, but at least I can quote my sources.

We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part ofour society, learn the language!

Well - the original white invaders didn't bother to try and learn any local customs or languages. Also, from the NSW HSC High Acheivers results list for 2005, 416 of 913 students had "distinctly" non Anglo names. SOURCE http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/ebos/static/ALRND_2005_12.htm - and in this state, the % of people in a Non-English Speaking household is about 16%

"In God We Trust" is our National Motto.
BULLSHIT!!! In God We Trust is NOT the Australian National Motto; The Commonwealth of Australia does NOT have "an official motto"; while it may be debateable, many would say that the "Unofficial" motto is "She'll be right, mate".

This is not some Christian, right wing, political slogan. We adopted this motto because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.

This country was founded on bloody OLD TESTAMENT values of "an eye for an eye", and lets get this scum out of Britain. There was huge religious divide for the best part of 150 years. THAT IS CLEARLY DOCUMENTED. This para is taken straight from US right wing hate propaganda

If the Southern Cross offends you, or you don't like "A Fair Go", then
you should seriously consider a move to another part of this planet.
Who / what is this aimed at?? This is only in there to incite "fair minded / fair skinned" readers that there ARE people who are "offended" by the Southern Cross, or the concept of "A fair go". This sort of propaganda is put out by those who think that immigrants get "too much of a fair go", so they turn it around that the "immigrant whingers" don't like the concept.

We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change.

yeah, and until the "invasion" of the original "wogs" post WW I, and more since WWII we didn't have decent coffee. Spaghetti wasn't even available in a bloody can; as for French cuisine - foreign muck; thai, vietnamese etc was unheard of, and Chinese was only acceptable coz they had been here for as long as most 1930's WHITE Anglo occupants' forebears.

This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you
every opportunity to enjoy all this.

This is no ONE group's country; no country is able to survive in isolation and stagnation. Those that did succeed in doing so for a while ALL went way backwards in relation to the rest of the world. Who is any one of us to say that we will "allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this"?

But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag,
Our Pledge, Our National Motto, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage
you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, "THE RIGHT TO
LEAVE"

For God's sake; it is left wing anglo's who complaign about the flag (and not having an AUSTRALIAN head of state), we DON'T have a National Motto, we DON'T pledge allegiance, and the way of life here is not at issue.

If you aren't happy here then leave. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted. It's pretty easy really, when you think about it.

I am personally thinking strongly about leaving Australia.
The racial tension is disgusting, Alan Jones et al should be charged for inciting violence;
Debnam talks about the "hundreds" of "middle eastern" trouble makers from Dec 12, but NOT the 5,000 Anglo troublemakers who really got things going;
the Federal Government is not honouring the constitutional rights of informed debate in the Senate;
the "ordinary worker" is being shafted by their "elected representatives";
if I'm not careful how I phrase this, I could be held without charge for 14 days without being able to let anyone know;
any relationship that I may want to get into will not be recognised here, and if I wanted to register for a civil union in another country, they currently beleive that I do not have the right to receeive a "certificate of no impediment for marriage";
an "illegal immigrant" is mentally disturbed after being in a concentration camp so the Immigrration Department pays for 140 seats on a commercial flight to Eastern Europe to get rid of him.

This propaganda refers to "founding principles"; we no longer have an honest and impartial senior public service; our politicians are rewarded for lying.

We don't have a fearless and balanced media; and when a major scandal breaks, it isn't followed to the end.

The last time there was a referendum about constitutional change it was engineered so that it could do nothing but fail - rather than asking a simple question.

Don't get me wrong; this is a great country, if you are lucky. If you have a social conscience, or on a low income, or god forbid like me, BOTH, it can be really oppresive and depressing.

I figure if we all keep passing this to our friends it will also, sooner or later get back to the complainers lets all try, please.

There are real and meaningful race and cultural issues to be discussed rationally in this society that we all share; this piece of propaganda was put around before some of those really became so horrifically clear at the end of last year. However, this only cuases confusion to those issues, and doesn't really warrant the time that this took to reply.

However, per my email to you Grant, and to a couple of others on this list, on Dec 12th, I am no longer going to ignore or sit back and bite my tongue when one sided, generalised, mis-informed commentary comes my way. To again paraphrase Martin Niemoller "and I did not speak out, because I was not [insert supressed stereotype here]"

If ANYONE has anything that is actually well thought out, original and in actual context to an issue, I will respect and debate the point. This sort of stuff is dangerous because it is too easy to make simplistic sweeping comments; things that look authoritative etc. That look as if they are "patriotic" (whatever the f that is supposed to mean - my prime minister can beat up your prime minister?). People get a fleeting thought "yeah thats right" coz it has an inkling of truth about it, and then HIT THE FORWARD TO THE WORLD BUTTON. It is just viral marketing of the most pernicious manner. So, no, sorry, I WON'T "No matter how many times you receive it... Please forward it to all you know." I will instead take the time to let the sender know how I feel about it. And if the sender has not followed his own plea of 3 years ago about bcc'ing group listings, I will let all the other recipients know as well.

Peace and love to all,

Bernard

A new Nigerian scam?

for those of you who may have missed it, Laura Bush (W Shrub's missus) is in Nigeria at the moment, taking a wee "swing-around" having been at the inauguration of Liberia's new president.

"Voice of America" (news you can trust since the middle of the Second World War) reports "US First Lady Donates AIDS Drugs in Nigeria".

Excuse me? Laura is DONATING drugs to Nigeria? Shouldn't that be "First Lady is a drug courier" ?

Some other points that beg to be pointed...

"She announced $163 million in new funding to stop the spread of AIDS"
- please define "New Funding" Is this in addition to the already promised PEPFAR billions, or just an initiative that has been approved under this funding banner?

"Mrs. Bush also brought antiretroviral drugs to St. Mary's to help strengthen its efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission."

- if an hiv neg woman was to try and take ARV's to the US to donate to a community health centre she would be put on the first plane back to wherever and have "DEPORTED" stamped in her passport

- was it just a small box, or was the entire hold of Air Force One full of pills?

"Instead, she and her husband, Sani, who is HIV negative, are part of a counseling group for couples facing the disease."

- in these circumstances, does a FBO (faith based organisation, article mentions that St Mary's hospital is Catholic) condone a married couple using condoms? Or do they think abstinence is the best course, or sign Sani up for a Tenofovir trial?

"Mrs. Bush said preventing mother-to-child transmission is particularly important in combating the disease as it protects the next generation."

- fine; but after the first or second pregnancy with no ARV's in between, what is the resistance profile looking like?

- what about on-going drugs, so that the mother CAN survive and look after her children? who is going to look after all the children?

- why is the life of the unborn child always sacrosanct, and the mother can only get drugs to prevent vertical transmission? What life is the child going to have if / when orphaned; oh sorry, in this case daddy is neg, so he can stay home and bring up the kids.

Don't get me wrong; I don't for a second believe that hiv is a reason to bar women from having children, I strongly feel that they should be supported in doing that where it is safe and the resourcing to make it safe for the children and the mother are appropriate. Where that resourcing isn't there, then put it there.

My views on the harm that the "church" has done to cause the current levels of over population / lack of resources / spread of hiv on that continent is little more than a raving diatribe... and now the horrendous harm that the Bush Administration's (again, didn't use the word "regime") A-B-C initiatives are causing. Don't get me started today, please.

I will do a post soon on links between disease eradication, no contraception, and population explosion.

Leave us alone, please, Mr Howard...

OK, so we often give thanks that our government is not as convoluted as citizens of the United States have to put up with. But Lincoln, bless him, envisaged a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people”; not a bad way for government to be.

Surely that is something for all democracies to aspire to.

But that would seem to go WAY against our current government’s agenda. As Audrey fforbes-Hamilton famously pouted in “To the Manor Born” “democracy is all well and good, but did they have to give it to the people?”

Where am I going with this?

Some members of the Australian government have some pretty strong views on things. Rather right-wing ones at that. Stating the bleedin’ obvious, I know. But the latest thing that REALLY got my goat up this weekend was a piece on page 3 of this weekend’s ”Sydney Morning Herald” (A better / longer piece is also reported in ”the Melbourne Age”) regarding the Government’s interference in Australians' overseas marriage rights.

Most countries require some sort of proof that you aren’t currently married before issuing a marriage license. Kinda makes sense.

What DOESN’T make any sense is the following:

An Australian man, living in Austria, with an Austrian partner for 12 years, wanted to get married in the Netherlands. He applies to his local helpful consular department in Vienna to get a certificate saying that he ain’t already hitched in Australia.

Instead of that, he gets:

"Following the advice of the Australian Attorney-General's Department we herewith certify that Australian law does not allow the issue of a Certificate of No Impediment to Marriage to persons wishing to enter into a same-sex marriage."

According to the Age report “A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said one purpose of the certificates was to certify a proposed marriage would be valid in Australia.”

What a load of bunkum.

As stated in that same article “Australian National University senior law lecturer Wayne Morgan said: "There is nothing in Australian law … that would prevent a Certificate of No Impediment to Marriage (being issued) in such circumstances.”
"This is an internationally accepted document that has nothing to do with the validity of the marriage back in the couple's own country."”


Thankfully, the Dutch are pragmatic, and with the above “certificate of unwillingness to issue a certificate of no impediment” and a stat dec, the happy couple were able to have their nuptials late last year.

It’s no news that this government (and I feel really good that I have so far observed my own editorial rule to NOT refer to any recognised government as a “regime”) doesn’t like the idea that same sex peoples should enjoy the same rights and obligations of opposite sex couples.

It’s also no news that this government stands up for the “sovereign right” of other nations to pass their own laws based on the moral mores of their own populations. And makes a point of not interfering too much. Take the cases of Corby in Indonesia, or Nguyen Toung Van in Singapore.

But it is ok to hassle Australian gays living in another juridisdiction where same sex marriage is legal by impeding their progress to matrimony.
Surely if the Howard government deplores us that much, it would make sense to encourage us all to get offshore other halves in gay friendly countries, and encourage us to stay there…

So far, according to “Google News” this story has only been picked up by the Age and the Herald, and 4 blogs.

Gay activist Rodney Croome, of the newly formed Australian Coalition for Equality, said: "It's simply mean-spirited and bloody-minded for the Australian Government to block Peter's access (to documents) on no other basis than the gender of his marriage partner.

I actually find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with you on this one Mr Croome. (Just keep the Red Cross out of this one please.)


I wonder if this will be the end of it… I hope not. However, with neither the Senate nor the House sitting again until February 7th, I doubt that we will actually get anything further out of this, unless some friendly Green or Democrat senators want to take it up.



This listing of Senators will take you to their homepages with their email addresses if you feel like asking them to try and get some clarification from the Attorney General.

Clean Energy

Sydney has just hosted a conference of ministers and industrial concerns from 6 major industrial countries. Called "Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate", it appears to have been a WOBTAM - "Waste of Bloody Time And Money". As Wendy Frew wrote in today's " Sydney Morning Herald" "NO TARGETS, no timetables, no carrots, no stick. There was little on offer yesterday to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing the world: climate change."

The ALP seems a bit fractured on the issue; most are decrying the "outcomes" and the communique as nowhere near far enough, and in fact the totally wrong approach. Who knows quite why, but maybe Martin Ferguson ("It's time to abandon the political correctness espoused by the Green movement") is looking for a nice UN or other diplomatic posting.

Not often that you get to hear him agreeing wholeheartedly with the PM.

Then again, not so often that you find a junior minister lobbying and getting something from the PM; in this case the Industry minister Ian Macfarlane managing to get oen quarter of the Australian funding to be earmarked for alternative energy sources.

So - where to from here?

My prediction, nowhere very fast.

Politicians saying that leadership is needed from Industry.
Industry saying that leadership needed from the executive and legislative branches of governments.
A Senate enquiry into nuclear power generation in Australia will probably not be meaningful; if it were, it would not get through all the negative submissions before the expiry of the current Senate. Then again, this government has recently shown that the senate is not a house for debate, but a house for rubberstamping.

We will probably start exporting uranium to China before the end of the decade (personally, I don't have a problem with that; they are the biggest users of fossil fuel in the world, and their energy appetite is not getting any smaller).

India? Probably bigger problems politically sending bomb fuel there. Pakistan (our great allies in the War Against Terror (TM) may have issues with that...

And as for "HDR (Hot Dry Rock) technology?" Well, I haven't seen any serious proposals for trying this out "in concept" for a while. Why not?

The source of the energy is (in the most part) a long way from the need; stringing transmission wires is pretty expensive, but at least there is really no worry in regards to transmission loss (the amount of electricity that "evaporates" along the way) as the production costs after the inital capital installation is negligible.

HOWEVER; there is an estimated 15,000 petajoules of accessible energy that could be converted into 5.5 years of Australia's total electricity consumption sitting in the Hunter Valley - just south of Muswellbrook. Surely that would be a perfect site for a "proof of concept" study.

Watch this space.

Comeuppance for Robertson

Been away from PC access for a couple of days.

This post is brought to you courtesy of Gatorade (TM). With thanks to Stuey.

Some extensive coverage of Pat Robertson apologising for his "wrath of God" comments; funny that after Israel has cancelled his USD50m biblical theme park project...

Sharon comments cost evangelist $50m deal

Looks like the cheque book is (yet again) mightier than the word.

Not another Phoenix, PLEASE!

"Sharon's Rival Positions Himself as Heir Apparent" kinda says it all.

That well known Dove "Bibi" Netanyahu wants yet another bite at the cherry.

Not sure which my favourite part of this NYTimes article is maybe "With talk of that rivalry unseemly now ...Mr. Netanyahu, who is hoping to win election as prime minister in March as leader of the right-wing Likud party, focuses not on their disagreements but on their shared past."

Yeah, he makes comments about how good he was as Finance minister. Just ask any Australian prime minister about "keep your friends close, but your enemies as Treasurer"... well, in Australia, that was usually "rival" rather than "enemy".

I don't seem to remember Netanyahy ever being voted "Treasurer of the Year". Sure he took the country through some economic restructuring, but that in itself is not enough to get the premiership.

If he wanted to be really honest, he could just talk about how he wants to roll back all vestiges of "Peace in our time".

Always careful to say that Sharon was no angel... far from it, but at least he came to his senses that for any lasting peace, pragmatism was required. And the timing of was never going to be better than the window of opportunity following Arafat's death.

Enough of that for now.

Economics...

OK - I'm not one to rule out a Free Trade Agreement - as long as it actually is that "Free" and "Trade" and "Agreement".

Australia got a good old pineapple serving when it's Government tried to negoitate a Free Trade Agreement during a US Federal election year. Ahm guys, what were you thinking?

What hope has poor Thailand got in it's "negotiations" with the US?

At least in Thailand there are street rallies etc Thousands begin protest of free trade pact
- unlike here in Australia where the most that seemed to happen was "some" newspaper columnists got uptight. I remember that the unions and a few others were also trying to get the message across that the FTA would be the end of the world as we knew it, and the Federal opposition were able to extract some concessions.

But now there is talk of winding back some of those concessions - like evergreening in relation to pharmaceutical patents. But acting PM (and importantly he's also the Trade Minister) says that these changes won't be allowed to have any impact on the PBS or on pharmaceutical competition. So why bother changing the provisions? Just to show who controls the Senate now??

I think we are well aware of that.

Well, good luck Thailand. You may get a better deal out of the US than Australia did; you may not have contributed troops to the "war on terror", but you do still have a "Zero Tolerance" policy on drugs...

So - no needle and syringe programs, no methadone available, no outreach for IDU's. And now, if the US congressional lobbyists get there way, no affordable antirets will be available either.

Speaking of "Congressional Lobbyists", Jack Abramhoff may be gone, and the entire "industry" be tainted (no Shit Sherlock - but why has it taken so long?), but I can't see that it will make any difference until the US campaign funding system is totally overhauled.

It hardly strikes me as a small-d-democratic system when campaign costs for the presidency are in the high-tens-to-low-hundreds of millions of dollars.

So, some things aren't so bad here in Australia.

And now for some balance

This post is brought to us by Maxalon (R)

I really don't want to just refute / attack / answer Christian fundamentalists; no fun in that. I'd rather be balanced and look / laugh at loonies of all persuasions. Fom the Middle East Times :
" An Egyptian cleric's controversial fatwa claiming that nudity during sexual intercourse invalidates a marriage has uncovered a rift among Islamic scholars"

So, sex in marriage is OK, as long as you have some clothes on, and as long as you don't actually look at your spouse's genitalia...

I wonder if a condom is considered clothing?

but this didn't take too long

Well - maybe I should take a chill-pill

Parody site "Brainsnap" came up with this " Pat Robertson Struck Dumb by God" which is pretty nice to envisage I suppose; choice quote for those not interested in zooming off to other sites :

According to one Harvard Professor of Theology:
"Saying that God is smiting a leader in Israel for any reason - in this case, dividing the Holy Land - is like Prophesy 101. Everyone knows you can't be a prophet without claiming that 'God is smiting an Israeli Leader' at least once."

Not sure what I make of it that "Brainsnap" is the first to get there; I'm considering it ironic considering that Sharon had a STROKE! Then again, considering I work for a neurosurgeon, I'm surprised that I haven't seen brainsnap before....

and their tasteful e-cards...

Happy new year ; the uber-loonies are still with us

Fantastic.

Got me a blog - had been putting it off for ages, but here we go. May take a while to get used to the hang of this...

Love the news today:

"Robertson suggests God smote Sharon
Evangelist links Israeli leader's stroke to 'dividing God's land'"

this is sickening, and makes me wonder why it is "newsworthy" at this time.

Sure the "news" part of it is that Robertson is a sick f*ck who has again shown the world how unhinged and lacking in "christian" decency he is.

However, that is nothing "new".

Surely at a time like this it would be better to not further his coverage, which just stokes his already messianic ego. Ignore the idiot and let the world get on with hoping and praying that Sharon recovers - as unlikely as that is currently looking - to a degree that he can at least stop Netanyahu and the uber-right regaining government over there in March.

Robertson is, in my view, worse than Fred Phelps. At least Phelps is a one-agenda loony; I tend to agree with Barry Lynn that Robertson seems to have a political agenda for the entire world.

I wish that Robertson and his ilk would concentrate on John 8:7 rather than Leviticus. After all they don't adhere 100% to Leviticus themselves (then again, who does sell their daughters into slavery any more, or offer burnt offerings to a vengeful god?) - just the bits they choose to.