whose definition of "Tolerance"???

from the SMH today came a story that John Howard had sent an Australia Day "greeting" to a wonderfully "Australian" values evangelical sect called "Catch The Fire" ministries.

OK, he's entitled to do that, isn't he?

Well, when the "sect's" leader Pastor Danny Nalliah has been charged, convicted, appealed, had overturned, then on re-appeal had his conviction upheld on religious vilification against another religion, yeah, I do have a problem.

Sri Lankan born Nalliah is not afraid of a fight; after being born again, he and his wife spent a couple of years in the "heart of the beast" "45 miles from Mecca" (presumably) prosyletising and helping run an "under ground" christian church.

Then, and I quote from his own website

"On April 9, 2000 at 5:00am while in Ethiopia the Lord Jesus Christ woke me from sleep and spoke about Australia. He very clearly told me, “Son, if my people will rise up and be proactive, they will stop the disaster which is coming on the land. But if my people sit back, relax and be reactive they will pay a heavy price to take back their land spiritually.”

I suppose that he really is the guy to save Australia from itself; after all (again from his own bio) he worked as a church cleaner for 2 years (VERY metaphoric, huh?) before "From here the Lord raised him up to be a Sunday School Superintendent, Cell Group Leader, Cell Pastor, Regional Pastor, Church Board member and then into Church planting."

Cell Group Leader??? Has he been consulting the Anarchists Handbook?? Cell Pastor??? Sounds like an Imam attached to a suicide bombing squad to me... Same principles, just different faith.

This is a guy who according to the previous (and more enlightening article) called for the destruction of pretty much all non-christian places of worship (including the all-powerful Freemasons' Masonic Lodges), casinos (well, he has a point there), brothels, and bottle-shops (now u see why I'm pissed with this guy!!!)

His views on Moslems are that basically (and this is my paraphrasing from a few online sources - yeah wiki, and others) "no, they don't worship our God - Allah is a catch all arabic word for any god".

Well - if all of our politicians can either
a. get in a lather about, or
b. just ignore and laugh off

intolerant religious fanatics who are disowned by there own religion, then surely the PM should not be having anything to do with this cHRISTIAN "holy man" who (in anti vilification court action) found himself against the Islamic Council of Victoria who were joined and FULLY SUPORTED by the Catholic Church and the Uniting Church.

J-Ho - for goodness sake! U aint an idiot. It is obviously something that - like everything else - you thought you could get away with.

For goodness sake. This is only going to lose you votes from the liberal members of your party. These bigots already vote for you, or for Family First who preference you.


so anyway, my "public" contribution to this debate, via the SMH Letters page went out this afternoon, thus...


From: Bernard Kealey
Date: 19-Jan-2007 15:07
Subject:
To: letters@smh.com.au


The Prime Minister's continued support of Pastor Danny Nalliah's
"Catch the Fire" ministries ("Howard's greeting for 'anti-Muslim'
group" January 19, SMH Online) is a fantastic example of the one
sidedness of the argument for tolerance in this country.

To be sending an "Australia Day" message to a congregation overseen by
a non-Australian pastor who incites the destruction of Masonic, Hindu,
and Buddhist temples, as well as Mosques, casinos and bottle shops is
outrageous.

If Pastor Danny is so concerned that Islamic forces are overturning
the Christian culture, I suggest that he has a more spiritually
fulfilling challenge in his native Sri Lanka where the overwhelming
majority is Buddhist, and the race for 3rd place is a neck and neck
tie between Christian and Moslem adherents.