Alright, there are so many aspects of this topic that grate the wrong way with me that I’m going to apologise in advance if this post bounces all over the place a little bit. I promise that I will try my hardest to keep it coherent and stop it from devolving into a crazy rant… hand on heart.

Now before I go on I want to make a distinction in terms. When I refer to religion or to ‘the Church’ I am not referring to the collective peoples that make up that religion or that particular church. I know that the vast majority of the people who are part of these religions are amazing, caring, selfless people. When I refer to these institutions I am referring to just that, the religious institution and political unit which does operate within the church. The Australian Christian lobby is a political actor, the Catholic Church is a political actor. It is essential to understand this...

Yeah… and so is his, and so is hers… kinda awkward that they’re all different imaginary friends isn’t it?

If you haven’t realised by now this one is going to be about religion. Now I’m not against religion at a conceptual level. I fully admit that I have just as little confirmed information about the creation of the universe as the Pope does, that is where my concessions to religion stop though. With this in mind, you won’t be awarded any points for guessing that the undermining of public policy in the name of ‘religious freedom’ really presses my buttons.

So, what am I going to talk about over the next few posts?

Two particular examples: The federal government’s recent, and laudable decision to deny anti-vaxxers a range of government payment; and the recent submissions by the Australian Christian Lobby to the Victorian Government on the issue of gay adoption rights.

To start off I...

It seems that almost all of the debates within our society today boil down to a single question at one level or another; do we want to maintain the kind of society in which we live? And if so, how are we going to pay for it?

Yeah I get it, nobody likes paying tax; but why are people seemingly incapable of seeing the connection between tax and the benefits it provides. The whole political narrative in today’s media has created this twisted understanding of what tax is and what its purpose is. So this is what I am going to tackle… well… attempt to chip away at.

So, tax; if you’ve listened to nearly any commentator (or politician) over the last thirty years in a liberal-democratic country you would know it as the analogue of Satan’s tithing. Greedy, corrupt, inept, wasteful government taking your hard earned money and wasting it on lazy, dependent moochers and immigrants. I mean, how...