Our first time out at Mardi Gras Fair Day last Sunday was a blast. Led by our dynamic candidate Miss Zahra Stardust and our amazing membership mistress Ms Rebecca our team of eager volunteers did a great job promoting the Party in the hot and sticky conditions. It was so busy we had to call out for back-up supplies of ASP postcards and stickers and by 5 o’clock we ran out of our popular “Vote 1 Sex” temporary tattoos. Thanks to all of our fabulous volunteers. Thanks also to our good friends at Calvista Australia who provided two very sexy hampers full of love toys for our stall raffle.

The reception we received was so encouraging, thank you Sydney, even if we were playing to a mainly partisan crowd. It is so important to keep the messages about our intelligent and relevant sex and gender focussed policies in the minds of our key constituents. Likewise it is important to the success of the Sex Party that our supporters spread the word to their friends, families and colleagues. We will be fielding candidates for Senate in Federal Election later this year and we need your vote. We can’t do it without you.

Fiona's note - special thanks to Rebecca and Graeme for organising a great stand and even having a little craft afternoon on Saturday.

Last night I took part in the ACT Rotary Great Debate. The subject was the Media is to Blame. I was on  the negative with ABC sports reporter Tim Gavel and Paddy Gourley a columnist on the Public Sector. The other team was Katy Gallagher ACT Deputy Chief Minister, David Pembroke from Content Group and Jack Waterford Editor at Large for the Canberra Times. It was an entertaining evening but oddly enough I was unusually nervous. I am not sure why maybe it was because my father, uncle and old Engish teacher were in the audience. Below is my contribution to the debate.

The Media Is to Blame…..

The greatest thing that the late Qld Premier Joh Bjelke Petersen ever said was that holding a media conference was like ‘feeding the chooks’. Like a mighty Zen aphorism, the Basho of the North still reaches out to us even in death and tonight the ‘suchness’ of his words will smash the logic of our opponents into tiny pieces.

Indeed the chook run is a powerful metaphor which well describes the Australian media landscape. The handful of grain thrown into the chook yard each morning is like the clutch of stories that comes through the fax machine in a thousand newsrooms around the country each day. The first thing it reveals is the pecking order. The News Ltd chooks will look for the scandalous grain, the Fairfax media will look for the intelligent grain and the women’s magazines will go for the gossipy grain. They’ll all process it through their gut and eventually publish it as either eggs or poo. And you’ll probably get one egg a day but half a dozen poos.

In the context of the debate here tonight though, that ‘the media is to blame’, the chooks are merely doing what their biology tells them to do. They are innocent and ignorant scavengers scratching around on the floor of life just trying to survive… pushing out mostly crap but with the occasional egg. Like chooks, the media have very small brains.  With exception of course of my esteemed team mate, the fine Rhode Island Red, Tim Gavel. So like a criminal pleading not guilty on the grounds of insanity, editors, producers and reporters can’t really be blamed for their actions. So, who do you blame?

You blame the hand that throws the grain. Politicians! They’re to blame. Not only do they choose the quality and type of grain to toss into the run each day but they build and design the bloody chook runs! They control the breeding programs.

As the head of the adult industry’s national association, I’m forever fending off accusations that adult media (porn) is to blame for the moral decay of modern society. Bare breasts and buttocks in magazines and movies are allegedly causing mental disorders, incurable addictions and all sorts of bad hair styles. Depictions of big breasted and surgically augmented models are said to give young women unrealistic role models that cause them to be fixated on their body size and become obese or anorexic.. as each issue demands. But just scratch the surface a little and you find that the adult media chooks are simply moving to their political masters like all the other media chooks.

Over the last few years more and more depictions of small-breasted women have been banned as the moral panic around the serious issue of child porn grows. During Senate Estimates last November, the Classification Board was regaled by Senator Bananaby Joyce and Senator Guy Barnett for allowing adult women with A cupped breasts to appear in erotic magazines. They feared that readers would fantasise about them being under 18. Penthouse and Playboy editors have been castigated for ages for the airbrushed genitalia of their models giving the lie that all women look the same down there. But for nearly 10 years now government censors in this country have demanded this barbie style touch up under threat of official bans. The once great women’s magazine, Australian Women’s Forum, dared the censors in 2001 by publishing a photographic list of realistic vaginas and that was the last issue they ever published. Gone. Headless chooks. And for everyone else it was back to the unrealistic, mass produced, plastic-moulded Barbies.

X rated DVDs, the most popular form of adult media are said to contain unrealistic depictions of mindless, mechanical sex that causes their viewers to want the same.  But check out the legislative parameters around the muff media and we see that politicians have their finger in the porno pie as well. By law, you can say ‘fuck me’ in an X rated film but you can’t say ‘fuck you’! That’s called assaultative language and its banned. You can’t show someone committing even a minor crime in an X rated film and neither can you show a fight of any kind. Try making a creative movie without any of these dramatic developments and its no wonder the X rated genre struggles to get past its ‘pizza boy’ delivery reputation. The X rated version of Russell Crowes’ Gladiator originally featured chariot races, gladiator battles and even lions.  It all ended on the floor after the censors had finished with it and we were left with sweaty men randomly bursting into bedrooms and throwing their togas off. Add to that its absolute illegality outside the bawdy borders of the ACT and you can see how hard it is to make sexual media into a meaningful and interesting medium.

In the Victorian era it was the French postcard, in the 1930s it was Hollywood movies and in the 1950s it was rock and roll music - a media form in its own right. Every new form of media was said to carry the seeds of moral decay and the end of decency and decorum. It was the media that was to blame and not those who sought to repress and control it. But somehow we’ve survived the battering ram of page three girls and defamatory headlines. The nightly assaults of Naomi Robson and Ray Martin and now it’s the new media - social networking sites and the internet are to blame. And Senator Conroy’s mandatory filter is yet another attempt by a politician to apportion blame. The chooks are blameless. Its what they’re fed and how they’re bred that counts.

In fact , in this new era of Ministerial accountability, clearly the blame is not with the media at all but with the Minister for Media our very own Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy.

The newly published and authorised history of  the British intelligence agency MI5, has some interesting observations for politicians who get carried away with the evils of porn. Defend the Realm, by Christopher Andrew, tells the story of how Arnold Deutsch, arguably the most successful master spy ever, (because he recruited the five British double agents; Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt  and John Cairncross) was investigated by the Viennese Police but escaped detection.

They were investigating him because of his association with the celebrated sexologist Wilhelm Reich (also a Communist) who was trying to synthesise the work of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud to bring birth control and sexual enlightenment to Viennese workers.

Reich, said Andrew, earned a probably undeserved reputation as “the prophet of the better orgasm.” He was suspected of dabbling in “pornography” for his comments.

He was under surveillance by the Viennese police in 1934, when he moved to London. It was likely, Andrew wrote, that even if the Secret Service had known of Deutsch’s  involvement with Reich and the  sex-pol movement, they would have regarded his unusual career as improbable cover for a Soviet spy.

Deutsch had the lead role in recruiting the Cambridge Five with his new recruitment strategy of cultivating young radical high-fliers from leading universities before they entered the corridors of power.

It will be interesting to discover when the authorised history of ASIO appears in five years time whether and how spies in the Australian intelligence and foreign services escaped detection. There were some. And whether the sexual smokescreen managed divert some from their real work.

The MLC, David Clarke, has stacked Liberal Party branches and fixed pre selections  across NSW in a bid to take control of the NSW Division of the Liberal Party. It is a bid that has been widely perceived as successful.

Clarke is seen as a spokesman and leader (at a political level) of Opus Dei, a lay Catholic organisation with goals analogous to Catholic Action, which was headed by Bob Santamaria and which split the ALP 60 years ago and kept it out of office for 16 years.

Clarke’s supporters in NSW formed a faction called the religious right, although members preferred to call their faction the “mainstream”. The faction’s policy is that of the Right to Life movement. It is opposed to abortion, to contraception, to research into the medical uses of stem cells and to providing aid to African groups endeavouring to combat the spread of AIDs through the use of condoms.

They are all policies that Tony Abbott pursued, administratively and without fanfare when he was health minister in the Howard government, and which, in the final washup, were identified as contributing to the defeat of the Howard government.

Concern that the NSW Liberals are running into the same problem has turned Clarke supporters who owe their positions to Clarke’s control of the numbers, into opponents. It has split the religious right into two camps – one camp calling itself the ‘right’ and the other comprising Clarke loyalists.

Clarke is the member for the ‘north-west metropolitan province’. He is being challenged by the chief executive of the Civil Contractors Federation David Elliott, who is backed by the NSW State president Nick Campbell and Clarke’s former lieutenant, Alex Hawke. The latter knocked off a sitting member with the backing of the religious right at the last federal election.

Their concern is that if the Liberal Party is seen as nothing more than a front for Opus Dei it will not succeed at the next State and Federal elections. The State leader Barry O’Farrell is determined to keep controversy out of the public arena, and so is Tony Abbott, who has written to State selectors calling for support for Clarke.

Abbott’s case is that if Clarke loses his pre selection the party will split and lose, at State and Federal level.

He is right. But for how long will the Liberals be able to paper over a split of these dimensions, and should they? It is not honest for the Liberals to put themselves forward as standing for traditional values when what they are offering is Right to Life.

Clarke’s people have offered a deal with the Left. They will swing their numbers behind Catherine Cusack, who is a prominent member of the moderate or “Left” faction, in return for support Clarke, who is on the far right of the social spectrum.

We have just added a bunch of photos from our very first Victorian Pride march. While we have marched in our yellow t-shirt uniforms at a few events and rallies, it was our first team effort. See all the photos here: Pride gallery

We had about 20 people at the beginning and about 30 by the end of the march.

The Greens, ALP and the Liberals all marched but I think we can safely say that we were the brightest and certainly the loudest. We carried placards outlining out policies and had a few very cute blow up hearts for the minors in our troop. One of our favourite placards was “Keep Religion Out of Politics” and we certainly got a great response from the 40,000 plus spectators.

I heard from one of the Liberal party marchers that they even got booed along the way. We had many people from the crowd yelling SEX at us and in a nice way!

We marshaled about 2 hours before we actually started marching and it was a pretty hot day to be hanging around. At the end of the march even the moisture of the temporary tattoos was welcome relief. Fortunately we also had a few large eskies on our stand with refreshments that saw us through the afternoon.

We talked to a wide range of people and tattooed many of them. I even got to sign one woman's back and write "even adults have small tits" which she had censored with gaffa tape. We finished up at around 8pm and headed off for a well-earned dinner and a few drinks.

Thank you to everyone who helped made the day such success and so much fun. I am already looking forward to the next march. We have big plans!

But before that we are planning our inaugural Sydney Mardi Gras Fair Day Sunday 21 Feb. If you would like to donate a couple of hours of your Sunday please get in touch This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

xxFiona

We had a great day yesterday at the Gay / Lesbian Midsumma Fair in Melbourne. It was my first Midsumma Fair and the atmosphere and the crowd were fabulous. People of all ages, shapes, sizes and sexual persuasions came along to picnic, check out the stalls and have fun. Melbourne provided its usual mix of summer weather one minute, winter the next but thankfully summer won out for the most of the day.

The Sex Party stall was extremely popular and looked great thanks to the design and decorative trimmings of Calvista's Dean Beck. We had seven very enthusiastic volunteers at different times throughout the day plus Fiona and myself. Luckily there were four of us to cover the slower morning and early afternoon and five to seven of us for the peak 2-6pm period. At times people were three deep at the stall. Our Vote 1 Sex temporary tattoos were a hit and of course our Sex Party T shirts stood out. Lots of people wanted to engage with us to learn more about the Sex Party and its platforms/policies. OK, so we were engaging with what should be a core constituency, but they need a message rev up and reminder too. I was somewhat surprised that a lot of people hadn't previously heard about us. We had a great location directly opposite the main open-air bar zone. The Sex Party banners and name were clearly visible, even from 40 metres away on the far side of the bar area.

The Libs, ALP and Greens all had rather drab looking stalls by comparison! All staffed by workers who were somewhat lethargic and in need of a good Sex Party! Fiona and I visited their stalls and had a chat. The ALP gave us strong encouragement to contest the VIC state elections. Fiona and I made time to walk around the whole Fair area checking out the various stalls and talking to people about the Sex Party.

We signed up  new members and collected email addresses from people who were keen to get some follow up via a guessing competition to win toy and product hampers - kindly donated by Calvista.

We are now all geared up and getting excited about taking part in Melbourne's Pride March.

Link To Photo Gallery

Your comments that we should bring back Bible Classes in schools may not have caused much comment; they may have slipped underneath the radar of most people, but some of us did notice. We cannot help but applaud your efforts at promoting scholarship and learning. We do, however, have a few questions as to some of the finer detail.

I'm sure you won't mind clarifying these few, small issues; in your position you must have had plenty of need to expand on sweeping statements. Before you label my questions as nit-picking, or brush them aside as making fun of you and your beliefs, I am genuinely interested in knowing your answers – it is the reason that I have included, where I can, the correct references. I also sit writing with a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to hand.

The first question I have is: Whose Bible? In the circumstances and being a Roman Catholic, you would defer to Clerical Authority? As a Catholic, I am sure you are aware that the Bible was, for a long time, on the list of Roman Catholic Church's banned books, the Index Librorum Prohibitorum – presumably to prevent people reading the wrong things, or to stop them questioning any contradictions or non-sensical passages, or from reading any passage which did not further the church's authority.

In fact, William Tynedale was executed in 1536 for heresy, much to do with him having the temerity to translate of the Bible from Greek to English. Can we be sure that children are taught the right version? There are any number of versions, which contain errors, typos, even intentional mistakes by typesetters, such as the “Wicked Bible” of 1631, where the seventh commandment (Exodus 20:14) is written “Thou shalt commit adultery”. Can we be sure which version of the Bible is the “correct” one? 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 says “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie. That they all might be damned...” Although, obviously, different versions of the Bible word this differently – but the message is the same – believe the an intentional deception, be damned for all eternity.

Secondly is that, for any person, reading the Bible, let alone studying it, is an ambitious undertaking. Given the years of scholarship that it takes to read, much less understand it, should Bible classes be mandatory for all people, no matter their age or beliefs? Or is there something to what the Jesuits say about teaching children?

Will we require students to learn all of it, or just selected bits? Who, then, would decide which bits? If the whole Bible, how much time do you propose should be dedicated out of the limited school week?

Should we teach the Bible in Latin rather than English? Or Ancient Greek, the language that the older versions of the Bible would have been written in, which was the language of scholars at the time? Would the time required to learn these languages be included as part of the classes, or would additional time be required?

My third question is about the content of the classes: what about the Bible would be taught? Would it be taught as Allegory, Reality, or Propaganda? Would it be taught within its historical context?

Is your intent for the Bible to be taught as fact? What if what is written in the Bible contradicts reality? After all, it took the Roman Catholic Church several centuries to fully acknowledge that Galileo was right, although there is no word yet on their treatment of Giordano Bruno. Admittedly, they did accept Charles Darwin much quicker, and the fact that evolutionary and geological timescales require vastly almost a million times more than Bishop Ussher calculated from biblical lineages.

Do you mean for the Bible to be read as an instruction guide for life and law? Does this mean the end of Throwing Shrimps on the Barbie (Leviticus 11:9-12, Deuteronomy 14:9-10)? Admittedly, the end of poly-cotton blends wouldn't a bad thing (Leviticus 19:19), although some clergy may find it unacceptable to be banned from their profession for having bad eyesight (Leviticus 21:16 – 23). And let's not mention that whole menstruation bit (Leviticus 15:19-30 to start with), capital punishment for disobedient children (Deuteronomy 21:18-21, Exodus 21:15-17), or many other passages that permit slavery, genocide, and many practices most people nowadays would find abhorrent? Perhaps some of your colleagues in both the Upper and Lower Houses might be particularly affected if Biblical punishments were brought back in, such as for adultery. After all, even Matthew 5:27-30 is quite explicit that even casting a wayward eye is adultery, that someone doing so should pluck out their offending wandering eye, or cut off the hand which causes them to sin.

Would the purpose of Bible classes to be to teach Logic and Argument? Much of the Bible does seem to be filled with logical errors, such as Argument From Authority (the “I'm in charge, therefore I'm always right” error), or contain logic so twisted it is often completely circular. Contradictions abound, many passages require quite complex Apologetics in order to make them even vaguely possible, and things that are described do not necessarily reflect archaeology or historical records from other peoples. Will errancy and editorialisation in the Bible be taught, or the fact that parts of the Bible were not written until centuries after the purported events?

Would the Bible be taught in as part of Comparative Theology – the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Apocrypha, Koran, Torah, Bhagavad Gita, Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Book of Mormon, the literal armada of works by L.Ron Hubbard, any of the books of the Discordia, the Satanic Bible? Plenty of people believe these to be Received Truth. Would these be dismissed purely on the grounds that they are not the Bible?

Which brings me to my fourth question: I'm curious as to what you mean by Australia being a land of Christian values. Does this mean the whole Bible (such as the Leviticus examples above), or just the New Testament bits? What is a Christian point-of-view, anyway? After all, Luke 14:26 clearly states that you have to hate your parents, wife, children, and your own life in order to follow Jesus Christ. Matthew 10:34-35 is even more explicit: “Think not that I am come to send peace on Earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance with his father...”, repeated in Luke 12:52-54. Even divorce is acceptable in Christ's teachings, according to Matthew 19:28-29.

Did you mean, maybe, that you want children, and indeed all people, to learn the value of such things as Charity, Respect, Understanding, Justice, Patience, even the Golden Rule from Matthew 7:12 “Do unto others as your would have them do unto you”? Should we teach these things because some believe that eternal pain and punishment awaits us if we don't, teaching them out of fear? Should we not teach that those are values are good things to learn, in and of themselves, irrespective of punishment or reward in an afterlife in which some do not believe?

Some might applaud your beliefs – the more cynical saying that it is unquestioning faith, belief, and obedience that allows people to march with a smile on their face, even to their deaths – or, just as likely, to the deaths of anyone who disagrees. Are you holding your position because you have Received Truth, because you have been told is it true, or because you believe it to be true? If your beliefs are reality, then I'm sure that they would withstand being examined, and would not be affected by my questions.

I look forward to your response. Yours quite sincerely,

Simon Jester