ALC (Christian Lobby) tries to oust Australian Sex Party

The nation's newest political party has come under fire from Christian groups even before its official launch.

The Australian Sex Party supports the exploitation and degradation of women through pornography and prostitution, the groups say.

The Australian Christian Lobby wants all other political parties to preference the party last on how-to-vote cards to prevent it taking seats in state and federal parliaments

"Pauline Hanson was rightly put last on how-to-vote cards because of her inappropriate views on race," lobby director Jim Wallace said.

"The Australian Sex Party should be treated in the same way for its inappropriate views about women."

The party launched itself at the national Sexpo event in Melbourne on Thursday. The party's platform includes opposition to the national internet filter, supporting gay marriage and adoption of a national sex education curriculum. Party convenor Fiona Patten says the party acknowledges the importance and scope of sexual issues in the lives of Australians.

"I doubt we can be all things to all people," she told ABC Television. Sexuality and gender were important issues not being dealt with properly, she said.

Stephen Conroy’s internet filter is successful, 90% of the sites blacklisted will be thus labeled because of their non violent, sexual content.

Currently 1370 URLs are on the blacklist, 674 were blacklisted because they were child pornography or appeared to be. Of the remaining 696: 441 were X18+, 65 were R18+ and 190 were RC which may means that they contained content featuring sexual fantasy or fetish. So leaving out suspected child porn, 506 of 696 blacklisted URLs are blacklisted because of legal sexual content.

This debate has reached such ludicrous heights that the Young Liberals recently proposed that a searchable database of all Australians caught accessing illegal pornography, be established. Bring back Andrew Peacock!
On a positive note, we have seen the death of the US Child Online Protection Act (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10147171-38.html)which should really have been called the Ban Adult Sexuality Act. We've also seen the end of the US ban on overseas aid for health organisations that provided abortion information or services. Lets hope that these decisions help the Sex Party overturn Conroy’s filtering plans and our own anti-abortion overseas aid policies.

Australia’s newest political party, the Sex Party, will consider setting up a West Australian branch after this week’s Sexpo. Party convenor, Fiona Patten, said that she would gauge support from among those signing up to join the federal Party at Sexpo but already she had been approached by a number of disaffected Liberal and Labor members to launch in the west.

Ms Patten said that there were a number of important personal freedom and social justice issues that both the major parties had ignored and which were adding to the pressure on her to set up against them. “Legalising non violent erotic DVDs and prostitution may not seem like a reason to set up a new party in W.A. but when you throw in gay marriage, legalised abortion and a few checks and balances on the power of the churches, then you are starting to develop a strong policy base which affects the voting tendencies of a lot of people”, she said. “Public opinion polls have consistently shown that people in the west have the most relaxed attitudes to issues like censorship* but politicians from Liberal and Labor continue to ignore these figures and instead have installed the moral values of their mates in the churches”.

The Sex Party has enrolled nearly 2,000 members since last November and is on target to get 10,000 members by the end of the year. The party is targeting younger voters, small business and those who are disillusioned with the political processes. Ms Patten said that the party was already very active on social networking sites and that she had personally met with US President Obama’s technical advisor when he was in Australia a few months ago. “We are a social party at heart and are kicking off a series of Sex Party ‘sex parties’ where people meet to discuss out policies around the barbie or the dinner table”, she said. “Our name might turn a few heads but when people see our policies they realise that sex and gender issues affect almost all of the major portfolios in government.”

She said that the party was keen to get a Royal Commission underway into child sex abuse in religious institutions and that W.A. would be a focus for this as the birthplace of the Christian Brothers in Australia. “We would like to see all churches and church-based businesses in W.A. paying tax like any other profit-making entity”, she said. “Just because you are in the business of ‘fostering religion’ should not make you exempt from paying tax”.

Legalised abortion and proper sex education in W.A. schools were also big issues. “Religious groups in W.A. have more influence on what is taught as sex education in schools than do secular educators and modern sex therapists”, she said. “We need a standardised curriculum for religious and secular schools”, she said.

Fiona Patten is available at Sexpo for interview: 0413 734 613

The Australian Sex Party, PO Box 181, Deakin West, ACT, 2600. Ph 02 62852477 www.sexparty.org.au

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