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These days it can be hard for groups like ours to get a mention in the mainstream media. Surveys of journalists have found that few support traditional family values. Their views come across in the news they cover, and the news they ignore.
But last week, FamilyVoice hit the jackpot.
We discovered that journalists from a couple of major media outlets – The Australian and The Guardian – as well as some minor ones, have been tuning in to two of our recent webinars.
You may recall that we featured federal MP and former government minister Hon Kevin Andrews (below) in our webinar on 8 February. He told the nearly 300 people who registered about progress in religious freedom legislation. Since then, more have watched it on our FamilyVoice YouTube channel.
A couple of weeks later, on 23 February, we nearly reached our audience limit of 500 when our guest was former Prime Minister John Howard.
The Guardian – not known for its support of FamilyVoice – headlined its report the next day:
John Howard calls for religious schools to have anti-discrimination exemption
The article went on (in part): “The former Australian prime minister John Howard has reignited the religious freedom debate, arguing schools should be able to hire teachers based on whether they accept the beliefs the school is based on in the same way political parties favour staff who believe in a party’s ideals.
“In a presentation to Christian organisation Family Voice Australia on Tuesday evening, Howard also called for ‘people in authority’ to more actively oppose ‘woke culture’ that is trying to ‘alter society’ in Australia.
“Howard, speaking on the topic of freedom of speech, said one issue that had arisen out of the same-sex marriage postal survey – for which he publicly advocated a no vote – that needed to be addressed was the rights for faith-based schools to teach the principles of their faith.
“I’m hopeful when the government finally produces its legislative formula to deal with this issue is the absolute right of faith-based schools, whether they be Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Islamic or the like, the absolute right of those schools to teach the precepts of the faith which guides that school,” Mr Howard said.”
I found John Howard’s words very encouraging. He has pin-pointed the concerns of many Christians about our increasing loss of free speech and religious freedom. More and more, state governments want to stop faith-based groups from choosing staff who support their values – while giving political parties complete freedom to employ supporters only.
And though I often disagree with The Guardian’s editorial policies, I congratulate its writers for their fair report on this occasion.
John Howard said a lot more on our webinar. If you missed it, or any of the others, you can find them on our FamilyVoice YouTube channel.