News

Children are at Risk

What happened to UK teenager Keira Bell? She was given puberty blocker drugs, quickly moved on to male hormones and surgery, and now deeply regrets her treatment. No one had explained all the risks to her.

 In a bygone era, specialists treating the very few children with gender dysphoria (unhappiness with their birth sex) would talk to them and their parents to discover and alleviate possible causes of their distress. Some factors may have been bullying, family dysfunction or sibling tensions. 

The doctors would gently encourage such children to see the positives in their biological sex. Those receiving this gentle encouragement overwhelmingly lose their transgender feelings by the end of puberty.

But not anymore. Labor governments in Queensland, ACT and Victoria have moved to prevent healthcare professionals from helping gender dysphoric children to accept their biological sex. Parents of gender-confused children are finding their concerns being overridden by authorities.

FamilyVoice has been working hard to expose the dangers of the headlong rush to subject gender-confused children to puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones and major surgery. 

The FamilyVoice webinar with detransitioner from the US Walt Heyer and Tasmanian Senator Claire Chandler heard the tragic stories of those who have gone through surgery and then regret what they have done. 

 
Our Campaign to the Prime Minister to stop the trans drugs for children has been very well supported. 

Our Campaign leader David d’Lima is working tirelessly to protect these vulnerable children. Your support is making a difference for these at-risk children and their families. 

Religious Freedom to be protected

Our problem in Australia today is that other human rights trump religious freedom. Our anti-discrimination laws do not recognise the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), or its later expanded form, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Article 18 in both treaties provide for the freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

 
FamilyVoice would like to see a commonwealth law incorporating Article 18 of the ICCPR. A third draft federal government bill to protect religious freedom is nearly ready. We have been campaigning very heavily on this led by Greg Bondar. This has included many meetings with parliamentarians, webinars with Kevin Andrews, John Howard and others and email writing campaigns. 

Your support has enabled this concerted action to continue. Together we can produce great results.

Saving Babies Born Alive

Federal MP George Christensen has introduced the Human Rights (Children Born Alive Protection) Bill 2021 into parliament to stop the abhorrent practise of babies being born alive and being left to die following an abortion.

 
FamilyVoice has been working with George Christensen on this bill from its inception and held a very successful webinar with him on this. 

Our campaign on this run by Greg Bondar and Darryl Budge has been extraordinarily successful and has really shown how the Australian community finds this abhorrent. There is a real groundswell of support that we have been able to generate on this. There is real hope for this legislation given the feelings of the Australian public on this issue. This would be a major prolife victory which have been hard to come by. Without your generous support we could not have achieved this outcome.

Keeping Children safe from Porn Online

Peter Stevens is making wonderful progress on the Child Internet Safety campaign. Our children should not be able to stumble onto hardcore pornography websites with a few errant clicks.

Online age verification will force pornographic websites to establish users are over 18 before they can view the site.

 
We expect legislation to be introduced to make this effective very soon. The good news is that we have been able to get bi-partisan support for this. This has been sadly lacking in recent times. It is great to be able to work with both sides of politics on this issue. We pray that this will happen more often.

Peter Stevens has also recently had a major win in keeping the Lord’s Prayer in the Victorian parliament. This happened because our supporters acted. 

Melina Bath MLC said she had 1,700 emails opposing the motion, and only 105 in favour.

Craig Ondarchie MLC said 75% of those who contacted him want to keep the prayer.

Bev McArthur MLC said 90% of correspondence to her supported keeping the prayer.

Thank you for speaking up on this and so many other issues where we ask you to act. Together we are making a positive difference. Praise the Lord.

Our committed team has been working hard to advocate for families across the nation, on all these and many other issues.  But we cannot do it without your prayers and financial support. 

FamilyVoice have been on a multi-year journey to achieve tax deductibility status for our Online Library. You can view the Online Library here:  https://familyvoice.org.au/resources

The ATO have rejected our application and objections to that rejection. They appear to be being very picky. An uncharitable, but probably accurate, interpretation of their decision might be that they simply don’t like Christian organisations.

The ATO objections can be overcome. But it will take extra resources to do this. 

I am asking that you give the most generous donation that you can, to help us get the Online Library in a state that will receive ATO approval. This will be a great resource for generations to come.

Thank you for your generous giving in the past. I hope you will be able to go the extra mile to help now with a gift to enable our ministry to continue strongly.

For family, faith and freedom,

Peter Downie
National Director