VoxBrief

FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND BELIEF UNDER ATTACK. By John Ballantyne, former editor of News Weekly.         Many Australian Christians in recent years have sensed that the society around them has been transformed almost out of recognition. Values that their parents and grandparents took for granted are today openly derided. Marital fidelity and family values have diminished, at the same time as divorce and non-marital cohabitation have increased. The very institution of marriage has been called into question, with more and more Australian public figures each year calling for marriage to be redefinded to include same-sex couples.

EUTHANASIA: ARE THE RISKS TOO GREAT? From the Minority Report by Daniel Mulino MLC to the Victorian Legislative Council Inquiry into End of Life Choices, June 2016. Edited by Roslyn Phillips, BSc DipEd.             Debate about legalising euthanasia and assisted suicide continues to rage in most states of Australia. The Victorian Legislative Council established an Inquiry into End of Life Choices in May 2015, and issued its final report in June 2016.     A majority of the committee members who conducted the inquiry recommended, among other things, that assisted dying be legalised in certain limited circumstances. Daniel Mulino MLC, one of the two members who disagreed with this recommendation, has issued a comprehensive minority report that considers the evidence in some detail.

BRINGING FREEDOM AND ORDER TOGETHER IN A FALLEN WORLD. By Rev Dr Peter Barnes.         The recent plebiscite on same-sex (or any gender) marriage has raised a number of issues for Australian society, and, indeed, for Western societies in general. A key concern is that of the basis upon which Western laws operate.     Over the last two hundred years or so, the notion has grown that Western secular societies operate best in a context of maximised freedoms standing on a thin moral base. Paradoxically, this has led to those who are most vehement in favour of homosexual rights to be most coercive when it comes to legislation.

FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION: Education, children and the purpose of God. By Sarah Dingle.        "In the space of just a few decades, homosexuality has gone from being a criminal offence to a psychological disorder, to an acceptable way of life, to today, the 'new virtue'. Without doubt, we are living in a time of massive moral and cultural change." The shift towards same sex marriage in Australia has happened quickly. Just a short time ago, neither major party in Australia would support changing the meaning of marriage in law. Momentous social change of this nature leaves us with the question of how a revolution of this type has occurred; how does such significant social change take place so quickly?