Tag: Homophobia

Media Release: Government gives $20K grant to promote inclusive communities to homophobic organisation

ALEPH MELBOURNE
MEDIA RELEASE: GOV’T GIVES $20K GRANT TO PROMOTE INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES TO HOMOPHOBIC ORGANISATION
JULY 13 2012

J-Wire reports [1] the Institute for Judaism and Civilisation (IJC) [2] has been awarded a $20,000 grant to produce a teaching manual of the shared values of Christianity, Islam and Judaism to strengthen resilience against violent extremism.  Aleph Melbourne welcomes government grants of this nature and sees them as a valuable opportunity to further relationships between religious communities.

Attorney General Nicola Roxon describes of the Building Community Resilience grants program [3]:

We want to support local projects to build stronger, more inclusive communities. … Grants such as this will fund practical new activities to assist individuals and communities to resist and disengage from intolerant ideologies and encourage positive community participation.

Director of the IJC, Rabbi Dr Shimon Cowen, is on the record in his 2012 submission to the Senate on “homosexual marriage” [4] as inferring that homosexuality is prohibited by God and that to allow any recognition of homosexuals is to show defiance to the universal ethics of God.

Cowen was also embroiled in a controversy earlier this year where he openly advocated for reparative therapy for gay people and that the anti-homophobic anti-bullying program Safe Schools Coalition Victoria be de-funded. [5]

Cowen’s stance is clearly at odds with this shared values program, which is described as funding “practical new activities to assist individuals and communities to resist and disengage from intolerant ideologies and encourage positive community participation.”

Cowen and the IJC have blatantly demonstrated an intolerance of homosexuality.

Michael Barnett, Convenor of Aleph Melbourne said, “By allocating this significant grant to such an organisation that fosters intolerant homophobic ideologies is a slap in the face to all same-sex attracted Jews, Christians and Muslims who are trying to gain acceptance in their respective communities.  Further, it sends the message that homophobic intolerance is acceptable.”

Federal MP Michael Danby has commended Cowen and said that this grant will allow the faith communities to explore their similarities and avoid extremism.

Barnett said, “The irony of the situation is that followers of ultra-conservative religious perspectives common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, people like Shimon Cowen, believe that practitioners of homosexuality are sinners who should be shunned and actively discouraged from acting on their innate sexual orientation.  Some extremist viewpoints of these religions go so far as to say such people are worthy of death.”

Barnett calls on Danby and Roxon to revoke the $20,000 grant allocated to the IJC on the grounds that the IJC is a proponent of intolerant ideologies and to reallocate the funds to organisations that embrace diversity.

Further comment available from Michael Barnett on 0417-595-541.

[1] http://www.jwire.com.au/teaching-manual-to-be-produced-on-shared-values/
[2] http://www.ijc.com.au/
[3] http://www.livingsafetogether.gov.au/newsandblog/Pages/Building-resilient-communities.aspx
[4] http://aleph.org.au/2012/04/03/jewish-submissions-to-senate-enquiry-on-marriage-equality/
[5] http://aleph.org.au/2012/02/10/the-homosexual-anti-bullying-program-for-schools-an-unconscionable-strategem-afa-journal-vol-32-no-2-2011/

Update – January 5 2013 & October 5 2015

Since this media release was issued the AG web site link has changed. The new grants program page can be viewed http://www.livingsafetogether.gov.au/newsandblog/Pages/Building-resilient-communities.aspx. Details of the grant application in question can be viewed in full here and summary here.

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Statement from Aleph Melbourne in response to ACL Jim Wallace on Sunrise

Is it with extreme disappointment and dismay that a representative of an Australian religious organisation has invoked the name of one of the most feared people of the Holocaust, in comparison with a minority group who are campaigning for equal rights under Australian law.

Tens of thousands of homosexual men were murdered under the hand of Joseph Goebbels, alongside many millions of Jews and people from a variety of national identities and religious beliefs.  To be compared to this person, in the pursuit of equality and human rights is unconscionable.  It beggars belief that an individual with a respected career in the Australian Defence Force is incapable of comprehending the gravity and insensitivity of the words he uttered on national television.

As a support group representing gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from a Jewish background, the words of Jim Wallace and the Australian Christian Lobby hit our members and those in the community who share a similar identity with a double punch, and they continue to reverberate through the families and friends of these people and the communities they belong to.

There is no excuse for hate and intolerance of people on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity.  Equal rights in marriage will only benefit the wider community and help show the commitment and love people in all relationships, irrespective of gender, express for each other.  All Australians will benefit from equal marriage rights.

It is time for the Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, and the leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott, to stop listening to those who peddle hatred and intolerance, and start listening to those people who want equality and love.  It is only then that Australia will become a much better country and the political leaders can know that they have made a worthwhile contribution to the welfare of all Australians, now and into the future.

Michael Barnett.
Convenor, Aleph Melbourne.
June 7 2012.

[ Source material ]

AJN Letters: Responses to Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz – March 30 2012

30 Mar 2012
The Australian Jewish News Melbourne edition

Letters to the editor should be no more than 250 words and may be edited for length and content. Only letters sent to letters@jewishnews.net.au will be considered for publication. Please supply an address and daytime phone number for verification.

Method not message is wrong on bullying

I FOUND the parallel that letter writer Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz (AJN 23/03) made between opposing the specific homophobia anti-bullying program being promoted by Safe Schools Victoria to “tacitly encouraging the vilification of others” (i.e. homosexuals) to be obscene in the extreme.

Even the biggest critics of this antibullying program were abundantly clear about their opposition to homophobic bullying.

It is the methodology of the specific program in question that has justifiably drawn criticism from some rabbis and concerned members of the community. Entering into a discussion about samesex marriage with kindergarten children, as this program would have us do, is plainly and simply inappropriate.

Moreover, Mr Meyerowit-Katz believes that those rabbis who are opposed to the implementation of this program are adhering to a “medieval idea of morality” and that should they persist in this mentality, they will “only continue to stand there scratching their heads as shul attendance continues to plummet”.

With the deepest of respect, falling shul attendance has nil to do with rabbinic attitudes to current issues and everything to do with the increasing secularisation of our community whereby communal prayer is no longer appealing.

YONASAN KABLINSKI
Caulfield North, Vic

A morality tale for boosting attendance

WE should all be grateful to Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz (AJN 23/03).

He bemoans what he perceives to be the persecution of homosexuals, and then proceeds to offer us the panacea for declining synagogue attendances.

“In advocating that Jews adhere to a medieval idea of morality” he writes, “certain members of the Orthodox rabbinate are tragically out of step with the modern world. Should this mentality persist, they will only continue to stand there scratching their heads as shul attendances continue to plummet”.

So, to be clear, his message is that promoting and practising immorality is the way to get those “bums on seats” in our congregations?

By the way, I think he is also historically inaccurate in implying that homosexuality is a new phenomenon of this modern world that those rabbis are so “out of step” with. It was rampant in many civilisations such as ancient Greece and Sodom. So it is just as “medieval” a concept as morality. Go figure!

ROBERT WEIL
Caulfield North, Vic