Way to spoil ANZAC day Jim!

A couple of years ago I attended our local dawn service for ANZAC day and the local preacher got up and spoke (as he tends to) and for once he wasn’t just boring. It was the year after what we call the Cronulla riots, although I expect people in other countries might laugh at our definition of a riot. The priest spoke at length and then offered a prayer in closing. One of things he prayed for was that we, as Australians showed a bit of restraint and would “beware of excess nationalism”.

This was one of those moments when I actually felt glad the old bugger was up there on the podium praying away. Here I thought, is the proof that we can still make common cause with our religious, fellow mammals. The priest was up there, talking common sense and not overdoing it. He managed to mix a bit of stern admonishment into his mild rebuke. All in all, a job well done.

Fast forward to this year and I couldn’t make the dawn service. One of my kids was sick in bed, so my missus took the oldest down and I got the slightly guilty pleasure of staying in bed with the little one. So I missed the spirit of ANZAC day really, that was until I saw Jim Wallace’s twitter comments reported on the ABC website this Friday. So what did Jim from the Australian Christian Lobby have to say on ANZAC day?

Just hope that as we remember Servicemen and women today we remember the Australia they fought for – wasn’t gay marriage and Islamic!

It was very, very disappointing to see a public figure use this platform (ANZAC day not Twitter) to push a bit of bigotry. By associating his views with those of our diggers Jim Wallace has done them a grave disservice. I undertsand that Jim Wallace had a distinguished career in the army but you know what? I had a grandad in WWI, a grandad in WWII and my dad served in Vietnam. Pardon me for speaking plainly here, but after this ANZAC day effort I don’t think any of them would piss on Jim Wallace if he was on fire.

So, as you would imagine this effort got widely reported and pretty soon Jimbo had to apologise. What never fails, the thing that is never missing from incidents like this is the woefully inadequate explantions public figures offer when they fuck up. In fact, let’s not call it an explantion, let’s call it what it really was: a justification. Here’s Jims effort:

Ok you are right my apologies this was the wrong context to raise these issues. ANZACs mean to much to me to demean this day, not intended

He also later clarified that it was because he was sitting with his old dad, reflecting that Australia has changed, as if that somehow explains it. My opinion is that Australia probably has changed a great deal. The Australia our diggers fought for was not an Australia of ipods or playstations, it was not an Australia with a female Prime Minister and it was not an Australia where petrol could cost up to $1.50 a litre. Jim Wallace didn’t publicly reflect on any of these things though. What he did was express a bigotry that should no longer be acceptable in this country.

The whole thing has died down now (the news cycle is fast – what’s next, what’s new!) but for me this still leaves a bad taste. For now, religion is a zero sum game. For every mild and thoughtful priest out there there is another bloke who just hates people – not for what they do, but for who they are. It’s a real worry. Ratbags like this don’t want a zero sum game – they want to win. The Australian Christian Lobby calls itself a “voice for values” but what exactly does a guy like Jim Wallace stand for? It seems he would have us live in a world where he decides who you have sex with and what you believe in. You think I go to far with my reasoning? That’s what lobbyists do right? Try and influence Government to legislate. He is a genuine ratbag.

The blog on the ABC Religion portal was unpardonably kind to Jim Wallace. The writer (Rev Rod Benson) explained this away as bad timing as did many of Wallace’s other supporters. The argument that ANZAC day was the wrong day to be a bigot is a pretty stupid one. As I think back to the mild rebuke delivered by the mild priest on a drizzly ANZAC morning a few years ago I can’t help but hope that next year the reminder to “beware excess nationalism” will be book ended by a few sterner admonishments: beware racism, beware homophobia, beware bigotry and most of all beware people calling themselves the voice for values.

And so we should be wary of any public figure who awards themselves such high ground.