Australian Catholic Church Scandal

The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Dr George Pell has been accused of sexually abusing a youn male and has stepped down while an inquiry is undertaken. This comes just months after he was accused and proved guilty of helping to cover up child sexual abuse in the catholic Church and paying hush money to the victims. Back in June of this year Dr Pell denied having been involved in any sort of coverup of child sexual abuse by other clergy in the Catholic Church. It was later proven that he had lied about his non involvment when legal letters from the catholic church to the victims were provided to the media.

Dr pell is the man who said at the recent World Youth Conference that abortion was a far worse crime than Child Sexual Abuse, personally I can't think of anything worse apart from murder than abusing a child or abusing anyone!

It is amazing that even from this lie he has held on to his position as Archbishop, but it reflects a Catholic Church which is under siege throughout the world for child sexual abuse by it's priests. What is even more amazing is the double standards shown by the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, who upon hearing of the newest accusations immediatley came to Dr Pell's defense and confirmed his backing of the man. This double standard by Howard is less than two months after he refused to stand by Justic Micheal Kirby when he was publicly accused in the Australian Federal Parliament of picking young men up in his Commonwealth car. Accusations which were quickly proven to be baseless and fabricated by the arch conservative Senator Heffernan, a known hatchett man for the Prime Minister.

John Howard refused to back down or support Justice Kirby and once the allegations were proven to be total farbrications never even apologised for the behaviour of his Senator, But when the allegations are made against a fellow conservative, Dr George Pell, the PM has been very quick to dismiss them and support the Catholis Archbishop.

There is a definite double standard here, but it is to be expected by a Prime Minister who still believes that the world should revert back to the social values of the 1950's and has been a vocal opponent of grating gays and lesbians equal rights under the federal law.

Australia is being governed by a political party which has such disdain and open hatred for minority groups that it is almost amazing that Australia has not been branbded a backward country.

Whether the allegations of sexual abuse by Dr pell are proven correct or not, he is not a role model or a moral leader fit to be in the position of power he holds. It has been proven in the past that he has lied, lied to the media and lied to the country. He should have resigned the first time, but this time it may cause even more damage to the church than his last folly! As for Howard, well the country will decide at the next election whether or not he is fit to be the Prime Minister and I hope they decide that his own dubious morals and double standards make him persona non gratis as Prime Minister!

4:26:00 PM 0 comments links to this post

Update on Goings on

There have been a few hiccups with the server over the last week or so, for some reason the server decided to go down and most of the interactivity of the site went down with it, which was a bit of a pain inthe neck. Then late last week the DNS information ( the way your Internet Service Provider finds the site ) also fell over so people got a lot of errors on the site. But all that has been resolved I should hope by now. The problems have also meant that email sent to me has not been coming through either. I am once again receiving email properly so please keep it coming!

Bandwidth Theft

I have now started a weekly cycle of changing the name of the directories with images in them so that people cannot steal bandwidth from this site. I have sent out numerous emails to the worst offenders requesting they change their links to images so they are not stealing bandwidth, but amazingly no one has actually taken any notice. It really does annoy the crap out of me that people ignore polite requests, but the way I now handle this problem is effective and all they get is a broken image on their site. I will continue to change the directories, and am writing a script to do it automatically for me in the future as well, so i will not have to even spend te twenty minutes every week doing this!

Log in problems

There is a small problem with the login script from this page, if you are getting an error message wen trying to log in, then use the log in details from the members page. I hope to have this fixed today, but will have to wait and see.....

I am having issues with my computer and have been unable to do some things, especially updating the site with new content that i have at the moment, but i am planing on loading a whole lot of new content this Friday!

Oh and before I forget the next chapter of Life at a Private School is well underway and should be completed sometime this week!

8:23:00 AM 0 comments links to this post

Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras in Administration

The Sydney Gay and lesbian mardi Gras, one of the oldest gay pride organisations in the world has been placed int he hands on an Adminsrator this morning due to rising debt and no way out of their current financial situation

The Mardi Gras organisation was formed in 1978 after a group of protesters marched in Sydney to protest against the State Government and to bear witness to the Stonewall riots in New York. Over the next several years the organisation commenced as a public poitical organisation to promote gay rights and then in the early 1980's to educate and warn the general and Gay & lebian communities about HIV / AIDS.

Mardi Gras is probably best known for hostingthe world's largest gay Pride Parade and Parties each March and the smaller Sleaze ball in October at the old Sydney Show Grounds - now the Fox Studios. But it is also a tireless campaigner for the rights of gays and lesbians, people living with HIV / AIDS, an educator for safe sex and a fundraiser for community organisations.

The downturn in travel since September 11 saw much fewer party goers to this years Parade and Party which both lost money and have severely damanaged the future of this once fine organisation.

Mardi Gras is currently seeking a financial backer to provide in excess of $400,000 AUD to ensure that it continues, and had asked all it's members and supporters to help with financial contributions in June of this year. After an anonymous contributer backed out last week to provide a loan for the organisation (due to some conditions not being met), the Administrators have been called in to help restructure the organisation and see if it can continue. The contributor had requested that the mardi Gras directors and Office Holders personally guarantee the loan, which they have refused to do.

Can Mardi Gras be saved?

The question of why the office holders and directors would not guarantee the loan is one which I must ask. If they truly believed that it was a loan and the organisation could fulfill it's financial obligations this should have been a no brainer. But I suspect that the office holders and directors know that the organisation in it's current structure cannot run profitably and the loan repayments would be defaulted.

Does Mardi Gras Still have a role?

The question that everyone is aksing is does Mardi Gras still have a role after nearly 25 years of being an outspoken and at time over the top organisation. The answer is simple enough - YES. While there is still inequality and people are still being villified for their sexuality organisations like Mardi Gras must continue to fight for our rights to have equal relationships and be free of persecution. Just because we live in a "free" society doesn't mean that we are not persecuted.

If you would like to help Mardi Gras you can visit their website to make a donation or join - http://www.mardigras.com.au.

2:10:00 PM 0 comments links to this post