The Daily Signal - #444: Conservatism in Australia

Episode Date: April 21, 2019

We talk to Martyn Iles, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby, about e state of conservatism here in the U.S. and abroad in Australia. Plus: Mykala Steadman shares an inspiring story of perseverance at the Boston Marathon. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show!The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, April 22nd. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Today, we're going to feature Rachel's interview with Martin Isles, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby. They'll discuss the state of conservatism here in the U.S. and abroad in Australia. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating on iTunes. Now, on to our interview. We're joins on the Daily Signal podcast today by Martin Isles.

He's the managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby. Martin, thank you so much for joining us today. No worries, Rachel. The Aussie way to say it is gidday. Well, thank you for being here. First off, could you just tell us a little bit about what the Australian Christian lobby is and the work your organization does? Sure. So the Australian Christian Lobby was founded in 1996.

It's one of the largest political movements in Australia now. And it is a grassroots movement. It's all about getting people to get active in the political. process and to make change through lobbying our politicians, but it's a grassroots lobbying effort. So it's from the ground up. And we lead a movement. We try and equip people and inspire people around what their faith has to say about the real world in which we live. And therefore, it gives them a really clear reason to get on their feet and get into the public squares and activate for change in the political process. So we've enjoyed great success over many years,

and we trust there's many more to come in God's grace. That's awesome. Similar to Heritage, too, where a lot of grassroots members across the country here that work to advance similar values. So it's great to have you with us. Here in the States, we've been seeing a lot of attacks against the sanctity of life.

Recently, the governor of New York, legalized abortion up to birth, and our Senate actually failed to pass legislation to protect babies born alive after an abortion. And I believe, I think your parliament is facing similar issues on abortion up to birth as well. What's the situation like in Australia? and how has your work and messaging on these issues help the pro-life movement there?

Well, we've had, so abortion to birth in the state of Victoria, which is where the city of Melbourne is located since 2008. So they passed what I'll call New York-style abortion laws back then. So that's been in place for a while, but other Australian jurisdictions haven't followed with such radical laws quite so quickly until more recently, Queensland, It's the state where Brisbane on the Gold Coast and Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef are located, that passed the same kind of laws just last year.

And now there's big pushes on in a couple of other states as well. So there's been a number of losses on the pro-life front in Australia, as you've just described here in the US. The thing about Australia is that the absence of a really strong pro-life movement, There are pro-life movements, but not really strong ones. You know, I look at the March for Life that you guys have in D.C. in January, and I just think, wow, if only, you know, we have a great, look, there's some great organizers of an event called the March for the Babies in Melbourne, for example, which is fantastic. But, you know, we need to grow. We need to get bigger. We have found that the humanitarian arguments in the policy space have had some success. So we blocked this thing in Queensland a couple of times by talking about the fact that, you know, babies after about 20 weeks are pain capable.

They can feel pain. And Dr. Ben Carson came out and said some things to that effect recently, which was super helpful. And just to talk about the fact that, you know, is this really a question of just health care? Is it that morally neutral to take the life of a child who can feel pain, who is at such a late stage of development, who could live outside the womb? You know, those late-term abortion arguments we find are the public square, very compelling. On the other end of the life spectrum, the end-of-life issues, we were just talking before the show about how Australia is warming up to physician-assisted suicide. What's happening on that front and what are your concerns as the country warms up to it?

I know here in the states, there's seven states here in the U.S. that have legalized physician-assisted suicide and Washington, D.C., more states are trending that way. So it's a fight we're in with you all as well. Yeah, you know, I think that this is a much more challenging issue to argue against in some ways because, you know, a lot of people are afraid of dying. And, you know, if you're afraid of dying, you want to try and have some control over death and you think that if you can have some control over death, then that'll make it better. And I think actually people are speaking out of fear very often when they advocate for euthanasia.

But of course, you know, we know that it doesn't work out that way. The slippery slope argument is not just a hypothetical thing. We see it all over the world. We do have, what people don't realize is that Australia was actually, I believe, the first jurisdiction in the world to legislate assisted suicide in 1994. It was in the Northern Territory, which is, you know, where most of the outback is in Australia and Ayers Rock or Uluru. But because that's a territory and not a state, you know, the Commonwealth government has a lot of power over it.

And so they said, no, you're not having that. And they took it away after about a year or so. but not before a number of people had died, and Dr. Philip Nitchke, who's absolutely infamous in this space and founded Exit International, really came from Australia out of that whole process. But that was overturned, and we've held it at bay for a long time by just talking about consequences, by just saying, look, let's go look at Belgium, let's look at the Netherlands, let's look where three disabled children have been euthanized as firsts in the world. Let's look at the people who are euthanized for personality disorders and depression.

Let's look at the dementia patients that are euthanized and so on. And that pulls a lot of politicians back when they start to really look at the facts. But unfortunately, we have a very, very socially radical government in the state of Victoria. Again, that's where Melbourne is. And they passed euthanasia laws last year to come into effect in July of this year. And they're very, you know, the safeguards aren't brilliant. And so we expect to see the slippery slope happen. But perhaps that will be a warning sign to other jurisdictions in Australia.

not to follow suit. I know one of the most recent happenings happened last May, David Goodall, he was the 104-year-old Australian scientist who traveled to Switzerland to be euthanized. How did you all, we see situations like this in the U.S. too, with people making a political issue, how did the pro-life movement respond to him saying, you know, this is my right to die, and I wish it were legal here? Well, the response from us, which I think was relatively effective, because they talked about him for quite a while and then just stopped and started talking about other cases. I think there's a reason for that because we just said, hang on a minute. You say you want euthanasia and you want safeguards and there's no such thing as a slippery slope and all this kind of thing.

Well, okay, what was actually wrong with Dr. David Goodall? Why was it okay for him to go and die? The only thing that was wrong with that man was that he was old. It was 104. He had no other health complications. He had no difficulties whatsoever besides his age. and you're using him as a case, you know, par excellence of euthanasia in action, a guy who deserves the right to die.

So you're already down the slippery slope. You know, the Victorian euthanasia laws don't allow you to die just because you're old. And you're like, no, no, safeguard, safeguards. Well, clearly your head is somewhere else already. And that's the honest truth. Once you do away with that principle of the sanctity of life, where do you draw the line? There's no good reason to stop at any particular junction. Why eight months prognosis and not 10 months?

You know, why 103 and not 104, this kind of thing? So, you know, it's predictable. So similar to the life issues, both our countries are working to promote LGBT rights and so-called gender equality. And recently, our vice president's wife, Karen Pence, she was under some pretty harsh fire for her decision to teach art at a Christian school in Virginia because that school holds traditional and biblical views on marriage. Do you see this growing controversy as a religious freedom issue as well? Yeah, absolutely. This is really serious in Australia in particular. I mean, we were one of the last Western countries in the world to get same-sex marriage. We only got it last year. And that was because of advocacy from groups like ACL, which was very effective over a long period of time. But in Australia,

we don't actually have a bill of rights. And so you change the law on marriage. And then what happens to the people who don't agree with the new law? Well, they've got beliefs that are against the law. And the law on marriage feeds into not just marriage, but gender, sexual identity, sexual orientation, family, beliefs about all that collection of issues, which is, you know, what, what was at stake in the case of Mike Pence's wife? And so we have beliefs that are against the law, and there's no religious freedom carve out to say that that's okay. And so you see anti-discrimination laws, you see government's attitudes to Christian schooling, you see government's attitudes to other Christian entities really are taking a turn for the worse. And so we're

arguing very strongly that if there aren't religious freedom protections passed soon, you're just going I see Christian institutions and Christian individuals constantly falling foul at the law and being heavily criticized by public voices, as Mike Pence's wife was. And one of the moves we saw at the end of last year was the Labor Party, which is sort of our center-left party in Australia, tried to pass laws that would have meant that Christian schools would likely face lawsuits and legal action for teaching biblical values or for teaching Christian ethos or for having policies in their school. that upheld a Christian ethos. So the attack is exactly the same. And this is simply the right of people

to have differing view on issues of marriage, gender, sexuality and family. And it is a view that has prevailed for millennia. And it's a view that has prevailed since Australia was even founded, as it's a view that prevailed since the US was founded. And it's a view that is absolutely central to the very creation narrative of the Christian religion. And so, you know, either that, they can make religious freedom carve out and say, yes, of course, that's okay. Or the Christian church is going to continue believing what it believes and it's going to create all kinds of issues. Of course it's a religious freedom issue and it's very serious.

As someone who isn't from the United States but who's working with us on a lot of similar issues, advancing values that are pro-life and pro-marriage and pro-family, where do you see the United States gaining ground and where do you think we could do better? Oh, gosh. Criticizing the United States. I don't know. Where do you see him for improvement? Look, from the outside, from a global perspective in the Western world, the United States

looks pretty good. So I know a lot of people internationally sort of have a laugh at Donald Trump and that kind of thing. I think that's all just cheap shots because actually what's going on here is good. You see Canada, there are a lot worse off on this stuff. You look at Western Europe, look at the United Kingdom, a lot worse off. You guys are hitting home runs in the sense that you've got Supreme Court nominees and appointments that are conservative. You've got a really strong, robust bill of rights and freedom

of religion. You've got groups like the ACLJ, the Alliance Defending Freedom that are doing really well in the courts. You've got groups like Heritage Foundation that are leading the world in terms of how think tanks operate and the good policy stuff that they put out. You guys get political activism. I'm over here talking to people to basically teach us how to do a grassroots movement. You've got heritage action, but there's heaps of others as well. And, you know, I'm left going, wow, there's so much good stuff going on here. There's so many really active and really concerned people in the American community who are advocating for values and advocating for family and advocating for freedom. It's fantastic. And so I think that so much is going really, really good

here. One thing that does strike me is I look at some of the voices that come out of America and other places. And I'm interested to see. So I'm a Christian, obviously, Australian Christian lobby. And I'm interested to see that so often they're not Christian. You know, there's a lot of Christians are turning a lot to people who, like Dr. Jordan Peterson, who are not actually Christians. And one of the things I wish we could do better as the church, and this goes for America and my country as well, is actually equip people to think with a whole worldview perspective and equip people to think about these issues and the real world in which we live, especially the real world as it is emerging for young people today, to speak into the.

their lives and actually say, hey, this is how your faith straightforwardly and directly answers all of the concerns that you have and all of the issues that you face. This is something that I'm very passionate about and I'm saying, come on, surely we've got people who are Christian to the core who can go out there and equip young people of the future with that message. And I'd like to see more of that happening. Thank you for sharing that. I was recently having a discussion with someone along the same lines about how faith and science and reason they don't contradict each other. They you know, work in tandem with each other and, you know, why we shouldn't be separating them. So thanks for sharing that.

Lastly, what's your message to people, you know, across the country, you know, Australia, the U.S., the world who see the work that we are doing that you all are doing and they think, well, the work is already getting done. Why should I have to be involved? People are already doing it. What's your message to those people? Yeah. You know, there's a line I use sometimes and I say, the more we are silent, the more we

will be silenced. and that's literally what's happening right now. What we're seeing, particularly in Australia, and I think in the US as well, although the two sides are very strong here, but we're seeing the fruits of a social activist movement that's been growing for decades. There's been a group of people who are full-on committed

to post-modern ideals, to neo-Marxist ideals, to radically secular ideals, and they have pushed so hard for so long, for their cause with a passion and a zeal that leaves us sort of for dead. And we're seeing decades on the fruits of that. And it's coming like an avalanche. Now, I'm sitting there going, well, we sort of sat back and snoozed and said, well, let's preach the gospel in the four walls of our church and do nothing else. I'm like, yeah, well, that's actually really great. Let's keep doing that. But, you know, we've got the words of Jesus ringing in areas saying, you're the light

of the world, right? Go out there and be a city on a hill that can't be hidden. What are we doing that's that obvious, you know. And to think that we've got these basic ideas given to us by Christ himself and scripture to get out there and be active and do good and stand for what is right. And we've got all the answers given to us on a plate to think that we're snoozing and going, oh, well, someone else will do it for us. I think that's reprehensible. And I'm sitting there going, we should have all the zeal in the world when it comes to these issues. And maybe this is a big wake-up call for us to turn around and go, you know what? Maybe it is time. that we do what they did. We get active in the community. And it just starts with speaking and being

open. A lot of us self-censor. A lot of us aren't open about who we are, what we believe. If we start at a grassroots level to speak up, and then, you know, if you use groups like ACL and hear heritage action and others to have a platform to speak up more broadly and do it in a concerted in an organized way, in a way that stands for what's true and right. You can make a huge difference. You look at what they've done. And if we did the same, I say there's more of a very way. I say there's more us. We've got a bigger mandate and we do the same. There's no doubt. I don't think anybody should have any doubts in their mind. The cause of truth, when joined, when people join it with so many voices, will prevail and will grow. Martin, thank you so much for being with us today. No worries,

Rachel. Thanks for having me. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. In the Agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. Now we shift to your letters to the Daily Signal. We've published a number of stories lately on the Popular Vote Initiative, which is an attempt to get rid of the Electoral College.

Marco Beeman writes, Hey, Justice Department, maybe you could go after the real criminals in our society. Doing a way with the Electoral College renders the smaller states useless in choosing the leader of all 50 states. The Democrats would need only to go to New York and California, in theory, to be elected.

That's not what the founding fathers had in mind when they came up with the idea. We recently interviewed Maz Touret on the podcast. He's the founder of group called Black Guns Matter. Marion E. Daniels Price writes in, What this country needs are more people like Maj Torre, an activist who was interviewed on your podcast.

Maj is on the front lines educating people about their rights in areas that are being indicted with messages twisted in favor of the progressive left and socialism. He's right. People need to be educated by liaisons from their own communities. I'm a 58-year-old widow living in suburbia. I cannot be a liaison to a predominantly black urban community. but many from the growing black conservative movement can. I encourage others to contact Maj to meet up with him, to be educated by him,

to become a liaison to your own communities, and then attract other people to do the same in their communities. And now, Michaela Stedman joins us to share the good news story of the week. Thanks, Kate. Last Monday was the Boston Marathon. After the race, one of my friends posted a picture of a man crawling on his hands and knees toward the finish line. This photo touched me and so many others, but there is a lot more to this story. The runner in the photo was Micah Herndon, a marine veteran who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

During his deployment in 2010, a bombing took the lives of his friends Mark Juarez, Matthew Ballard, and Rupert Hamer. It was in their honor that Micah decided to run the marathon. He wrote the names on the back of his hands, on his bib, and even on the tags that were tied into his shoelaces. Micah did great in the race until both of his legs began locking at mile 22. Despite the pain, he was determined to finish on his own. He told the Today Show. That was the finish on my own, and whatever it may be. So I was, I think it was around 75 to 100 yards from the finish line

because I saw the tickers and I believe that that was the finish line. But it was my first time running Boston, so I really wasn't familiar with the course. But my legs really stopped moving forward. And so the next option is to crawl. And because as Marines right from the get-go, it's instilled adapting to overcome. And whatever adversity, whatever trouble you're doing, adapt and overcome. So I was crawling, right handstring locked up. Next option, low-crawl.

So I low-crawled until the right hamstring loosened up a little bit. I was able to crawl the rest of the way. Micah finished the marathon in three hours and 38 minutes. The story of his dedication and strength is not one that I will soon forget. Yeah, one incredible story. I agree. I'm not much of a runner, but I can still imagine that that had to be a really painful experience at the end, and him finishing for his friends really touched me.

Yeah, I was just thinking if you're crawling, like touching the gravel and all. Like, I would think it would really hurt your hands. but yes, this whole thing is completely outside of my experience to even imagine running the first 22 miles or whatever. Yeah, you can see actually in the pictures that they took, the marks on his elbows from falling. Oh, wow. And you can see the names of the people on the back of his hands in all the photographs. It's pretty impressive. All right. Well, that's going to do it for today's episode.

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