Memo Mark: It's the family, stupid!
Babette Francis
National & Overseas Co-ordinator,
Endeavour Forum Inc.
babette@endeavourforum.org.au
Published in the Melbourne's Herald Sun on October 28 2004

Dear Mr. Latham,
You are blamed for the ALP defeat on October 9, but my view is you were seduced by the Greens, Gays and Gender feminists, who took advantage of your inexperience.
The Gays, for instance: did you really believe the Kinsey nonsense that they are 10% of the population when surveys have repeatedly shown they comprise between one and two percent? Of that number, many are not activists - effeminate Fred who lives with his pal Henry and just wants a quiet existence, would be quite perturbed at the prospect of "marriage".
Now you aim to have young, "progressive" women on your front bench when it is their "Emily's List" policies which were responsible for your election debacle! "Emily's List" candidates support abortion, affirmative action (discrimination against men in employment and promotion) and IVF for lesbians.
Shadow Attorney General, Nicola Roxon, who reluctantly supported the Government's Marriage Amendment Bill defining traditional marriage, made a big mistake by then promising gays "civil unions with all the benefits of marriage".
It would be smarter to support the government's domestic dependency policy, whereby those who are genuinely dependent - such as siblings who share a home, or a parent and adult child living together - would be recognised as partners in a household. This does not exclude homosexual partners, but it is not based on sexual relationships.
Roxon then compounded the mistake - before 1,200 pro-family activists from all over Australia in the Great Hall of Parliament House - by promising a Labor Government would introduce a Racial and Religious Vilification Bill.
There was an audible groan and boos from the audience, which only moments before had applauded Roxon for supporting the Marriage Bill. Pro-family activists in the Great Hall - and a few hundred supporters outside - did not have big trucks like the loggers in Tasmania, but if they had, be sure the wagons would have circled Parliament House.
Two Christian pastors have endured months of legal action under Victoria's Vilification legislation for analysing the Koran at a seminar for Christians. The case has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars - and great alarm among other pastors. Each pastor has a congregation of a few hundred - that's a lot of votes blowing away from the ALP.
At an ALP conference your deputy, Jenny Macklin, announced lesbians and single women were entlited to in vitro fertilization so they could have children without fathers. (Whatever happened to your policy of having fathers read to their children?).
Currently the Victorian Law Reform Commission, dominated by gender feminists, has issued discussion papers, all touting the creation or adoption of children for homosexual couples.
These green, gay and gender feminists have succeded in awakening Protestants to the connection between their faith and politics. Catholics have always been involved in pro-life and pro-family politics, but the involvement of non-Catholics is new. The DLP (mostly Catholic) kept the Labor Party out of office for over two decades in the 20th century. Now the Protestant groups in Pentecostal churches, Family First, the Australian Christian Lobby, the Fatherhood Foundation and the Christian Democratic Party, together with Catholic activists in the pro-life movement and the National Civic Council, may do the same in the 21st.
You have not understood the power of new technology - the internet which has enabled Christians to by-pass a left-wing media, and ultrasound images which throw a searchlight on the brutality of abortion and how outdated the ALP's platform is on "reproductive rights". The internet enabled Christians to circulate thousands of copies of a "Christian Values Check List" analysing the platforms of all political parties.
Having gender feminists like Joan Kirner demanding ALP women be given front bench positions is the last straw for male voters - and the wives they support. Resign your membership of Emily's List - or you may suffer Gendergrad in 2007 - a defeat reminiscent of Stalingrad.