Inclusion, Doublespeak, and a way forward when we disagree?
Trying to chart a way forward so that we can live together with difference in secular Australia.
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible… Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness… the great enemy of clear language is insincerity. Where there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms…
- Orwell, George (1949). 1984. New York: Signet Books. p. 163.
There could be no better description of the doublespeak we see in our society’s talk about inclusion today.
What does inclusion mean? The Diversity Council of Australia says:
Inclusion occurs when a diversity of people (e.g. of different ages, cultural backgrounds, genders) feel valued and respected, have access to opportunities and resources, and can contribute their perspectives and talents to improve their organisation.
https://www.dca.org.au/topics/inclusion
This definition is a fascinating insight into the doublespeak in our culture when it comes to inclusion. Notice who’s excluded from their bracketed examples? Religious people. This is something we’ve experienced in our discussion at our local school too. For example, the Tasmanian Government Education Inclusive Language Guidelines which gives pages of examples of how to include all kinds of people, gives no advice on including religious people (see here).
These two examples, I believe, reveal that when people speak about inclusion, particularly in a political context or shaped by a political reality, what they really mean is reducing the role of religion in the public square to zero.
Now part of what makes all of this difficult is that by and large the role of religion, particularly the Christian religion in Australia has changed dramatically over the last 50 years. So that means there’s a natural process people of the Christian faith should expect where we become one player among many in the contest of ideas in a liberal democracy. People are not always going to agree that how we think the world should be run is how it should be run. No dramas, that’s the beauty of democracy - a contest of ideas. However, forcing a minority group (Christians) to have no say and no voice, and no right to speak or be included ceases to be a liberal democracy and becomes fascism. And when that occurs under the banner of ‘inclusion’ that is extremely disheartening for those perhaps rightly losing dominance but wrongly being excluded.
And so herein lies the problem with ‘inclusion’. Instead of enabling a contest of ideas in the public square, where all voices are heard equally and with respect, even if the ideas are in conflict and people fundamentally disagree with one another, what ‘inclusion’ now seems to mean is the removal of one voice (Christians), not just from dominance, but from the public square entirely and the replacement of that voice with another into dominance and power, and that new voice I shall term LGBTI+ INC*.
*Side Note: Now for my purposes in this article, I want to speak of the LGBTI+ INC. as opposed to individual people who identify as part of the LGBTI+ community. There is a big difference between the political moves in the public square by certain individuals/political organisations/corporate entities, LGBTI+ INC. and individual members of that community who want to feel able to live their lives and contribute to society in a helpful and meaningful way and want to stay out of other peoples lives and be good neighbours and help out where they can. I have met a few members of the LGBTI+ community in the past month for example who are very unhappy with their identity being caught up in the sexualisation of children. Check out Gays against Groomers or LGB Tasmania as examples of the diversity within the LGBTI+ community. I’m happy for someone to suggest a better term or phrase than LGBTI+ INC. to describe the corporate/political movement vs the identity of individuals, please let me know if you’ve got one!
LGBTI+ INC. seems religious in nature. It has a calendar around which to shape your life. In Tasmania we have the TasPride Festival from 10-14 Feb. We have the World Pride Festival in Sydney from 17th Feb - 5th March, including the Mardi Gras on 25th February this year. There is a religious dress of a hyper-sexualised kind. Then there is Pride Month in June. It seems to have chosen Drag Queens as the priests and evangelists of the movement. You can also listen to LGBTI+ Music, read LGBTI+ books and you can see LGBTI+ INC. movies made for kids and adults. There is symbology to unite the group (flag = cross?) and every company pays homage to the gods during the religious festivals with rainbow logos, interviews and generally making sure they show the LGBTI+ INC. powers that be that they are good companies with the right morals and values. Not only that but, as seen with the FIFA World Cup late last year in Qatar, LGBTI+ INC. is also the new colonising force of the West taking its beliefs and values, and ‘inclusion’ to a majority Muslim country and chastising them for not getting with the program. LGBTI+ INC. is for the 21st century what the Christian missionary was for the West in the 19th century, a vessel for those who love power to gain more power and more control. As was the case for individual Christians and the Christian movement as a whole this is a bad space for your identity to get co-opted. If Christendom, or CHRISTIAN INC., characterised the rise of the west in the past, now we are in, or getting close to, a period of LGBTI+ INCendom. And the danger for the movement, as it was for Christianity, is that the movement and its people become subordinate to the wants and needs of bad actors who want power and money.
With LGBTI+ INC. in the ascendency, tolerance becomes about removing barriers to their power, rather than enabling all individuals to live freely in society. As happened to the Christian faith when it was co-opted by the state to become CHRISTIAN INC. bad actors enter the movement and put children in particular in danger.
So how do we move forward? Or more pointedly, how do we do true inclusion?
With great difficulty, I suspect, and most likely limited success, however here are a few of my thoughts:
Christians agree that LGBTI+ people have a right to organise their life in secular society however they please even if this means they do and say things we think are not a good idea or are harmful to human flourishing.
LGBTI+ people agree that Christians have a right to organise their life in secular society however they please even if it means we do and say things they think are not a good idea or are harmful to human flourishing.
We ALL agree to protect the innocence of children and the rights of parents to raise their kids according to their family beliefs and values (especially when those beliefs and values are different from our own). We ALL condemn any moves to sexualise children and steal their innocence and we err on the side of caution in this regard.
We ALL support ANY group that wishes to start a school and have it function according to its own beliefs and values be it LGBTI+ or religious or any other type.
We respect the right of freedom of association. LGBTI+ groups should be able to continue with their activities outlined above (Mardi Gras etc.) just as people of faith can continue with theirs.
We decide to allow both groups to equally participate in the public square, including schools, libraries, government grants and funding, and political advocacy, OR we decide that neither should.
We expect that sometimes we’re going to think that the way the other group organises their life or lives their life is harmful or dangerous however in order to live peaceably in Australia together we tolerate each other and seek opportunities for connection working hard to find common ground.
All of these are hard however I think points three (innocence of children) and six (equal participation in the public square) are particularly fraught for reasons outlined below:
Point Three (Innocence of Children and Rights of Parents).
This is fraught because it seems that we are disagreeing on a deep, almost fundamental level about what it means to be human. If collectively we can’t decide that introducing kids to sexualised topics at a young age is a bad idea and if we make sexualising kids fundamental to who we are as a group identity then the push for inclusion will never succeed. Too many people, religious or not, will not stand for it. Likewise, if we minimise biological reality and move without evidence to suppress the natural process of puberty before taking steps of intervention when caring for people experiencing gender dysphoria we will never be able to live together well. There is simply too much at stake. It seems to me that one reason the church has lost its public credibility is that tragically it messed up its responsibility to protect kids. I fear LGBTI+ INC. is headed for the same kind of reckoning if it continues along its current trajectory.
Point Six (Equal Participation in the Public Square).
Part of why this is difficult relates to the difficulties outlined in point 3 above. That is if we can’t get common ground on some fundamentals, especially around kids, we will find it very hard to work out how to live together well. Assuming we could work out what a baseline was, my suggestion is it should be built around freedom of association, the rights of parents, and the innocence of kids. Then the next step is to decide, what’s the best way to do life together in places in society where two groups who are opposed on many issues must live together (e.g. schools, state library, or the parliament)l? And here again, the issues are fraught. It’s LGBTI+ INC. on one side and CHRISTIANITY INC. on the other both demanding dominance.
Think this year of the Prime Minister marching in the Mardi Gras and then a couple of years ago the former Prime Minister attending Hillsong’s Conference. For the current PM he is praised for going to the Mardi Gras in the press, for the previous PM he was rebuked and chastised (no comment here about either of the PMs characters or Hillsong - for another day). But, the current PM is also strongly criticised for what he’s doing in many Christian circles too as was the former praised for his faith. To live together well then whoever the Prime Minister is he or she should be able to do or not do any community activity so long as he is fighting for the rights of both groups to exist and function freely in society.
Likewise, to use our experience in the State Government Primary School, if it is decided that LGBTI+ INC. signs, flags, and posters can be posted in the school, and done so in a way that doesn’t inappropriately sexualise kids, then I see no reason why schools shouldn’t also hand out bibles, teach scripture, and invite priests to school assembly to talk about Jesus at Easter or Imamns at Ramadan. Alternatively, because we think educating children, and teaching them numeracy and literacy is the purpose of school, and because we want to live together in harmony even though we disagree, then we decide that state schools should be neutral zones for all parties and their walls should be covered in posters, not about politics and religion, but about how to count and read. I suspect what we decide for schools will be different to say libraries or parliaments which by nature should help us contest ideas (so long as they commit to keeping kids safe and unsexualised in the process).
This is hard!
It’s hard trying to figure out how to live together when we disagree. It’s hard realising that to live together in peace we have to have some things in society not go the way we’d like. It’s also much easier to live together when we get off our computers and actually engage one another in person, so let me commend that to you as a good starting point for inclusion. But surely whatever we do next we can do better than we are at the moment. I’d be keen to hear your reflections on what I’ve said as I’m still very much working this out as we go.
It's only the T community which is unable to live peaceably in its own spaces, but tries to violate other minority group's safe spaces.
This T community is predominantly made up of gender-identifying adult Straight homophobic, lesbophobic, misogynistic, narcissistic, Autogynephile or paraphiliac men.
They dismiss the human rights of women and children to safety, privacy, dignity and boundaries