Mercy Ministry ruckus continues

For the second day in a row, the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting on the seriously dodgy activities of “Mercy Ministries” as well as proving its links to both Hillsong and Gloria Jean’s coffee. According to This Article Various high-profile companies such as Rebel Sport and LG electronics have (rightly) withdrawn all financial and in-kind sponsorship arrangements with the cult-like organisation.

For those not up to speed on the story, Mercy Ministries is supposed to provide a residential program to help at-risk and recovering women. Instead of providing sound psychiatric and pyschological care, they bible-bash and perform exorcisms. They also ask inmates – among other atrocities – to sign over all their Centrelink payments to Mercy Ministries and deny them access to proper medical treatment. Tellingly, Gloria Jeans and Hillsong have both indicated that they have no intention of reviewing or withdrawing their financial support of the organisation. Full Article Here

This quote below comes from yet another article in which former participants in the group’s programs tell their stories:

“Their methods are harsh. You get separated from the entire non-Christian world: no TV, no newspapers and just three, 15-minute phone calls home a week.”

Melissa, who did not want her last name revealed, said she, too, began to harm herself in Mercy Ministries. Since she was kicked out in 2005, she has sought professional care for depression, bulimia and drug addiction.

“I went to another place, one that treated me like an adult and helped prepare me to cope in the real world,” she said.
(SMH 18/3/08).

Having spent 7 or 8 years of my life caught up in the Pentecostal movement, this issue is close to my heart. I can already imagine what the Hillsong preachers will be saying in church on Sunday: “This is an attack by the secular media on God’s work. The unsaved believe that medicine alone can treat mental illness and adiction. But we believe only God has power to truly set people free!! Hallelujah!!!” (congregation applauds and shouts Amen as the band strikes up with a couple of stirring chords).

Remember, these are the exact same people who told me repeatedly that “God can cure you of the ‘affliction and sin’ of Homosexuality”. Just in the 8 or 10 years since the time I subjected myself to 12 months of “ex-gay” therapy and counselling, all but the most dyed in the wool religious nutters have finally come to the conclusion that God tends not to work the kind of sexual-conversion miracles that these organisations claim. Most of the religious-quackery around the ex-gay movement’s methods for “curing” homosexuality has well and truly proven to be ineffective. Unfortunately, they’re still around and continue to inflict more pain on the lives of participants and those around them – especially the people who married someone of the opposite gender under the false pretense that marriage would sort out their “sexual confusion”. From my experience in the ex-gy movement, most participants are funnelled in from Pentecostal and evangelical churches, whereas nowadays, more and more the mainstream churches are welcoming queer members without the caveat of us being expected to try and “change”.

Yes, there are many good people who go to these Pentecostal churches. Many in congregations are able to look at the world they live in in a far more sophisticated and nuanced way than the black-and-white, us-and-them mentality held by much of the leadership. Some members are sceptical of the God wants you to be rich b.s. that rich leaders sprout to justify their own personal wealth. Meanwhile many of the members of their congregations come from places of serious financial, social and educational disadvantage. (Not a lot of University educated people can sustain the sort of intellectual contorsions and gymnastics required reconcile all the contradictions in what they teach and preach). Also it’s true that some of the churches do useful community and volunteer work – though more often than not, and more than most other church-based charity it’s acompanied by a the modern-day, me-generation equivalent of hellfire and brimstone. (i.e. Slightly schizophrenic God who is having trouble shaking his Old-Testament anger issues might get cranky with you unless you accept his bountiful promisses of wealth and “healing”).

No doubt the Mercy Ministries debate will continue; and so it should. Their conection to Hillsong and the Assemblies of God needs to be brought to mainstream attention – particularly as those groups are trying to take a greater hold of the direction of policy and politics in Australia in the same way that the religious right have strangled America’s leadership and direction – and look how much good it’s done for the yanks!

Don’t give money to Mercy Ministries at Gloria Jeans coffee outlets

From today’s Sydney Morning Herald:

You will find a donation box and pamphlet in every Gloria Jeans store soliciting donations for Mercy Ministries. “Your spare change helps transform a life,” the pamphlet reads.

Yet few who donate to Mercy understand they are giving money to fund exorcisms in a program that removes young women from proven medical therapies and places them in the hands of a house full of amateur counsellors. Its literature claims to have a 90 per cent success rate – yet nowhere does it publish any results.

 This quote is from a REALLY disturbing article in the paper about this wacko pentecostal group that supposedly offers psychological and psychiatric care and counselling to women in crisis (e.g. self harmers, adicts, women coming out of the sex industry etc). They lock the women up in residential care facilities with carers with questionable credentials at best who inflict patients with misquoted bible passages and prayer sessions. They also don’t allow their patients access to any outside medical expertise (even to their own GP) and they discourage communication with their families.  link to full SMH article here. There is a second article about the same mob which claims a direct link to the Hillsong people here .

 It’s frightening to me because it’s at least partly reminiscent of some of the “ex-gay therapy” I went through. Fortunately I didn’t suffer nearly as much as some of these women, but the whole Pentecostal thing is just such a slippery slope from the mild happy-clappy-god-wants-you-to-be-rich variety to american tele-evangelists and healers and on to this sort of stuff. What they all have in common is a very selective reading and interpretation of the Bible (with all its contradictions and nuance conveniently swept under the carpet) and the indoctrination of participants to believe that what they’re being told is the only truth.

For a far more balanced and Christ-like take on the whole Mega-church thing, have a look at This Article from the Uniting Church.

John Howard is SO wrong!

Here is a speech he gave yesterday to an audience of like-minded, narrow-minded, blinkered conservatives in America. perhaps he should move to the USA seeing as there are so many more loony conservative audiences to listen to the prattlings of a redundant man. There are just so many holes that can be cut through his argument below as to why the Australian government didn’t owe and apology to the Stolen Generation. Read and weep.

WHAT I said in my speech was that substance was more important than symbolism but that symbolism can be important and was important in its own right.

I was prime minister for 11½ years and I declined on behalf of the then Australian government to sponsor an apology of the type given by the new Australian Government, and I did so for three reasons.

The first is that I do not believe as a matter of principle that one generation can accept responsibility for the acts of earlier generation. I don’t accept that as a matter of principle.

My second reason was that the circumstances of the removal of indigenous children were not uniform. In some cases children were wrongly removed; in other cases they were removed for good reason; in other cases they were given up; and in other cases, the judgment on the removal is obscure or difficult to make.

That was a view that was expressed very strongly a few weeks ago by somebody I regard as probably the voice of contemporary indigenous Australia more than anybody else – Noel Pearson of the Cape York indigenous council. He expressed that view.

The third reason I expressed the view is that when you do something like that there is a psychological reaction that the indigenous problems have been “ticked”, and the commitment to do practical things such as reducing the gap between the life expectancy of indigenous Australians and other Australians – which is unacceptably high – and those sort of things are pushed into the background.

There is a broader issue … I think Australia went through a period of 20 or 30 years of failed policies in relation to indigenous affairs. I think we persevered for too long with the notion of separate development.

I think the only way the indigenous people of Australia can get what we call a fair go is for them to become part of the mainstream of the community and get the benefits and opportunities available from mainstream society, while always recognising – which I believe you can do consistent with the benefits of mainstream Australia – the particular and special place of the indigenous culture in the life of the country.

This is an edited version of comments by John Howard after his speech to the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

(From smh.com.au)

Belated news from the tropics

So anyway, we left the Mardi Gras party at about 7:30, went home, showered got a coffee and OJ fix, didn’t feel much like anything to eat and got in a cab for the airport by 8:30. What is it about driving taxis that attracts complete nutters? I’m not sure if the driver we had suffered from Tourette’s Syndrome, or whether he just liked telling people to fuck off…he certainly did it a lot….gays staggering home from Mardi Gras, other dirvers who dared to think about getting in his way, pigeons flying at dangerous altitudes all copped it. I’ve found the best wa to get loony taxi drivers to shut up and drive is to start repeating their id card number over and over under one’s breath.

Flight left on time. Pleasantly empty 767. Being Qantas, they still actually feed and water their passengers without sticking their hand out for cash in flight. Had a particularly yummy, vaguely Thai tarrogon chicken concoction and a noice cup of tea. Was too wired to sleep, but wish I could have dozed for a bit.

About 10 mins after we arrived and got in the retal car it started raining…and didn’t bloody stop for 3 days.

We arrived at Silky Oaks and were checked in by a woman who spoke as though every one around her was stone deaf. She was pleasant enough, but it was waaaaaay too much to be coping with 6 hours after leaving MG party. We were driven to our “tree house” villa in a golf buggy by a far more sedate chap. All accommodation at Silky Oaks is in individual luxury cabins. Ours was a long way along a winding path through the rainforest and next to a lovely little bubbling creek.

time at Silky Oaks was spent in the room reading, wandering around the rainforest trails and taking a few drives and walks in the area. Meanwhile the rain continued and was getting harder and harder. The little babbling brook next to our cabin had morphed into Iguazu Falls by our second night. I was worried the foundations of our tree house would be swept away and our bodies would be found swept out to sea somewhere beyond the mouth of the swollen Mossman River.

On day 3 we drove into Port Douglas for a massage at Port Douglas day spa (Highly recommended and much cheaper than the Spa at Silky Oaks). The rain by this stage was of truly, biblical, mellodramatic, proportions. My dear little rented Hyundai got her toes a bit wet on the way to Port Douglas. After a mind-blowingly good coffee at oh-so-cool Re-Hab on the main street, dear little Hyundai got wet up to her little flimsy Korean axles whilst fording puddles that had turned into lakes during our two hours in Port Douglas. With the road on the verge of being closed and a flight booked the following morning on Bogan-blue which couldn’t be changed or refunded, we decided we might be best checking out of Silky Oaks where in fact cabin fever was already starting to settle in. (They insisted on keeping guests’ car keys in case cars had to be evacuated across the rickety wooden bridge which connected it to the outside world). Thankfully the noisy chick at reception let us check out a night early without charging any extra despite the fact the rate I’d booked was based on a minium 3 night stay.

Long story short, we managed to negotiate floods and landslides on the road south and scored an excellent hotel deal on the qantas website for a night at the BEAUTIFUL Sebel at Palm Cove. They kindly upgraded us to a room with a big jacuzzi on the balcony. That night we had a brilliant meal at Nunu – a restaurant just down the road which was awarded best regional restaurant in Australia by gourmet traveller. My wonderfully tasty duck was accompanied by a glass of the much lauded Stefano Lubiano Pinot Noir from Taswegia. Baba had perfectly cooked reef fish that wouldn’t have been out of place on the menu of a three-hatted Sydney or Melbourne resturant. Mains, wine, coffee and dessert-sized petit-fours all came to a smidgin over $100.If only Nunu was in the neighbourhood instead of 2000km up the coast.

Wednesday morning brought a final obstacle in that the main road was cut by a flooded river just near the airport which necessitated a detour through the drab suburbs of Cairns. We got to the airport on time, boarded the Red Virgin 737 with all the Virgin bogans (seriously….60% of passengers on each of the 3 or 4 virgin-blue flights I’ve been on have been straight off the set of Kath & Kim) and madeit home safely to a lovely, warm sunny Sydney afternoon.

Holiday plusses:

Silky Oaks location and accommodation were beatiful, but not worth a cent more than the low season discounted rate we paid.

The rain really was beautiful

Just the wonderful novelty of going straight from the party to the airport and flying up to Cairns while still high

The room at the Sebel @ Palm Cove

Dinner at Nunu

Holiday Minuses:

Bloody awful American tour group that stayed one night at Silky oaks, including the man who was holding court at the bar and mouthing off about how back home in hicksville USA homosexuals who parade in the street like the ones he saw in Sydney at MG get taken outside and bashed. (prick!!)

The musty smell in everything as a result of all the rain.

The horrid chicken sandwich that cost me an arm and a leg on the virgin flight home. (mind youat $99 for a 3 hour flight, I shouldn’t complain too loudly).

Mardi Gras in the Dome

I survived the friday 4am start to get to the flower markets with my class for our excursion. There were rather too many gerberas and pukey orange lillies for my liking, but there were a few growers there too with some really interesting and individual flowers. Had a sleepy, grumpy day at work on Friday and then went to see Courtney Act (a drag performer who can not only sing, but who actually sings bloody well) that night.

Up again earlyish on Saturday for flower class. Even at 8:30 in the morning there was a buzz building on Oxford St. Class was good. We made a couple of hand tied bouquets, a bowl arrangement and a couple of button holes. I went home and baba and I had a nanna nap before heading out to Flinders St with our milk crates to try and get a glimpse of the 30th Mardi Gras parade.

People talk about Mardi Gras parade losing its relevance. I beg to differ. While queer people continue to get hassled, spat at, teased and brutally bashed without provocation, for no reason other than the fact that they’re not heterosexual, there is the need for a public display of strength and solidarity.

There is also the need for our community to be able to let our hair down and be ourselves in an environment free from the fear and prejudice we experience in the outside world. I love gay dance parties. I love the fact that alter egos can come out to play. I love the fact that things that would normally shock people in the burbs barely turn heads at Mardi Gras (like two topless girls snogging, a fat old man wearning nothing more than tiny leather pants, drag queens tottering on big heals etc etc).

We spent most of the night dancing in the dome where the music and mood tend to be a bit heavier, darker and far more interesting and adventurous than the same old same old in the RHI. This year the Horden was Trance, but the times we went in it wasn’t particularly interesting trance music – just tch tch tch tch tch then a build up of tchtchtchtch and back again to tch tch tch….I’m not a trance fan unless it’s a bit more trippy, or organic. The dome on the other hand had great tribal/hard house played by Mike Kelly and Jack Chang. Before them was my favourite DJ in the world – Sveta. Alas we were stuck in the queue outside the party waiting to get in (with an eye open for for those nasty beagles) and in another even longer queue at the cloak room. Having missed Sveta, we went into the Horden where there was a truly amazing laser show. A guy on a huge podium/stage in the middle of the huge dancefloor doing incredible things with lasers and smoke. AMAZING! Then hours of non-stop dancing in the dome.

We skipped Olivia Newton John, and had to leave before Cindy Lauper came on at 8am to catch a flight to Cairns…more of that in the next entry