Politicians of various colours , whether the deep blue Moira Deeming (pictured) from the Vic Liberals or Lidia Thorpe, the ex-Green Senator, have made heavy weather of rallies on trans issues. Deeming faces a party room motion to expel her from the Liberal party after Nazis “crashed” a rally she was speaking at. Thorpe was prevented by Federal police from disrupting a conservative rally outside the Federal Parliament and ended up tackled to the ground.
From the conservative side of the trans issue, the rallies link people’s concerns about transgender medical care to fringe politics.
You don’t even need the Nazis who turned up to the March 18 Melbourne ”Stand For Women (SFW)” rally organised for the British anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull also known as Posy Parker, for questionable links to be raised. Parker has habitually been featured on a series of far-right podcasts, unwisely undermining her cause.
And it was not just Nazis who turned up. “A dozen or so men holding red ensigns and upside down Australain flags” joined the Melbourne rally., according to The Saturday Paper’s Sam Elkin. Almost certainly the red ensigns and upside down flags were held by “Sovereign Citizens” who believe that laws magically do not apply to them, and somehow the redensign is the real Australian Flag. Yes, they are better than the Nazi’s but just as much a fringe group.
These rallies boost the reputations of people who lead them but risk sullying the cause.
Moria Deeming, an evangelical Christian, is now at the centre of the storm, with a Victorian Liberal party room vote on her future expected on Monday. John Pesutto, the party leader, has acted hastily to try to oust her from the Liberal party.
“We write to urge you to pray for Moira Deeming, who is a member for the Western Metropolitan region of the Victorian Legislative Council,” the Church and Nation Committee of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria said in an official statement.
“Mrs Deeming has vocally supported the biblical view of gender and sexuality in the face of abuse, attack and even violence. She is now facing potential expulsion from her party.
“While it is not our intention to be partisan, supporting one or other side of politics, Mrs Deeming is a member of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in good standing, and so we encourage you to pray for a fellow believer.”
The Committee alleges Deeming has been “slandered” by the Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and others who have criticised her for far-right links after a group of Nazis joined the “Stand with women” rally. They have urged support for an Australian Christian Lobby ACL campaign backing Deeming.
“SFW advocates for the reinstatement of reasonable biological-sex based rights and against the irreversible and harmful medical transitioning practices used on gender non-conforming, autistic and gay minors,” Deeming said in a statement. At the rally, she describes being “horrified to see masked men all clad in black inside the buffer zone. We thought that we were going to be attacked. However, the police did not seem worried and were talking with them over at the edge of the line.
“Later, I saw the police seemingly usher these men right through the centre of the buffer zone in between our event and the counter-protestors, which is when I saw those men raise their hands in a Hitler salute.”
The difficult question is whether the rally organisers then distanced themselves from the Nazis.
Deeming’s eyewitness account: “After the event, I was informed that these masked men had, in fact mounted Parliament House steps outside of our view on the other end and performed a Nazi salute and that members of the SFW group asked the police to make them leave, but were informed that the Police had no powers to move them on due to Labor’s removal of those powers.”
This means that Deeming did not know about the Nazi salute until after the rally but that others in SFW might have been able to speak from the platform against the Nazis at the rally but failed to do so. SFW would have been taken by surprise and might have been inexperienced in holding such a rally.
Deeming’s statement strongly condemns Nazism. “I completely reject the beliefs of National Socialists (Nazis), and I have seen first-hand the impact that the Holocaust had on a family member.”
But there are lessons to be learned for Christians campaigning in the public space.
There is a pattern among conservative Christian political activists of being slow or reluctant to cut ties with groups to their right. ACL effectively endorsing voting for One Nation, a party with a racist background, is an example. This might change as ACL re-sets.
But Moira Deeming has taken the alternative route of joining a mainstream party, the Liberals.
Deeming has opened up a fault line in the Victorian liberals. John Pesutto, the party leader, has acted hastily to try to oust her from the Liberal party. He may have put his party leadership on the line by attacking deeming.
A mysterious email doing the rounds of the Liberals explores the dubious connections of MPs. It suggests that if attending the same rally as Posy Parker and having Nazis attend a rally is enough to cancel Deeming, perhaps half the party has to go. Because similar “connections’ can be found for many MPs.
The email cites the examples of “deputy Liberal leader David Southwick posing for photos more than seven years ago with controversial far-right commentator Avi Yemini; Brad Rowswell for inviting controversial tennis giant Margaret Court to a 2017 fundraiser; and Jess Wilson, whose husband Aaron Lane was forced to resign as a Liberal Party candidate in 2014 over a series of homophobic social media comments,” The Age reports.
Deeming is on a knife edge. But Persutto also risks his credibility as a leader in seeking to expel her from the party room. Some observers rate Deeming’s survival as a 50-50 chance as opposition grows to removing her.
The Victorian Libs will soon decide if a Conservative Christian like Deeming should be in their party room.
If there is no room for Deeming, there may be no easy political home for conservative Christians in Victoria. Family First is being rebuilt under Lyle Shelton’s leadership, but that movement has a long road ahead before becoming a viable alternative for the Upper House.
At a time when the pendulum of medical opinion has begun to swing against widespread “trans-gender-affirming care” that promotes transitioning, the rallies that attract groups on the fringe of conservative politics are a distraction. And it is of concern the organisers don’t appear to know how to deal with unhelpful groups that want to join in.
It could be wise to let the Medical profession sort through the issues. Recent papers published by the Westmead team of researchers, and the UK Cass report, which heavily criticised the Tavistock Institute’s’ GIDS (Gender Identity Development Service) program in London, have brought an increasing degree of caution into the scene.
It would be an own goal for those with concerns about the harm done to transitioning young people to allow that concern to be identified with far-right groups.
Yep – you’re right. Bad ideas don’t work and the transgender ideology at its hard edge has to become shoutier and shoutier to shut down even the calm medical voices. And seriously, if you think you can out-politic Dan Andrews, then you are naive. He shut Vic down for 270 days and people still act like lap dogs around him begging for a biscuit.
The medical pushback, from those who can see a medical scandal brewing is also growing. The question of harm is a real one, not just a progressive slogan.
You finish your article on a strong note John. This is a medical issue, to be addressed by the medical profession. This is is not a theological issue or a morality issue, it is medical, and multi-disciplined at that. It “might” be a theological and moral issue for those who follow Christ, but otherwise gender dysphoria and gender transitioning is a medical issue.