Forced-birther blames bushfires on abortion law reform

by Lauredhel on February 10, 2009

in gender & feminism, religion, reproductive justice, social justice

There’s always one, isn’t there?

The fatuous godbag woman-hater who blames disasters on the Wrath of God. We saw them after Hurricane Katrina, and now they’re starting to waggle their loathsome little fins in the wake of the horrific Victorian bushfires.

Today, it’s Pastor Danny Nalliah. From the fucking “Catch the Fire Ministries“, if you can believe that. CTFM’s media release is on their own blog, here.

The SMH reports:

“Pastor’s abortion dream inflames bushfire tragedy”

The Catch the Fire Ministries has tried to blame the bushfires disaster on laws decriminalising abortion in Victoria.

The evangelical church’s leader, Pastor Danny Nalliah, claimed he had a dream about raging fires on October 21 last year and that he woke with “a flash from the Spirit of God: that His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb”.

Pastor Nalliah said he was helping to co-ordinate fire relief, including providing trucks to distribute clothes and food and giving his own blood, but he said he must tell “the truth”.

Asked by the Herald if he did not believe most Australians would regard his remarks as being in appallingly bad taste, he said today: “I must tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.”

He said it was no use “molly-coddling” Australians.

Asked if he believed in a God who would take vengeance by killing so many people indiscriminately – even those who opposed abortion, Mr Nalliah referred to 2 Chronicles 7:14 to vouch for his assertion that God could withdraw his protection from a nation.

“The Bible is very clear,” he said. “If you walk out of God’s protection and turn your back on Him, you are an open target for the devil to destroy.”

They’re not an obscure teeny tinpot little ministry without any influence, either – former Liberal Treasurer Peter Costello is tied up with them.

Sometimes I run out of words for “infuriating”.

[h/t to Mindy]

Similar Posts:

Victorian upper house votes on decriminalising abortion today by tigtog
Backpedalling and finger pointing while spinning like a top by tigtog
“Pro-life” Archbishop Hart’s murderous misogyny by Lauredhel
Melbourne Anglican Diocese supports the decriminalisation of abortion by Lauredhel
So, we just missed Pastor Danny Nalliah at Mt Ainslie yesterday by tigtog

Tagged as: abortion, abortion law, australia, bigotry, bushfires, catch the fire, christian, danny nalliah, evangelical, fires, forced-birthers, god, godbag, law, law reform, ministries, peter costello, pro-choice, pro-life, relief, victoria, womb

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This article was written by lauredhel

Lauredhel is a forty-something woman with a disability. She lives in her Western Australian family home where books, Lego, and soapmaking gear constantly compete for space. She blogs about feminism, reproductive justice, freedom from violence, the use and misuse of language, medical science, being disabled, her vegetable garden, and whatever else pops into her head. Lauredhel also blogs at FWD/Forward (feminists with disabilities), scribbles at her personal dreamwidth journal Selective and Arbitrary, and co-moderates Hollaback Australia. She joined Hoyden About Town in 2007.

lauredhel has written 1286 posts for Hoyden About Town. If you liked this post, you might like to subscribe to the feed via RSS or EMAIL to get instantly updated for more posts like this.

{ 4 trackbacks }

And Catch the Fire They Will - Pollytics: February 10, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Christian cleric incites terrorism: prosecute him! « Balneus: February 10, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Godbags and Your Ovaries « WhyI’mbitter’s Weblog: February 11, 2009 at 9:18 pm
skepticlawyer » The Bent Spoon: March 6, 2009 at 8:49 am

{ 80 comments }

← Previous Comments

53 Louise February 11, 2009 at 8:05 pm: I have no idea what the WBC are on about. WTF?
54 tigtog February 11, 2009 at 8:12 pm: @ irfan:

Good point, irfan.

Fundamentalist hate-speech should provoke outrage no matter which religious zone it comes from, because these people are the extremists in every faith system. They don’t speak for most believers, but sadly most believers take very seriously the idea that criticising a religious leader is the same as criticising the whole body of believers.

@ Louise,
The WBC are a small but highly visible hate-cult led by one Fred Phelps who pickets funerals with signs saying “God Hates Fags”. He started picketing only funerals of men who died from AIDS, but now he pickets military funerals based on the ‘reasoning’ that the US government are ‘fag-enablers’ and thus the deaths of soldiers are punishment for US citizens voting a bunch of ‘fag-enablers’ into power.
55 lauredhel February 11, 2009 at 8:18 pm: Thanks Fizz. I can understand the urges, but I think the expressions can go too far, being jarring/triggering for readers, and in some cases being potentially illegal. I know I self-filter this stuff fairly frequently. It’s not exactly “turn the other cheek”, because I’m all for a bit of well-placed anger. Cheers.
56 Deus Ex Macintosh February 11, 2009 at 8:29 pm: I think there’s a very good case for the police to be arresting Mr Nalliah on charges of “making an affray”, or “conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace”.

Or even “for his own protection”.

Deus Ex Macintosh’s last blog post..Disabled pay gap: Half-wage for half-made?
57 Grendel February 11, 2009 at 10:29 pm: I keep wondering if I should leave a comment on his blog: http://catchthefire.com.au/blog/2009/02/10/media-release-abortion-laws-to-blame-for-bush-fires/#more-2215

It seems weird that with so much coverage there are only 19 comments – are all the really negative ones edited off?

Grendel’s last blog post..Latte in the Laneways Kopi Luwak Fundraiser
58 skepticlawyer February 12, 2009 at 4:11 am: They are doing some serious comment editing; the people who run the Australian Skeptics website and magazine have all left comments, none of which have appeared.

I’ve nominated Nalliah & Co for the Australian Skeptics’ annual ‘Bent Spoon’ Award.

skepticlawyer’s last blog post..The Bent Spoon
59 su February 12, 2009 at 9:12 am: Well, that’s a nice Darwin Day present, Skeptic.
60 informally yours February 12, 2009 at 10:26 am: This man is seriously dangerously deluded so why is the term douche hound being used as insult around here? Douche hound? It indicates that the vagina and what comes from it is offensive and chasing it is bestial. My kids came home from school saying you douche bag as an insult. They were surprised to learn what it really means – the misogyny of this term is self evident i’d a thunk.
61 Beppie February 12, 2009 at 11:02 am: This man is seriously dangerously deluded so why is the term douche hound being used as insult around here?

Because douches are used to dangerously delude women into thinking that their vaginas are icky and need to be “cleaned” — therefore it is most appropriate to use “douchebag” to refer to someone who thinks he is “helping” women, but in reality is quite dangerous to them.
62 fuckpoliteness February 12, 2009 at 11:09 am: As discussed here:
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2004/10/inside-jokes-faqs-wev.html#click10
and:
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2004/10/inside-jokes-faqs-wev.html#click21

fuckpoliteness’s last blog post..More opportunistic hate mongering
63 informally yours February 12, 2009 at 11:33 am: hmmh. Thanks for that explanation Beppie i see the point. I’ll have to give this some thought over the day as I’m finding it difficult to really warm to the idea of using this concept to describe a subgroup of males and ‘male professionals’.

As a woman who has a vulval pre-cancerous ‘disorder’ i’m not sure that the blanket all douche is bad message is right either. I think we need to be promoting wise self care and self examination and i reckon that it has backfired when the kids comehome using the term as school yard insults.

But as i said needs more research on my part – am getting Mummy are you doing that puzzle or not? must go – to the relief of all.
64 informally yours February 13, 2009 at 5:55 am: Well I’ve never done it, but i’m not convinced at all that douching is especially dangerous, or for deluded self-haters. I am also sceptical it is a useful term of abuse to adopt and even more troubled that it doesn’t give a good message out re vaginal and vulval self care.

The information i looked at indicated that in certain circumstances to douche can be useful – at least is not contraindicated especially in the case of using acidopholous to treat thrush infection.

So Shakesville’s QCoFM Melissa McEwan’s use of a blanket insult of douche bag, or douche hound is not within a useful feminist ethic in my book. Still each to their own – at least as a policy it is not going to cause discomfort or kill anyone else – as in the ‘green’ policies that led to all the bush fire deaths.

Is this tendency against cleaning vaginas extended to the use of bidet. Or are bidet users full of delusion and self loathing as well?

If itch is extreme or persists see your doctor quickly.
65 tigtog February 13, 2009 at 6:06 am: But most douches are marketed as vaginal “fresheners” – as if a natural vagina needs sweetening up to be acceptable. If people see a douche kit in a pharmacy, that is the sort they are seeing.

Nobody is objecting to medical treatments that happpen to use that particular method of application.
66 tigtog February 13, 2009 at 6:10 am: @ informally yours:

as in the ‘green’ policies that led to all the bush fire deaths

Talk about a blanket claim – ~~and one that is completely off topic for this thread~~ – but I’d be very interested to see what proof you have that ‘green’ policies did any such thing ~~over on one of the bushfire threads~~.
67 informally yours February 13, 2009 at 6:22 am: I didn’t mean to offend with the comment about green policy. I only saw FP’s post ‘More opportunistic hate-mongering’ (not a title that says to me read me now unlike many interesting posts here) after posting my last comment.

I think it is quite wrong to equate Devine and Nalliah. Devine is looking at the material circumstances and making a call – you say this is because she is on the other side, but it is not at all like Nalliah in saying the invisible hand did it which is the equivalent of saying the fairies did it as pay back. So, one is saying something based upon the actual facts as they know them, and the other is based in fiction which am i going to give more weight to?

If this fundamental difference between the two positions can’t be clearly discerned there is no hope for ensuring this can’t happen again. Which i certainly hope is not the case.
68 tigtog February 13, 2009 at 6:44 am: Sorry, this comment has been edited because I got confused over things, and this is indeed a bushfire thread. Too early in the morning.

Apologies.
69 informally yours February 13, 2009 at 6:49 am: Tigtog fair comment re keeping on topic but clearly this is a fire thread – even though my line of questioning re the acceptance of a term is somewhat off topic – you say ‘Nobody is objecting to medical treatments that happpen to use that particular method of application.’
I don’t buy that and think you can’t have your cake and eat it as well. Re accepting the term douche bag as a useful insult or adjective that is ok to use here (as opposed to lame or mental etc) it is quite clear and unequivocal that douchebag/douche hound represents dangerously delusional and is used in my kids school yard as being the worst insult. So it is not something i’ll be emulating.

Just because marketers describe something in a certain manner doesn’t mean that women who use them are using them to ‘freshen up’ or make themselves more acceptable for others, it would generally mean that a rational person is uncomfortable and is seeking relief from that discomfort. Personally, i think every ‘feminine hygiene’ product ought to have the warning that persistent itch/discomfort can indicate certain serious pre-cancerous conditions such as lichen sclerosis etc. and so strongly worded recommendations to see your Dr if this product doesn’t clear it quickly are required.
70 tigtog February 13, 2009 at 6:54 am: (not a title that says to me read me now unlike many interesting posts here)

This is a gratuitous slam. I’ll ask you to take a break from posting here for an hour or two, please.
71 Helen February 13, 2009 at 7:09 am: Featured on the front page of the Herald Sun yesterday, almost life size, was a beautiful picture of little Alexis Davey, who was only eight months old.

Forced-birthers make SUCH a thing out of foetuses being “babies”, but this particular FB is fine with a beautiful born baby like Alexis dying a horrible death in retribution for something, somewhere, someone is supposed to have done to offend “his” God. It really drives home the fact they don’t care about the living. Not at all. Not even babies.

I will never understand these people.
72 fuckpoliteness February 13, 2009 at 8:48 am: at least as a policy it is not going to cause discomfort or kill anyone else – as in the ‘green’ policies that led to all the bush fire deaths.
Are you:
- Victorian from the region where the fires happened?
- some kind of bush care expert?
- a firefighter?
- someone with scientific knowledge about bushfires in Victoria?
- stocked with all the information about what happened in these fires?
If not, don’t attribute two hundred deaths to one set of people and their policy, or yes I will say you’re as callous as Nalliah. Not quite as religious, but as callous.
It is the same week of the fires, the bodies are not yet uncovered. There will be inquiries into what happened, the experts don’t need opinion piece writers or the general public with no earthly clue telling them *who killed all those people* or who ought to *hang from lamp posts* – particularly when those opinions excuse arsonists as being not responsible.
In future I’ll ask that you respond to my posts *at my blog* and not here.
73 informally yours February 13, 2009 at 8:04 pm: Excusing arsonists? Come off it. If i had not been asked to stop writing for an hour or so i would have made the point about it being premature for apportioning responsibility. As obviously the blame will be at the feet of the arsonists and i sure hope they catch those responsible for this murderous assault.

I am no expert about fire but I grew up in the country and know what to do to be fire ready. (I also happen to feel confident about knowing how to fight fire at least in theory by virtue of partnership with a trained firey who is mouthy as well)

My youth was often spent doing kid job fire protection, and Summer’s ambling the Mylor hills and gully’s, and it doesn’t get any more fire prone than that. It is extremely sad what has happened in Victoria and there are a couple of descriptions of the devastation i heard on the first day of the mass media coverage that have stuck in mind and i start to cry so callous? Have just been re-reading the FPat70 and note the request not to talk here. Right then – note to self – talk to FP at FP’s place!
74 tigtog February 14, 2009 at 12:07 am: @ informally yours:

the blame will be at the feet of the arsonists and i sure hope they catch those responsible for this murderous assault

I doubt that the legal requirements for murder are present i.e. motive and intent. It’s at the very least negligence and probably easily substantiated as culpable homicide via arson, but murder is unlikely to stick.
75 fuckpoliteness February 14, 2009 at 9:56 am: Informally Yours, if you had cared to read WHY I was calling Devine an arsehole along with Danny Nalliah, you would have read for yourself that she *does in fact* blame greenies and explicitly says that arsonists are not to blame. She then goes on to say greenies and not arsonists should be hanging from lamp posts. So, that’s that part of your indignation taken care of.

You say now you would say it’s too early to apportion guilt (which is another factor in me calling Devine an arsehole – she’s written on this shit before, and she leapt on the opportunity to appotion blame and guilt at the feet of the greenies) but you just announced that they were to blame, nay in fact that their policies had KILLED ‘all those people’, right up there in this very thread at 62. So if you don’t want me to respond to what you say (as I’m not psychic so can’t know what you think when you say something else) perhaps think first, type later.

Are you in fact someone who blogs at Strangetimes/the last superhero? I keep trying to click through on your link, but it just leads to a space that tells me the domain is for sale, but this blog seems to be connected to Strangetimes which is where your link says you’re from.

Anyway they’ve had a post up for a few days blaming greenies and I haven’t seen you tell them it’s too soon unless you’re the person who posted the link to the Syd Walker article, or you are Young Marxist who only commented late yesterday. If so, it’d be great if you could fix your link.

Anyway, so both you and Devine *have* asserted that green policy killed all those people in Victoria, the counterargument by someone who has done some research and is discussing the substantive points raised by Devine/Last Superhero (and not just calling people arseholes for apportioning guilt when they’ve got no qualifications and before all the bodies are discovered, which is a position I stand by):

http://www.kieranbennett.com/2009/02/debunking-miranda-devine/

http://sydwalker.info/blog/2009/02/12/when-bushfires-rage-it%E2%80%99s-not-easy-being-green/

Hey, turns out that backburning was prevented NOT BY GREENIES but by massive underfunding. What DO you know?

Reread 70 (no, slowly now) – it’s a request for you to respond to my posts over at my place, not an order not to engage with me here. Which is what you did at 65
76 A Lavey February 14, 2009 at 6:54 pm: Th bsh frs r prdct f cnvct bld, gd s pnshng thm fr mbrd sdm btwnn brthr, sstr nd nml. Th ll lv th ttntn, th r s swft t bcm crtcs nd vglnts t hd thr wn trrbl scrts. dts, dd nyn hv th brns t thnk f wrnng systm whn th chs t lv n th bsh ? N. bnch f rch ppl wth thr hd n th clds. ll ths mn prng n th d nt dsrv. Ppl n th ct nd sbrbs tht gt brnt t gt n spcl trtmnt r dntns. Ths ppl n th bsh wld ll hv nsrnc lk vryn ls, wht wst f mn. Mst wll gt bttr hms thn th hd n th frst plc.

[If you'd like to read this with vowels, stay tuned for next week's Troll-Off post. ~L]
77 informally yours February 15, 2009 at 4:16 pm: When I saw this thread there was nothing up at ST and just as the Hoydens are not a hive-mind, neither are those blogging at ST. But the ST people are mostly Victorian based and so it is only natural that they are going to say something. Shooting the messenger with ad hominem attack, Ohh ahh a Lastsuperhero, is useless. What is clear is that there is much controversy in Victoria over the correct measures to ensure fire safety. People are being fined for tree removal. Germaine Greer is saying there isn’t enough fuel load reduction occurring and I agree as I can see this is an issue here as well. There is obviously something going on.

Having taken a University based philosophy topic of environmental ethics I’m under no illusions that green philosophy offers any coherent practical political strategies for re-ordering the world. Look hard enough and you find there are fundamental contradictions about competing interests, programs, priorities etc. Calls now to rebuild with green principles in mind are a waste of breath. Are people for reducing fuel loads or not? Clearing trees near houses or not?

I’m still interested in discouraging the use of douchebag as feminist abuse; and still interested in feminist ethics and civilly discussing medical issues, breasts, vulva’s and vagina’s etc as opposed to defending or attacking the green political agenda and its consequences.
78 Lauredhel February 15, 2009 at 4:28 pm: Having taken a University based philosophy topic of environmental ethics [...]

Can I nominate this for some sort of award? Or maybe just a Bingo square?
79 fuckpoliteness February 15, 2009 at 4:37 pm: as opposed to defending or attacking the green political agenda and its consequences

and yet, there is your comment at 62. Curious.

fuckpoliteness’s last blog post..Ok, you can now comment without a WordPress Login
80 fuckpoliteness February 15, 2009 at 4:50 pm: IY, does it strike you as ironic after your straw person attack on my position regarding Devine (or you not reading the post properly) to accuse my questioning you about which site you’re from/if you posted that/why you hadn’t said there it was too early (esp in the context of hey – you actually having *said* green policy had killed ‘all those people’ at 62) of being an ad hominem?
That just tickled my funny bone a little. I developed that funny bone in Critical Thinking at Uni by the way. I did a great many topics at uni. None of which qualify me to make blanket statements such as ‘greens policy killed all those people’. Just sayin.
81 Helen February 15, 2009 at 5:31 pm: Troll-off? Is that like Troll.B.Gone?

IY, your notion of the green-policies-caused-deaths is simplistic in the extreme, as you would know if you had already read anything besides breathless press releases from people connected with the timber industry. The Greens and the Wilderness society, to name two of the best known green groups. both support fuel reduction burning – but it’s not the universal panacea it’s been made out to be.

Marysville was full of soft-leaved exotics. The gippsland fires started in a bare paddock. The temperature was in the high forties with gale force winds. These are just a few of the facts you are ignoring.
82 P.P. February 15, 2009 at 5:47 pm: I’d just like to point out that a Green perspective goes way beyond environmental issues, and is recognised in social work as an approach to community development. It’s not really just about trees anymore, if it ever was.

About the term douchebag and the reasons it is acceptable as feminist abuse; it represents a symbol of miso-tropes about women/woman bits being dirty and disgusting and in need of much washing and deoderising.
It doesn’t mean that there is never ever a non-sexist practical reason to use one. The insult is just about symbolism.
I know this was clarified earlier but I’m adding to that for the benefit of IY.