Tales of the Talking Tiger

Dominic Knight has a blog on the upcoming New South Wales election, and the subject of his most recent post is the Christian Member of Parliament, Rev. Fred Nile. Fred Nile is a Uniting Church minister who has been in NSW Parliament since 1981.

The underlying theme of the post is that Knight considers Nile as “someone who…seeks to impose conservative Christian values on everyone in NSW, irrespective of their religion…”. In fact, this is the (very strong) feeling of at least 90% of the 141 respondents to this post.

The vehement opposition to Nile is curious for two reasons:

1. Since 1981, Nile has been democratically elected. His presence in parliament is legitimate – he has been elected by a majority of people in his electorate. People may not like the fact that Nile got elected, but this is democracy (and subsequently freedom of speech and opinion) in action.

2. Nile is accused of imposing his values on other people, as if he is the only politician with values. Yet we all have values. Nile’s are informed by his Christian faith, others by their own framework or experiences. Every politician is going to bring to the table their own values, and those of the people they represent.

It seems that free speech is good, and democratic representation is good, as long as it is not by a Christian.