ABC article alleges caucus concern over Fatima Payma being "guided by god". Smells of a character assassination to me.
ABC article alleges caucus concern over Fatima Payma being "guided by god". Smells of a character assassination to me.
The West Australian senator has told colleagues she is seeking religious guidance on her next move but is expected to make a decision on quitting her party today.
This is fucked reporting right? The quote they use as evidence is her saying something is "in God's hands". Elsewhere articles are run using quotes of her praying to god.
This is like, extremely normal lexicon for even casually religious people right? I'm an atheist with a pretty negative view of religion and to me this looks like pearl clutching.
Lots of extremely normal people say "I am praying for guidance" when they're reflecting on something. That in isolation doesn't mean they expect a hedge to catch fire and tell them what to do...
If our standard is pollies never mention religion then we might want to do some stuff about the Lord's prayer, the oaths, and the magical mace of the Royal cult.
I don't give a fuck what she says she's guided by. Whatever word she uses for it is really just a placeholder for "morals". And in this case she's the only Labor MP or Senator with any of those.
Ain't that the truth.
Alright, gonna take some heat for this but I want to say it: I don't want anyone at any level of government making decisions based around god. Dont care what god, dont care what decision. And yes, I ABSOLUTELY have this criticism of scomo!
I think she was morally right, I support her. But if she did it cause its what her god wants her to do I'd argue that's doing it for the wrong reasons.
Your morals and ethics can be inspired by your faith, but faith should not be the backbone of your morals and ethics.
Just imagine if one of these 'guided by God' people ever managed to attain the Prime Ministership. Then we'd be in real trouble.
last one we had held half the cabinet positions.
Look, I'd call it fair if the Christian side had the same level applied to it.
I want no religion in my politics thanks. Full stop. Even handed.
Depending on what you mean that might be naïve. As it stands something like half of us are religious and many people who are religious would say it significantly shapes their views on things.
It's not even clear where the boundaries between religious and nonreligious views are sometimes.
I think it's reasonable to ask for a politics that's reasonable, earnest, compassionate, and understanding. I think it's also true that fundamentalism can be awful and used to make frothing bigotry seem more reasonable than it is.
But idk, if someone says "a fundamental creed of some system I believe in is non violence and helping the weak, and I meditated on that in my appropriate cultural building last night, so I will be voting against the 'kill the target minority' bill proposed" is that such a bad or unreasonable thing?
I think there's some nuance, and it doesn't seem that much more silly than standing before an ocean storm, feeling the sublime, and that moment triggering a reduction in ego or whatever.
I have no issue with the ABC reporting. They've reported this fairly straight. I do have issues that we are spending a lot of time talking about a senator that none of us had heard of a week ago. I have issues that the author of this piece is on the other side of the country to the senator in question. I wouldn't be surprised to learn she hasn't even met the senator. That said, I respect that she gave the senator more airtime than she gave the supposed concerns of caucus:
Senator Payman said the suggestion she was "being guided by god" in her decision-making and would campaign on other "Islamic propositions" was an insult.
"I don't know how to respond to that question without feeling offended or insulted [at the suggestion] that just because I am a visibly Muslim woman I only care about Muslim issues," she said.
Fair enough. Both Senator Payman's response and the reporting of it. Sounds like the drama is coming from those 'faceless men' we all love so much.
It's a higher standard than tabloid rags but I feel like they're doing this a massive disservice by repeating it at all, especially without adding context such as the number of times various senators have mentioned religion, the mandatory religion in Parliament, and consequently that this is obviously an islamophobic smear campaign.
Their own stats say that very few people read more than the first paragraph (I can't find them but they had this whole campaign on it using their metrics). It's obviously inflammatory and most readers won't remember the nuance, they'll remember vague concerns of scary Muslim god stuff and not supporting Israel.
One MP told the ABC they were alarmed that the senator was distancing herself from the decision and assigning it to a higher order.
I get where this post is coming from and it’s a pretty average article out of ABC. That said, if you cross the floor for something, something that hasn’t been done in labour for a long time (apparently). I would hope you have a more well thought out and coherent answer than “it’s outta my hands”. It seems to me this is the issue the article is raising. Not the fact that she’s religious or cited it in her politics, though personally I think the latter should be avoided.
That's not the context she appears to have said it in. The quote appears to be in the context of whether she would support a bill requiring a two state solution as conditional for recognition. That is relayed by a third party and a reasonable assumption is the context being "It's not up to me if this bill passes or not, I don't know if I'd support it at the moment. Let's see what happens".
Remember, you are hearing a fragment of something said by an unnamed source who has the incentive to portray her as bad, and is likely trying to cover for labor continuing to absolutely nothing for Palistine while tacitly supporting crackdowns on protest.
I see how I misunderstood the context but it change the overall point slightly. It’s an odd response for a politician and evasive given she felt strongly enough to cross the floor. Given she’s a member of parliament and votes on issues raised in parliament, it’s not out of her hands, evidently. The article goes on to assert she had likely planned her vote and hadn’t raised the issue with the PM. Your last paragraph I largely agree with either way, ‘labour sources’ pffft. Other labour MPs will say whatever shit about her because she stepped out of line with the party.
I just read she quit the party which is unfortunate and even worse looking for labour.
Yeah, I saw this article too and thought it was ridiculous.