Equality is set in stone
THE State Labor Government has made North Queensland’s case for a baseload power station.
By announcing on Saturday that it is taking Stanwell’s Swanbank gas- fired power station out of mothballs, the Palaszczuk Government has essentially admitted that more power generation will help drive down soaring electricity bills.
The move is designed to put “downward pressure” on electricity pricing and help shore up generation following “failures” in the national energy market.
Reopening a fossil fuel- burning power generator in the southeast will do nothing to cut the ridiculously high prices we pay for electricity in the North.
But as businesses lay off staff and go to the wall, crushed under spiralling overheads they have no control of, the development should give hope that, should the push for more power generation in the North succeed, there is a chance bills will come down. As LNP Leader Tim Nicholls told the
yesterday, North Queensland is being held to ransom by the southeast because our closest generator is 800km away in Gladstone.
That means heavy industry, homes, hospitals and shops are all reliant on a piece of wire stretching from here to central Queensland.
High prices are contributed to by the fact much of that power is lost in transmission traversing a vast area of Queensland to reach us.
A new high- energy, low emission coalfired power plant built in North Queensland, with access to the vast coal reserves of central Queensland and next to no transmission costs, will drive down energy costs and establish the region as the economic powerhouse it is tipped to become as Northern Australia develops.
Our State Government – which is dead set against coal- fired power generation – must acknowledge that the goalposts have moved and reconsider its flat refusal to entertain the idea.
Our region’s future is at stake. THE Bulletin has printed a number of recent comments on marriage equality, including the beliefs of self- proclaimed true Christians, who have now stooped to an alltime low of not only ostracising homosexuals, but their fellow Christians as well.
Such a viewpoint suggests that having faith in God doesn’t quite make you a Christian, unless that faith is accompanied by an unwavering compliance to the Bible’s laws and teachings.
Most traditions of Christianity hold the Ten Commandments as having divine authority, and despite different interpretations among Christianity, Judaism and Islam, they have been considered a summary of God’s law and a standard of behaviour central to Christian life, piety, and worship.
It therefore becomes inevitable that strict adherence to the Ten Commandments is the only way to be free from sin and to be considered as a true Christian, Jew or Muslim. Although I am extremely confident that such a being would be extremely rare. So it must beg the question as to who actually qualifies to pass judgment on any such apparent deviation of God’s will and expectations.
Quite simply, the Ten Commandments provided the template for society to live in peace, love and harmony, with God as the pinnacle of that moral structure.
They were written thousands of years ago, and the derived biblical laws have been open to interpretation and change ever since.
They do not advocate homosexuality, but equally they do not provide any basis for Christian homosexuals not to be married.
I appreciate there are numerous passages in the Bible which do not promote homosexuality and render it a sin. However, there are passages like Proverbs 6: 16- 19, which state; “God hates anyone who sows discord.” This, like many other passages, seem to be conveniently ignored when hostility is publicly vocalised against homosexuals and their desire to be married in the eyes of God.
The stoic support for those who denounce homosexuals and marriage equality is nothing more than self- justified homophobia, which is what I would expect from the intolerant members of our society, but not Christians.
Some mainstream religions have homosexual priests and oth- ers have ordained females, and some conduct marriage ceremonies between divorcees, as well as between mixed ethnicity. Many Christians work on the Sabbath, and many church congregations include homosexuals, so with an abundance of overlooked sin why should one more be so intolerable?
If we are brutally honest it has very little to do with God’s will or the Bible, but the very thought of “unnatural” acts performed by homosexuals.
I suppose the unnatural reproductive act of IVF treatment doesn’t count, and I suppose the fact that some heterosexuals also engage in the same sexual acts is also irrelevant. Whatever spins your moral compass, this seems to be the crux of the issue for most opponents.
I truly believe that homosexuals have the same right as everyone else to have their love recognised and endorsed by God if they so choose. I also believe that God would not have created homosexuals to become objects of hate, or to be shunned when they choose to recognise and worship him. CHRIS WHITWORTH, Idalia.