The Rise of Organised Intolerance

Hold the back page! The detailed scoop on the QSociety’s links can be read in New Matilda.
The full version, edited down because of space limitations, includes a discussion of the ‘quite interesting views’ of Bill Muehlenberg of the Australian Family Association and Senator Cory Bernardi (html file, with links).
I don’t know if you can call it a conspiracy, but..be on the alert for this stuff. It reminds me of the propaganda put out by the League of Rights many years ago, ‘reason’ cloaking intolerance that is easy to find, once you scratch the surface. They say they are not racist, just against Muslim extremism, but it all collapses into stereotyping that translates as hatred of the strange and different other. All too familiar.
The academic Paul Gardner spoke of the League of Rights, an ancestor of many right-wing organisations in Australia as using “self-serving definitions, idealistic appeals, obfuscation, innuendo, illogic, blaming (or accusing) the victim, distortion and group libel”, and QSociety like other groups (including the Christian Democratic Party), seems to be using quite the same tactic. [see the excellent survey of the history of the right in Australia by Andrew Moore, from where Gardner’s quote is taken. The League too, had some strong links to conservative churchmen and theology]

qsocietyfull.htm