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Undermining Australia's secular national anthem

By Max Wallace - posted Tuesday, 23 September 2014


If it is acceptable for Christians to alter the Australian National Anthem in religious ceremonies, surely it follows that it would be acceptable for other religions to do likewise. Australian Muslims and Australian Jews, and others, could compose their own verses. And what about atheists and indigenous Australians? They could have a version too?

Surely the whole point of having a secular National Anthem is that it is inclusive of all doctrines. It is something to unite citizens, not divide them.

The ongoing Christian undermining of Australia’s National Anthem, creating two Australias, one for public consumption on occasions when Christian versions would be seen to be politically inappropriate, and other, mostly private versions, to keep those in the know privately confirming in their own minds, and the minds of children they are attempting to indoctrinate, that, as Dr Sharwood and Senator Watson implied in 1988 and in 1997, Australia is a ‘Christian nation’.

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It seems constitutional correctness is not an issue for public officials, and others, who use their authority to quietly undermine Australia’s nascent republicanism, which found some expression in the 1984 adoption of a secular National Anthem. And when you ask hard questions about these matters they use their legal defences to deny information.

Another brick in the wall to fend off Australian republicanism and maintain the image of government, and the nation, as ‘Christian’?

Who in the parliament will present a bill making it an offence to sing alternative verses to the National Anthem? Protocol is obviously not enough.

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About the Author

Max Wallace is vice-president of the Rationalists Assn of NSW and a council member of the New Zealand Assn of Rationalists and Humanists.

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