Let him without the ball cast the stone

Sabina Nowak, a member of the Australian Bisexual Network and Bi Pride Australia, said: "I believe the church needs to move away from personal morality questions that it cannot control and focus on those in which it can, such as the abuse within its own ranks."

While we would all agree that abuse within church systems is intolerable, Nowak's comments bring this present issue into perfect focus.

Personal morality is the basis of everything that happens. We cannot separate it from anyone's actions, be they priests or not.

The fact that abuse happens within our culture compels us as a society, including the church, to engage with the issue of personal morality.

All actions are the results of individuals' world views. Leaving aside mental illness or neurological influences, which can be modified by medical intervention, our behaviour is governed by our personal morality.

Therefore, to truly engage with a behavioural issue, we must discuss the system of belief or the personal values that influence the decisions we make. When we do this, however, we get into the messy area of right and wrong and whose opinion carries more weight when two opinions conflict.

Without some kind of external determinant of what acceptable morality is, we have no way for dissenting voices to reach a consensus.

We don't like to take the debate about personal morality to the public arena, because it's "private".

Our choices are our own business and society shouldn't censor us. Politicians regularly bring out this argument when they want to loosen legislation that pertains to "moral" issues.

Prostitution often is justified by the fact that it is a private act between two adults, and society shouldn't get involved because it does no harm to others.

But what if a married man contracts a sexually transmitted disease from a visit to a brothel and then passes it to his wife? Just how private is our private behaviour?

Let's face it, what civic leader wants to start the debate about personal morality? It's incredibly unfashionable, highly inflammatory and guaranteed to offend.