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Keywords: David Marr

  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia lags as Shorten leads on same sex marriage

    • John Warhurst
    • 01 June 2015
    71 Comments

    Whatever one's position on the introduction of same sex marriage, it's clear that Australia now lags well behind the Western world, including many comparable countries such as the UK and New Zealand. This contrasts with 120 years ago around the time of Federation, when Australia was a leader on issues such as votes for women, other democratic reforms such as the secret ballot, and a living wage. Our country is now a laggard.

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  • The spirit of Redfern's Ted Kennedy a decade on

    • Frank Brennan
    • 25 May 2015
    7 Comments

    There are many things different from Ted's day, but he would have spoken of them without fear or compromise. A pope from the South who asks 'Who am I to judge?'; a 62 per cent Irish people's vote in favour of expanding the definition of civil marriage;  the long awaited beatification of Oscar Romero whose identification with the poor did not win immediate Vatican approval; the call by civic leaders for an Australian cardinal to return home and answer questions posed by a royal commission; and the election of a black US president.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Helen Garner's 'Best Essays' triumph

    • Barry Gittins and Jen Vuk
    • 13 February 2015

    The Best Australian Essays 2014 finely illustrates the unnervingly unclear line between essay and short story, but no-one plays with form quite like the indomitable Helen Garner. She offers such a brooding, aching ode to her mother. Proof again that good writing is an inexorable, spiritual exercise that seers itself into the reader's memory. How does she do it?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Another year bites the parliamentary dirt

    • Frank Brennan
    • 09 December 2014
    27 Comments

    What a dreadful year it has been for parliamentary democracy. Speaker Bronwyn Bishop has taken pride in the number of members she has ejected. Senator David Leyonhjelm has introduced his same sex marriage bill in an orderly fashion, but the decision will rest with the Abbott Government, which won't want to to hand the bouquet for breaking the logjam to Leyonhjelm. To get arrangements for the bearing and nurturing of children right, we need our parliament to be a more considered and dignified place than a battlefield.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Same-sex marriage on trial

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 16 October 2014
    3 Comments

    Mothers-of-four Kris and Sandra had wed before a contingent of family and friends, only to be later advised by post that their marriage was void. Paul and Jeffrey refused to embrace an alternative form of legal recognition of their relationship that would render them as 'second-class citizens'. Their conservative lawyer Ted Olson argues that marriage is a fundamentally conservative institution that would only be strengthened by extending it to same-sex couples.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Abbott-whacking Greens senator's emotional politics

    • Benedict Coleridge
    • 07 March 2014
    7 Comments

    Greens Senator Scott Ludlam this week excoriated Tony Abbott, homing in on Abbott's politics of fear. Whatever you think of the speech, its implication was that politics includes a struggle over the cultivation, control and directing of public emotions. While our instinct is to think of our politics in terms of discussion and consensus, the public sphere also includes forms of expression beyond speech, such as ritual, recognition and mourning.

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  • RELIGION

    This time in the Church

    • Frank Brennan
    • 12 November 2013
    5 Comments

    'Having thrown off the shackles of compulsion endured by pre-Vatican II Catholics, we relish that we come to the table not because we are forced, not because of social expectations, not because of the mindset of the mob, but because we are graciously called and freely responding.' Frank Brennan's Camino Address, Parish of Our Lady of the Way North Sydney, 12 November 2013

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  • MEDIA

    Marring the Cardinal's image

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 26 September 2013
    64 Comments

    The limitations of Marr's account are the obverse of its virtues. It sifts Pell's motives and words but not those of his critics, and simplifies complexities. The details are designed to imply character. Churches are empty or full depending on the needs of the plot; Pell does not speak but booms. If a cock crows in a distant farmyard it crows for the Cardinal alone. This makes for engaging reading, but demands careful judgment.

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  • RELIGION

    Clobbering religious gay prejudice

    • Michael Kirby
    • 22 May 2013
    32 Comments

    The 2011 book Five Uneasy Pieces offered an alternative reading of the so-called 'clobber passages' that are at the core of religious unease about homosexuality. A follow-up volume pushes the envelope further by examining the biblical recognition of the variety of human love beyond traditional marriage.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Abbott's animal charms

    • Barry Gittins and Jen Vuk
    • 03 May 2013
    5 Comments

    Casting a Victorious PM Abbott as a puppet of Pell and Howard, or a fiddler with women's rights, seems risible; Abbott is bound by social restraints after all. Nonetheless, there is something ominous in David Marr's droll observation: 'His values have never stood in his way.'

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  • RELIGION

    How can the Catholic Church contribute to a better culture for life?

    • Frank Brennan
    • 18 March 2013
    3 Comments

    Change is upon the Church. Just recall the scene when the new pope emerged on the Vatican balcony. He appeared with none of the papal trimmings of office, and did not once did he refer to the papacy. Could something of this new papal style help Catholics engage more creatively with their fellow citizens? Text from Frank Brennan's lecture 'How Can the Catholic Church Contribute to a Better Culture for Life?'

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Clarifying the anti-discrimination muddle

    • Frank Brennan
    • 19 February 2013
    34 Comments

    There has been some very confused debate about the Government's proposed consolidation of anti-discrimination laws. David Marr claimed leaders of 'conservative faiths' were free to 'kick poofters, lesbians, single mothers, people in de facto relationships'. He needs to take a cold shower while we clarify these issues. 

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