In his maiden speech last month, Australia's new foreign minister Bob Carr articulated his vision for people of different cultures living together. Rather than multiculturalism, he spoke of the 'overlap of cultures', a phrase first used by King Abdullah of Jordan at a Davos conference in 2004.
'That notion of an overlap of cultures, I think, is inspiring, especially compared to the alternative notion of monochrome monoliths destroying one another's statuary, smashing one another's grave sites and burning one another's books.'
He went on to invite the Senate to 'dwell' on some of the 'marvellous cultures of tolerance' in the world's history. His primary example was medieval Andalusia in southern Spain, where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together and the Muslim ruler appointed a Jewish scholar as his foreign minister.
Last week Bishop Pat Power referred to Carr's historical examples of tolerance in an opinion article in the Canberra Times. The article was based on a paper Bishop Power gave at an International Conference on Jerusalem, convened by the United Arab League and held in Doha at the end of February.
His context was the perceived need for federal parliamentarians to understand the injustices being suffered by the Palestinian people at the hands of Israel. He writes: 'I tire of seeing our parliamentarians of all political persuasions unquestioningly supporting Israel's usurping of fundamental Palestinian rights.'
The overlap of cultures Carr refers to shows itself in a lack of tolerance for particular practices linked to religious belief such as the wearing of the burqa. Another current and pressing example is the push to change the legal definition of marriage to a form that is incompatible with the teaching of certain religious authorities.
Victoria's six Catholic bishops have just issued a pastoral letter insisting that parliamentarians respect the Catholic doctrine that 'the natural institution of marriage [is] a union between a man and a woman'.
The bishops should be entitled to expect that the Australian Government will not legislate to 'smash' the sacrament and religious institution of marriage. In the past, civil authorities have generally respected other elements of Catholic faith such as the seal of the confessional, even though it encroaches upon transparency and other values normally regarded as non-negotiable in a secular democratic society.
Of course it goes without saying that Christians in a secular society cannot expect non-believers to live according to the teachings of their Christian religious faith. This is despite the fact that many of our laws are based historically on values that derive from Judaeo-Christian religious teaching, and radical changes to particular laws that jettison universal principles based on nature could diminish and even derail the value system as a whole.
But tolerance of other cultures and faiths must be reciprocal, and the bishops know this. The tone of the Victorian Bishops' pastoral letter suggests they will studiously avoid hostile interaction with gay marriage advocates and politicians with whom they disagree. They will have learned a lesson from the UK experience, where the Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien was roundly criticised for his intolerant labelling of same-sex marriage as 'madness'. By contrast his London counterpart Archbishop Vincent Nichols was temperate and respectful in his warning that it would be a 'profoundly radical step'.
We should take heart that Bob Carr's overarching vision of 'marvellous cultures of tolerance' is close to reality in Australia, even if it is threatened by the passion associated with debate over issues such as gay marriage. Implicitly he's encouraging us to celebrate the overlap of cultures in our society and not let our differences defeat us.
Harmoniously working through such issues will provide us with a template to help all Australians, particularly our parliamentarians, toward a constructive rather than ham-fisted role in promoting peace in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Michael Mullins is editor of Eureka Street.