Just when you thought the Liberal Party couldn't be any more unelectable . . .

The Opus Dei wing of the party has won a seat in Federal Parliament.

The new member for Mitchell

The electorate of Mitchell lies smack-bang in the middle of Jesusland (a.k.a. the Hills district of north-western Sydney) and is thus safe Liberal territory*. In 2006, Alex Hawke--who believes moderate Liberals should instead join the Greens--branch-stacked and bully-boyed his way into the Liberal candidacy. In what might someday come to be known as the "Hawke-Clarke hijack," Hawke and David "The Teacher" Clarke have extended the influence of the uber-Christian Right over the Liberal Party in NSW and the Young Liberals nationally.

And I say more power to them. The more lunar and extremist the Liberals appear, the further they will fade into the electoral wilderness where they belong.

(P.S. Super Simmo has returned to the blogosphere!)

(*Admittedly, there was a 9.6% swing to the ALP in Mitchell.)


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The Wonderful World of Magical Thinking XX

The week in fundie:

1. The Hawke-Clarke hijack. Alex Hawke, former leader of the Young Liberals (and, thanks to him, now dominated by its bovver-boy wing) and acolyte of ultraconservative NSW Liberal State MP David Clarke, has never made secret his long-term goal of shifting the Liberal Party to the Christian right; as far as he's concerned, party members who don't share his extremist ideology "can choose the Greens, Labor or the Democrats." Now Hawke, who opposes abortion and wants the age of consent raised for homosexuals--he considers it "a child protection issue to stop gay men preying on the young"--could well have achieved a major milestone on his agenda by securing preselection in Mitchell, one of the safest seats in the country, amid accusations by moderate Liberals of branch-stacking. (For more on what may one day come to be known as the Hawke-Clarke hijack of the Liberal Party, see this Monthly article and this Four Corners transcript.) (SMH)
   
2. Speaking of faith-based haters, Iran's government has condemned the awarding of a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie, a citizen of the UK which is not AFAIK an Islamic theocracy. According to a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, since Rushdie is an "apostate" and "one of the most hated figures in Islamic society," the knighthood constitutes an attack on Islam. What a maroon! (ABC News Online)
   
3. In Jerusalem, an Orthodox Jewish court has placed a curse on participants in Jerusalem's gay pride parade. (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
4. In Australia, the fundies branch stack; in the US, they state-stack. (Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
5. The Pentagon has admitted it once tried to build a "Gay Bomb." You know, a bomb that would infect the enemy with TEH GAY and make them want to stop fighting and start having teh gay anal sex. Yes, I'm serious. (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
6. Seventh Day Adventist splitters World's Last Chance believe they have identified the "First Beast of Revelation" (and I could almost believe it after the Mitchell preselection ;)):
   
   
   

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