The conservative Church and State conference will come to Western Australia this weekend, with the focus on ‘Protecting the Innocence of Children”.
The conference which is taking place at an unnamed city hotel features a number of local Western Australian MPs and conservative speakers addressing a range of topics.
Nick Goiran, the Liberal’s Shadow Minister for Child Safety is one of the keynote speakers, as is the Australian Christian’s first WA MP Maryika Groenewald MLC. Groenewald’s session it titled Hope: Standing in the Gap.
Also on the bill is activist James Parker, who has campaigned against marriage equality, the safe schools program and transgender rights. Parker will be voicing his opposition to Comprehensive Sex Education.
Parker is the founder of True Identity, an organisation that clams to help people with unwanted same-sex sexual attraction. He is a campaigner against the proposed laws that will ban conversion therapy practices in Western Australia.
James Parker describes himself as a ‘former gay activist’ who was able to live a heterosexual life after he embraced religion. In 2017 he claimed that gay sex was a pathway to an early early death during an interview with a Perth radio station.
Also speaking out about sex education in schools will be Rachael Read, with a presentation on the it’s “dark historical roots”. Read opted to home school her children after being concerned about them being exposed to sexual education which she believed was at too young an age in the South Australian school system.
Audrey Werner is speaking on “The Predatory Lies of Sex Ed”. Werner is visiting from Texas where she is the Dean of Life Issues at Master’s International University of Divinity.
Tess Hackett, who has been credited with successfully lobbying the WA Liberal Party to take up a position against allowing transgender youth to access puberty blockers, is speaking alongside Erin Lee on the topic “Trans’d at School”.
The other speakers at the event will include social commentator Dave Pellowe, Angela Rojas – would will speak on library books that parent’s should be concerned about, Pastor Paul Bedwell and legal expert John Steenhof.
Just Equal Australia say the emergence of a push against sex education and conversion therapy is because the government has allowed a “discussion vacuum”.
WA Spokesperson for Just-Equal Australia, Brian Greig, said the disinformation being spread by such groups was a result of “discussion vacuum.”
He is critical of the State Government’s “reticence” to publicly engage on LGBTI issues.
“The Cook Government refused to answer direct questions about LGBTI teachers and students in faith schools before the election, as well as conversion practices and hate-speech, and it took a small-target approach to the anti-LGBTI furore that religious conservatives manufactured in Albany late last year, preferring instead to duck for cover.
“Even now, new Attorney General, Tony Buti, continues to use euphemism when referring to removing religious exemptions to end the sacking and expulsion of LGBTI teachers and students, by describing this only as “modernising the Equal Opportunity Act.”
Greig said both the Premier and Attorney General need to be totally upfront about what reforms are in the pipeline, why they are needed, and to robustly defend them.
“Failing to talk openly about these reforms only ferments suspicion and allows the fear-mongers in the community to misinform and alarm people for their own purposes.
“I call on the Attorney General to speak directly to these issues and to stop being coy about them. This legislation is long overdue and will be controversial, yet is clearly needed and has the support of a majority of voters,” Greig said.
