rationalskepticism.org

Ihavenofingerprints wrote:

mrjonno wrote:Havent quite got the political activity of christians in Australia compared to the UK,US, Canada etc.

It looks obviously far weaker than in the US but it still seems a lot more powerful a lobby than in the UK. Do politicans ever get asked about their religious views in Australia?. It generally would be considered to even ask here

It's kind of an irrelevant point for most people (i think). Politicians do get asked, but generally only when the issue being discussed is a religious one. Julia Gillard isn't religious but gets a lot of the Christian vote because she panders to them all the time. So party polices probably have more of an impact than an individual candidates religious views.

Religious organisations don't have a huge impact on the government (as a whole), but they have an extremely over inflated say in some issues and are the main opposition to many pieces of legislation that keep getting shut down such as:

- Stem Cell Research (in WA anyway)
- Euthanasia
- Gay Marriage
- And any opposition to the government funding school chaplaincy programs or religious instruction classes is generally shot down because religious organisations are in bed with the government.

They are consulted for lots of social issues for no good reason really. But we don't have it nearly as bad as the US, where these groups are trying to get creationism taught in science classes.