Scott Morrison says Christians will be focus of Australia's refugee intake

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian

Scott Morrison says Christians will be focus of Australia's refugee intake

Social services minister’s comments come days after Eric Abetz said Christians fleeing the conflict in Iraq and Syria should be ‘high up on the priority list’

Shalailah Medhora
Thursday 10 September 2015 02.13 EDT

A second senior government minister has reiterated that Christians will be the focus of the government’s 12,000 humanitarian intake from Syria, as the prime minister, Tony Abbott moves to reassure the community that all persecuted minorities will be considered for resettlement.

On Wednesday, Abbott announced that Australia would resettle 12,000 refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria and Iraq, on top of the existing 13,750 humanitarian intake.

The social services minister, Scott Morrison, said Christian Syrians would make up the bulk of the intake.

“Middle Eastern Christians have been run out of town in the Middle East now for many years and that is why our government right from the outset has had a much higher priority focus on those persecuted minorities in the Middle East which are predominately Christian and that is where our focus will be,” Morrison told reporters.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/10/scott-morrison-says-christians-will-be-focus-of-australias-refugee-intake

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That should be a big help if Australia needs any help with witch trials, or inquisitions, or genocides. [/center]

[nxylas]

1. The Syrian Christians are fleeing genocide, not perpetrating it

You sound like you'd have objected to taking in German Jews in the 1930s, in case they started drinking the blood of Christian babies. OK, that's not a perfect analogy, since the anti-Semitic slurs are pure fiction, whereas the comment about witch hunts and inquisitions is based on actual history, albeit a selective and distorted reading of it. But the hatred and bigotry shown towards people escaping persecution is the same.

[Judi Lynn]

3. It's the selective choosing of Christians over others who are just as desperate,

suffering just as much in every possible way which seems appalling and bigoted.

Thank you.

[nxylas]

7. I agree, but that's not what you said in your OP

I'm for welcoming refugees of all religions or none, but unless I've horribly misread your post (in which case I apologize), you seemed to be implying that the Syrian Christians should be turned away because all Christians are genocidal, inquisitorial witch hunters.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Nope, that was nowhere near my meaning. n/t

[nxylas]

9. Well, then I apologize again

But hopefully, you can see how posting a series of gruesome images followed by the comment "That should be a big help if Australia needs any help with witch trials, or inquisitions, or genocides." could be read that way.

[jwirr]

13. Agreed. What is wrong with this is that it in itself is

a form of discrimination. We will take the Christians but we do not care what happens to the rest.

I also saw a headline this morning that the US will not take any of the refugees until next year. Lot of help that!

[Demit]

4. What is the undistorted actual history of witch hunts & inquisitions?

Witch hunts & inquisitions: tragically misunderstood all these years!

[nxylas]

6. No, just expanded until they turn into the whole of Christian history

It's like saying "Don't let any Americans into Australia, they'll just start massacring the aborigines the way they massacred their own indigenous population", as if that's the only thing Americans have ever done, and as if genocide is something that all Americans do by nature.

[Demit]

10. You make too large a leap. You are the one assuming the part stands for the whole now.

That attitude is the one that implies that there can be no criticism of (something) ever.

That attitude says "You are criticizing the police! You obviously hate the police!" or ""You are criticizing our country! You obviously hate our country!" and so on.

There is justified criticism of the VERY HORRENDOUS things the Catholic Church did, and that Christian protestant sects did, and I think you know it. Criticizing those things is not heretical or traitorous or "distorted." Those things must be remembered, the way the Nazis' Holocaust must always be remembered, lest we forget.

[nxylas]

12. I was protesting the idea of guilt by association

The OP has corrected me, and I now see that she was comparing the Australian government, not the Syrian refugees, to the Spanish Inquisition et al. I guess I am getting battle fatigue from debating idiots online who are all too keen to ascribe sinister motives to refugees. And it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a supposed liberal who was into simplistic divisions of the human race into "oppressor" and "oppressed" groups might place the Syrian refugees into the former group, simply because they are Christians, whilst patting themselves on the back for their "enlightened" attitudes. I hope I'd never read such a thing on DU, but nothing would surprise me any more.

[Lordquinton]

22. There's a reason the call Abott the Mad Monk

He left the Catholic seminary because they were too liberal for him. The current government is actively pursuing programs to continue the genocide of the native culture and peoples of Australia. They are also very anti Islamic, and generally anti immigration, so combine that existng stance (dated about 5 minutes ago) and combine it with that statement (and the proportion of refugees of various religions) and you can hopefully see how off the mark your statements are.

[jwirr]

14. A lot of the distortion is a result of looking only at the

Salem witch hunts and ignoring the ones in the rest of the world.

[Judi Lynn]

23. The reason I chose that example was to place it closer to home,

and not something to be laid at the feet of "furiners" "way off, over there," and to include Protestants, as well as the Catholics involved in the Inquisition, etc.

Unbelievably sadistic, heartless monstrosities have happened right here in the Western Hemisphere, perpetrated by people who consider themselves "God-fearing" and "God-loving" "Christians" who see everyone else as "savages," "infidels" and "pagans."

"Christian" atrocities in the Western Hemisphere don't get covered well in our school history classes.

[jwirr]

25. In that I agree. I was just making sure that people

realized that witch hunts meant more than Salem. Our history books do not exactly make that clear.

[Judi Lynn]

26. It's a subject that could cause nightmares, isn't it? Shocking cruelty in Europe, horrendous.

The power of "religious" organizations over human life is astonishing.

[jwirr]

28. Very shocking. I have also read that often it was about

power struggles within groups. Somewhere in my room I have a book about Salem that looks at the church politics in Salem. And I read another book in the 60s that talked about the struggle between the medical field and witches (midwives, herbalists, etc.) in Europe. Not to mention mental illness and witch hunts.

But at the bottom all of these were based on the idea of "witchcraft" that was believed by the church.

[foxface666]

31. no

it isn't.

[Report1212]

29. Some who are allied to Assad would be complicit

And many Shia are facing genocide too. I mean this post is stunningly ignorant

[Turbineguy]

2. If it weren't for

all those American Christians who voted for George W Bush....

[dbackjon]

18. Yup - this is the REAL war on Christians

Brought to you by the GOP War Machine.


In Pre-Invasion Iraq, 1.5 Million Christians lived in relative peace and protection.

[foxface666]

32. untrue

statement. Christians are persecuted for long time in Iraq before war.

[dbackjon]

34. Link?

[bvf]

5. IOW, having the correct beliefs

can increase your chances of survival in this situation.

I know absolutely nothing about Australian politics or the pols involved. Having said that, my take is that at best, Morrison is tone-deaf. At worst, he's clearly a religious bigot.

Truly awful.

[Herman4747]

11. Some Australians want ZERO potential jihadis coming in...

...moreover, there is a notable concern that Christians in Syria will continue to suffer persecution.
Muslims do regard Christians as "the worst of creatures."
"Lo! those who disbelieve, among the People of the Scripture and the idolaters, will abide in fire of hell. They are the worst of created beings." (Quran 98:6)

[ck4829]

16. But potential non-jihadi extremists are OK?

[ck4829]

15. These ministers are perpetuating the us vs them

Take Christians, take Yazidis, take Shia Muslims, etc.

[MisterP]

17. because nobody helps start "witch trials, or inquisitions, or genocides" like refugees from genocide

yeccch

[beam me up scottie]

19. Jury results:

AUTOMATED MESSAGE: Results of your Jury Service

On Thu Sep 10, 2015, 12:36 PM an alert was sent on the following post:

Scott Morrison says Christians will be focus of Australia's refugee intake
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141203847

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

this is (pardon the pun) goddamn galling

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Thu Sep 10, 2015, 12:52 PM, and the Jury voted 2-5 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: I don't get it. What is so goddamn galling about it?
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Uhhhh...why?
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Is galling in the CS or TOS?
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: True, this post is insensitive to perpetrators of witch hunts, but I'm okay with that.
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Why is it galling?

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

Goddamn evil atheists on the jury...

[Judi Lynn]

30. Interesting! Thanks for the view, beam me up scottie. n/t

[Sunlei]

20. They can never go home, so yes first on the lists.

[Judi Lynn]

24. Is their need for haven more important than the need of others who are also fleeing? n/t

[Sunlei]

33. They can get a visa/residents permit easier because Christians will be killed if deported back

[eissa]

21. I have no problem with this

Where are Middle Eastern Christians supposed to go? Other Muslim countries that will continue to mistreat them? Yes, the international community should be aiding all refugees, but I have no problem with the most vulnerable being given some priority.

[Act_of_Reparation]

27. What the fuck is with DUers throwing their lot behind the likes of Eric Abetz?

Do they not know how to fucking Google?

The man hangs out with Focus on the Family, for fuck's sake.

[dembotoz]

35. image this puts in my mind is the train cars being sorted when they arrive at nazi camps

i understand that yes no one is being sent to showers....just seems wrong.

on the practical side...as nations get to cherry pick the refugees,
who gets stuck with the "dregs"