The double standards on display in relation to this story are fascinating. A religious leader threatening members of the New South Wales parliament with holy consequences if they vote for a particular piece of legislation:

Catholic politicians who vote for this legislation must realise that their voting has consequences for their place in the life of the church.

In this case, however, it’s Catholic Archbishop and noted friend of the Prime Minister George Pell making the ominous pronouncements. The parallel to the uproar over Sheik Hilali’s forays into politics is unmistakable. Just as Alan Jones was allowed to get away with helping incite the Cronulla race riots whereas all and sundry (including the PM) were calling for Hilali’s expulsion from the country, Pell is likewise being treated with kid gloves by the media and large sections of the political establishment. As Crikey sarcastically observes:

Prominent tabloid columnists and morning radio talk hosts are expected to demand the Cardinal’s expulsion from the country for pursuing a religiously bigoted and fundamentally ”un-Australian” agenda. Soon. Any day now.

Less humorously, this seems fairly accurate, and from a Nationals MP no less (quoted by Irfan Yusuf):

Well, I certainly, you know, in the last few years there’s been a lot of talk about the Islamic faith and the attempt, or the perception that, particularly in other countries, that the Islamic faith is having a, is putting a lot of pressure on politics. And I think in Australia, if Sheikh Al Hilali had made that same kind of declaration to Members of Parliament of the Muslim faith, telling them how to vote, I think there’d be outrage.

I think it would be front page of every newspaper and there would be outrage against him. I see this by the Catholic Church as being a similar thing.

It seems pretty obvious (even to religious individuals) that Pell’s approach is unlikely to win him too many friends. The reaction of the relevant parliamentarians has been heartening. This remark from the Minister for Emergency Services, Nathan Rees, is particularly good:

I consider Cardinal Pell’s incursion a clear and arguably contemptuous incursion into deliberations of the elected members of this parliament, which he didn’t exercise during the Commonwealth debate. I think he’s got three options: he can apologise; he can run for parliament; or he can invite further comparisons with that serial boofhead, Sheikh Al Hilaly.

The episode highlights a dangerous attitude which is more and more prominent in the west since the start of the ‘War on Terror’: religious fundamentalist nonsense is acceptable, so long as it’s coming from ‘our’ religious fundamentalists (i.e. white Christians), not ‘their’ religious fundamentalists (everyone else, and especially Muslims).

An alternative perspective is here at Club Troppo, where James Farrell argues that what a religious leaders says to his flock is none of our business:

And it’s not as if Pell has kidnapped Iemma, Waltkins and Piccoli, and is demanding at gunpoint that they vote against the stem cell bill. He and his colleagues may have been instrumental in infecting them with a virus of the mind, but this happened long before they entered parliament, and it was well known to voters that they had the virus.

There must be no double standard here. If we are to insist that bigots like Pell get out of people’s bedrooms and reproductive decisions, we should keep out of the theological disputes he gets into with his flock. They are consenting adults.

At the very least the statement that various politicians religious views were “known to voters” before they were elected should be challenged – it is surely undeniable that the vast majority of Australians vote on the basis of political parties, not individual candidates, and few would be able to name the religious denomination of their local state or federal member.