Club Politique by Che Tibby

A pet peeve that has been building over the past few years is the natural tendency of any commentator, be they expert, lay or political to want to use the word ‘nation’ or ‘national’ as shorthand for ‘citizen’. Originally I wanted to give you all my two-cents worth on the looming abortion debate that’s just starting to kick off here in the Land of Flies, but if I have time on Thursday I’ll run through that one for you.

In the meantime though, here’s the only reasonable article I’ve noticed so far.

To be honest, I’m glad that New Zealand politics has meandered back towards a subject I think I have a modest expertise in. Fact is, you can’t spend six years arguing out the details of nationalism and not get a good understanding, and opining about abortion was always going to expose my own prejudices and cost me my last few ‘PC medals’. So I say we go for the safe option from the outset and save both of us the embarrassment.

As I said earlier, there’s a conventional wisdom in the public sphere that automatically equates nation with population and/or citizen. What this means in practical terms is that when Helen says ‘in the interests of the nation’, she’s implying everybody. This always kind of pisses me off though, because you only really have to scratch the surface of any nation-state world wide to see that the word nation is always a limiting term.

I don’t want to expand this one out too much for fear of boring the pants off you, but if you need more I’ll sell you a copy of ‘The National Cell’ when and if I get it published. The go is this. ‘Nation’ universally refers to the group that controls a country. If I say, America, the group in charge is ‘Americans’. Australia? Australians. Fiji? Fijians. You get the picture.

Now, regardless of the country, the type of government, the size of the population or its place in the hierarchy of nation-states, every sovereign state has a group that calls the shots. In some countries this group is politically contested by another group that doesn’t recognise its legitimacy (Spain and the Basques), in some this group dominates other group’s right to belong (Fiji and Fijian Indians), and in some this group is small in relation to the overall population (South Africa under Apartheid). But, there’s always that one group, and that’s the nation.

How and why nations exist was a hotly contested subject, but was largely settled in the academic world by the late 1980s after this guy called Benedict Anderson wrote a book called ‘Imagined Communities’, which radically transformed the way the boffins understood nations. Its most important contribution to the debate was to indicate that nations aren’t exclusively maintained by ethnic or familial links, but instead exist in people’s imaginations. This doesn’t mean that they are imaginary, but more that like other abstract concepts, they don’t have any real form.

A potentially inflammatory example is ‘God’. Regardless of your position on this subject, you have to admit that you can’t really ‘see’ God. Everyone has an idea of what it is, and everyone has an opinion on what it looks like or whether it exists, but because you can’t pick it up and look at it like ‘a rock’, it remains abstract.

‘Nations’ are exactly the same kind of idea. You can’t ‘see’ a nation, and you can’t concretely define it. Sure, you could try to define New Zealand nationality, but you’re always going to leave someone out of the loop. Not everyone follows Rugby for example. So saying, “you’re a New Zealander if you follow the Rugby” is untrue.

But, there’s still a bunch of people out there who think of themselves as ‘New Zealanders’. As a consequence, you have a big blend of all kinds of people who associate themselves with the nation. This is the catch you see. All too often boffins will try and comprehensively define national qualities, and they always fail because individuals themselves decide who and who isn’t a fellow national. The best example is migrants. A first generation South African may have New Zealand citizenship, and therefore be ‘a national’, but their accent sets them apart socially. First generation South Africans will almost always find themselves excluded from being a ‘real’ New Zealander.

There is one truth in all this relativity though, and that is the link between ‘the nation’ and ‘the state’. If you’re a member of a nation and live in a democracy you get to influence the structure of the state. Voting for social reform and representatives to run things for us is all about belonging to the nation. If you are excluded from belonging, for instance by only having partial citizenship, like temporary residency, then you have no say in the shape of the state.

Why the topic of the nation became so hotly contested back in the day is that a bunch of authors pointed to places like Nazi Germany as an example of what happens when ‘nationalism’ takes hold and things go pear-shaped. In particular they freaked out about ‘ethnicity’ or ‘tribalism’ being used to define who is and isn’t a national. This line of argument is misleading though, because ethnicity wasn’t the problem, it was the use of ethnicity as a means to exclude some people, Jews being the example.

The process of inclusion and exclusion is discussed fairly well by Andreas Wimmer, who I mentioned last week. The ideology behind it is ‘nationalism’ and the process itself is called ‘nation-building’.

Now, I can feel that half the readers have dropped off already, so I’ll try to bring this back to the beginning. When Helen uses the phrase ‘the nation’, she’s really only talking to the people included by the nation as both full citizens and authentic nationals. And nation-building is all about maintaining association with this group. But often when Helen says ‘the nation’ she assumes that she is talking in a republican sense to ‘all the New Zealand citizens’.

If and when this debate into ‘Treaty and constitutional’ issues kicks off, Wellington is going to have to ensure that the parameters of the arguments being laid out are sufficiently inclusive. My concern here is that if the National Party’s pitch to the redrubberneckers at Orewa is anything to go by, they’ll try and define a New Zealand that excludes Māori society in favour of some kind of ‘South Pacific melange’.

And frankly, that’s just not going to cut it.

Much like the old-school authors who freaked out about ethnicity, trying to exclude Māori society because of some misguided concern about ‘ethnic conflict’ or a penchant for a ‘one-nation’ mythology is both foolish and petty. If a constitutional debate is to take place, it has to occur within a framework that recognises the equality and ongoing relevance of both Māori and mainstream society.

I think I’m running out of space here, so I’ll try and wrap this up by saying that nation-building does not have to imply that a single type of national individual exists in a nation-state. Instead, nation-building is all about bolstering the ability of minority and majority alike to contribute to the ongoing development of how ‘the nation’ is imagined by individual citizens.

Excluding Māori society by trying to close down the nation-building that has already occurred around the role of the Treaty on the political landscape is a marked step backwards. Or, put another way, when Helen uses the phrase ‘the nation’ and this does not include a politically active and vibrant Māori society, we have made a grave mistake.

Ok, this is a serious question, and one that someone must have asked before. Do paranoid schizophrenic Muslims think they're Mohammed? Or is this just a Christian thing? I know the media is hot right now on this story of the bloke who climbed into the lion's den in Taiwan, but I've noticed this same story in several countries over the past few months. What about Buddhists? Do you think they're likely to hear Siddhartha talking to them?

Surprisingly, in trying to find a link for this story, I noticed that jumping into lion enclosures is not uncommon. For one, here's a Buddhist guy in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a distraught bloke in Portugal, another 'zoo patron' in Argentina, and then there's this insane story of a lion being condemned to 'imprisonment' for mauling two tourists in China.

But it's already in a zoo....

Ah, the ironing of it all.

And, in the running for the worst seque in the history of blogging, "speaking of throwing yourself into the lions den, what's with the USA?". There's only two words I really want to add to the subject of November 2.

1. Iran.

I never really thought that Kerry was in the running, and don't ask me why, in the immortal words of that lawyer guy in 'The Castle', "its just the vibe of the thing". And yes, you can put it down the to general movement to the political right that seems to be occurring world-wide, but I just never thought he had enough pzzazz to sell to the US public.

Concerning Iran though, there's that same murmuring in the media that was circulating about Iraq the last time round. Now, this could be paranoia, but this kind of noise kind of scares me. Seriously scares me. I don't know what it is about right-wing death beasts and their propensity to want to see wargames played out, but it is insanity to think that brinksmanship will work in a place like Iran. But me? Expert? No?

2. Fear.

There seems to be a lot of hubbub about the 'scare-tactics' used by incumbents in both Australia and the USA to get themselves back behind the driving seat. So although the media is barking a lot about 'Iraq mandates' and 'the war on terror' winning over the voters, personally I can't see all that much difference to the Soviet threat in the 1980s.

If you all cast your mind back to the heady days of Mork and Mindy you'll remember that, whether you'd admit it or not, you were scared shitless of dying in a thermonuclear holocaust. Fortunately for everyone, the USSR went belly up and we had something like 10 years of decreased military budgets and only localised wars. Or in other words, nothing to be frightened of. Sure, there was that spectre of 'Saddamn Hussein' to scare the kiddies, and lots of experts talking about 'ethnic nationalism' being the next big bogeyman, but nothing like the mantra of the 'war on terrorism' or 'reds under the bed'.

What this makes me think isn't that we have this new use of fear to influence voters, but rather that we're back to normal.

I reckon that the real concern is the combination of the two factors, and an unfettered world power. What we all need to start watching is the propaganda machine starting up debates about just how dangerous Iran really is, and whether that country starts to draw too much flak about being the centre of world terrorism. Oh, and Syria of course, but all they've got is those missing WMDs.

Now, I can hear the death beasts starting already. You know, the usual 'naive optimist', 'rose-coloured glasses', 'terrorism apologist' lathers. So let me state for the record that I'm not endorsing Iran getting nukes. Not at all. But I am publicly stating that we need to make sure that if the USA has a go at another country it does so for real reasons this time. My gut also tells me that world-wide opinion will not brook the US acting unilaterally and starting another pre-emptive war in defence of Israel.

I'm starting to wander out of my undergrad expertise concerning international relations here, so I'll slip on back to this question of lunatic Christianity.

One of the things about democracy is that it is supposed to deliver representation that reflects the population it serves. What this leads me to believe is that the increasing influence of politicised Christianity is not, from a strictly academic point of view, a 'bad thing'. By mobilising and engaging with a large Christian or 'values-based' voting population, representatives in the USA, or Australia and New Zealand for that matter, aren't really doing anything wrong.

This goes back to my comment the other day about New Zealand being a Christian country, just as the US and Australia are. Sure, religion as a mobilising factor may or may not be a boon to the countries in which it takes hold, the stymieing of tolerance and relative closure of society being an outcome, but I'm starting to think that this is a normal thing.

Or at very least, it's an attempt to swing the pendulum of the mid-Twentieth Century liberalisation back towards conservatives and stronger social controls. And the USA was the popular vanguard of that liberalisation. What all liberal-thinking types now need to ask themselves is, do we continue to try and push out the boundaries of tolerance, or do we just try to defend the gains made by the baby-boomers? And more importantly, how much do citizens of places like New Zealand let themselves be influenced by events in the USA?

For the academics out there, a book by Andreas Wimmer called 'Nationalist Exclusion and Ethnic Conflict'. In a nutshell, it argues that nations are the product of what Wimmer calls 'cultural compromise'. As a nation develops through historical time it finds itself presented with the need to either include or exclude new ideas and groups, and this process usually takes the shape of an internal 'compromise' being made.

In the New Zealand case, Maori said, 'We aren't taking this shit anymore. Respect the damn Treaty', to which the majority said, 'Oh, That Treaty. But of course!', and a policy change called biculturalism was set in place in the 1970s that has been continuously evolving. Sure, there is debate about what's good or bad for New Zealand, but the fact that a debate is occurring is inherently positive.

Sooner or later there's going to have to be another compromise made over the issue of relative morality and how much liberal-minded individuals can take from moral conservatives. Representatives being the whores they are they’ll start to adopt more and more conservative values to secure their vote, and we need to make sure that the values they assume are a. actually popular (and not just expedient), and b. informed by debate (and not divide mandate).

As I may have said in a peculiarly fence-sitting kind of way before. Time will tell.

The friend I labelled as 'the Genius' recently purchased a boat with his old man. Having been incommunicado for the past few months, this was a bit of a surprise revealed to me over dinner on Friday night. My disappointment at being left out of the loop was immediately consoled by an offer to get out on Port Phillip Bay and conduct a little 'crusade' against the oceans. Those damn fish are asking for it anyhow.

It turns out that on a jaunt to Tasmania the Genius and the Genius' sire discovered this classic 1940s launch in a boatyard somewhere. It's made almost entirely of an Australian hardwood called Jarrah and is a 25' beauty. As with all good fortune though it has two sides, this one being that 'Argo' was designed for river travel and bobs like a cork on the ocean. Not to be deterred, I watched the intake on Saturday afternoon to carefully avoid any hangover-type complications. That fishing trip on Blue Magic a few weeks back was a near-thing in the burley department.

This time of year marks a clear slump in the sports stakes, meaning a marked lack of weekend conversation fodder. With the Aussie Rules Finals gone and the waiting for the cricket season there's only racing to be had. And this city really loves its racing carnival. Just in case you live underground, Tuesday is the Melbourne Cup and today you can tell by the strange calm has descended over the city. Usually if people aren't at the Cup Parade they're recovering from the weekend's revelry, in anticipation going entirely ballistic tomorrow.

If you happen to be in the city near sundown on Cup day you can expect to see two very common sights. The first being ladies in expensive frocks walking (or staggering) on tender feet with their high heels in hand. The second? Clusters of blokes in cheap suits wearing their ties around their heads Rambo style and singing 'eye of the tiger'. One word. 'Circus'.

Saturday foreshadowed tomorrow, but with glorious weather and the big hats out in force. I'm guessing that most people knew the forecast for tomorrow is supposed to be 'crap', and got out into sun on Derby Day instead. Not that this will deter many tomorrow mind you, even if it's hosing down there will be a repeat performance with miles of expensive marques filled with drinking and drunk punters schmoozing. Lucky buggers, with my income I can guarantee it wouldn't be the helicopter trip that would get me there.

Instead, this past Saturday the current housemate RockGod and I sat out on the front porch in the sun and got a barbeque going. He's following the missus to the UK and we've been conducting interviews to replace him by putting a person in the front room of the house. Normally this can be a chore, but we tried to combine 'Shallow Grave' with some serious drinking and burning gourmet snags. Not too bad an afternoon all in all. By the time some of the RockGod's mates turned up after their day at the carnival we were only slightly more sober than they were.

A good effort really. Dunno if anyone will actually move in, but at least saying 'and this is the galley kitchen, and this is the bathroom, and the bond is a month in advance, and the place is nice and cool in summer, and the rent is paid fortnightly, we do our own food and share bills, and what do you do, and the room gets afternoon sun, and yes, this is a great street, would you like to hear RockGod play some guitar, and we haven't buried many strangers under the concrete in the back yard' twenty times or so was appropriately blunted.

I didn't hear from the Genius until early Sunday afternoon, which was fortunate, by which point I had gathered my act together enough to pile into the car to head over to Williamstown. The Friday night dinner was on because Kitty (an ex-housemate and mutual friend) had recently gotten back into town, so the three of us and the Genius' King George Spaniel "Angel" headed out to the water.

By 3.30 we were sitting on Port Phillip Bay, which was miraculously like a duck-pond, and listening to the Genius explain that in half a dozen fishing trips he hadn't caught a damn thing. So much for decimating the oceans... maybe you should have told me this before I reserved a spot for 'fish' on tonight's menu? Stopping to buy a steak on the way home is an anticlimax like no other.

We resolved to check out one spot though and then move onto a reef some bogans who live next to the Genius told us about. And bogans can't be wrong. They're like the Obi Wan Kenobi of fishing. They just know.

Also, after the entire lack of fish action on Blue Magic a couple of weeks back my hopes weren't too high. But not to be deterred, I dutifully rigged with heavy sinkers (currents) baited up my hook with squid, and got my line in the water. Beer in hand (James Squire homebrew), I waited.

Naturally I was intensely pissed off when the Genius had hooked and lost two fish before I had even had a nibble. A fact that Kitty was all too happy to exploit.

If fishing has taught me anything over the years it is that it is the most Zen of sports. Unless you're chasing big game, in which case it's just perseverance and lots of money. A guy on Blue Magic described big game fishing as 'standing in a cold shower tearing up twenty dollar bills'. Digesting these sage words and drinking the Genius' free beer I pushed my pride way down deep, quietly contemplating fish nibbling my hook.

It worked. Before I knew it I had a bite and was hauling in a beautiful little Rock Flathead. Now, there's only two words to describe flatties. One is ugly. Really ugly. They're spiny bottom feeders and covered in these lances that not only leave nasty infections, but kinda sting. Being macho almost immediately cost me a large, large amount of blood from trying to handle it without the protective gloves. Damn thing pierced me through ring finger of the left hand sideways and I bled like a stuck pig.

Karma.

Fortunately, there is also a second word to describe flatties, and that word is delicious. Really delicious. I washed the bleeding hand in the ocean (burley) and smiled like a Cheshire Cat. A small price to pay for something that was, after all, my own fault. Note to self, being a 'real man' can potentially mean mild shock from blood loss. Rebaiting, I got the line back in the water.

Actually, there should be a third word for flatties, and that word is stupid. No sooner had the sinker touched the bottom than I was hauling in another fish! To make a long story short the Genius and I were soon hauling in fish so fast we had to delegate 'fetching beer and stopping the Spaniel from barking at everything that moved' to Kitty. Originally she had been assigned to 'removing fish from hooks with the protective gloves', but after seeing the Purple Heart I gained she wasn't having a bar of it.

Whereas that initial "FISH!!" was exciting, by dusk we were making comments like 'Oh. Another flattie'. Took us an hour and a half to clean and fillet all thirty flathead. But damn, well salted, flash-grilled with a little butter, a sprinkling of mixed herbs, and an accompanying glass of white? Very quickly made up for not being in a big tent tomorrow being force-fed caviar.

My how things have changed in ten years. It's good news for all those guys who hooked up with Asian women over the last twenty years or so, because according to my reading of the Winnie-O-Meter its 'dissing da Muslims' that's 'so hot right now'. So unhook the missus from the stove and get her out in the sunshine, you could probably both do with the fresh air.

Before this post turns into a little diatribe all too easily passed off as having a rant, let me say that I actually agree with Winnie. Let me say that again just so you heard it right. I agree. But, I don't hate Muslims.

In this case of the two women refusing to remove their burka there's little justification for them to given recourse to political correctness, and I’m sure I can justify this in a long-winded manner. Aren’t you lucky?

Let’s start by saying that while the two women in question may claim that removing their burka will result in a loss of face (boom boom), the issue at stake here is really the limits of tolerance in the liberal society New Zealand professes to be. Asking migrant women to remove their veils in particular circumstances is not illiberal.
It’s pretty common among liberal thinkers to argue that there are two types of minority, which can be conveniently boiled down to ‘voluntary’ and ‘non-voluntary’. Voluntary minorities should be obvious, migrants being the example. The argument usually goes that if you choose to enter a host society you should abide by their rules, unless those rules are unreasonable. Which begs the question, what in the hell did you move to an intolerant country for?

So in the case of these women, being Afghans there’s a chance they’re refugees and therefore involuntary migrants, but that still kind of means that they should abide by the host community’s rules. After all, New Zealand is effectively extending its generosity in protecting them, again implying that they should abide.
Real involuntary minorities are groups that didn’t choose to belong to a someone else’s country, and usually you can indicate groups like indigenous people or some European minorities like the Basques or Catalan in Spain. Because they’re involuntary minorities liberals will recognise that they can claim specific exemptions from majority rules. I won’t bore you with the details.

The one thing that links these two types of minorities though is the boundaries of majority tolerance. To make this system work you need a clear delineation of what is and isn’t tolerable to the majority. And this toleration needs to be negotiated between the majority and the minority together.
Members of a majority might find the burka offensive, but that isn’t enough of a reason to prohibit it being worn in public. Personal style and dress is after all a matter of private choice. Veils are barely more offensive than wearing kilts (you damn weirdos). And this is especially the case if the woman in question chooses to wear the thing.

I hear you say of course that the burka is a symbol of patriarchy and oppression of the women in question. Well, ‘right on’, but that isn’t the issue in question. The issue is whether she chooses to wear it. Maybe in Kraplakistan where the women have no choice this is a problem, but in New Zealand if she doesn’t want to wear the thing, but is made to wear it by a bloke, then she has protection under the law from him trying to make her do it.

Hopefully.

Anyhow, one of the things that defines tolerance in New Zealand is decency. If you women out there choose to demonstrate your promiscuity by exposing your lascivious and erotic cheekbones, then more power to you. But the raison d’tre of the burka is decency, so how can it be offensive?
Again the issue is tolerance. A liberal society has to tolerate things like veils because they’re a cultural expression, and liberals argue that cultural expression is a good thing for everyone, host and guest.
The important thing is where we draw the line. Prohibiting Japanese girls from putting those cute toys all over their dashboards is plainly ridiculous, it is after all hardly less alien than ‘Steinlager Green’ T-shirts on the Gold Coast, but something like FGM or slapping round the missus just doesn’t pass muster.

To take us back to the beginning then, in particular circumstances it’s not intolerant to ask these women to remove their burka. I lost the link that says maybe they can be partially screened in court, but that sounds like a good compromise they could make.
In arguing that hosts have to be tolerant, and that guests have to be prepared to give up some types of cultural expression, liberals also state that the boundaries of tolerance itself has to be determined as a compromise between the parties in question. It’s not enough to say ‘my way or the highway’. But ‘steady on mate, that’s a bit on the nose, don’t you think?’ is legitimate, because it gives the guest enough room to say ‘Nah. We’re bailin’.

This week we'll forgo the comedic pretences and talk about something close to everyone's heart, the big fulla. But, before I even begin to begin let me say that I have absolutely no problem with Christianity. None. Nada. Zip. So before you go linking this blog to fundies-kick-butt.com, think again. Me and the big fulla? Kosher (or halal).

But I do want to talk about religion and politics. Since the Federal election here there have been increasing calls from various pundits to have religion taken a little more seriously in the democratic process. And, if you want to be both pragmatic and liberal about it you kind of have to say, fair enough. Just because you're an atheist and some other people are Christian you can't ignore their opinions.

Though this doesn't mean that if a groups opinions are bigoted or excessive they shouldn't deserve the same treatment as any other extremist group, be they Islamic fundamentalists or white supremacists.

Maybe the trouble for political parties is the ubiquitous nature of Christianity in our societies. I'm always confused by pundits who try and hell-raise about the problem of Islamic governance, when the country they live in is a 'Christendom democracy'. Lets look at New Zealand or Australia. The major holidays? Christian. The major religion? 'Christianity' as a general ideology. And the mythology and culture of Christianity is widely understood, even if the great majority of individuals don't know it.
Let me ask you who Indra is? What about Shiva? You probably don't know who they are, or if you do you might naturally attribute them to 'Hinduism'. But if I mention Joseph, Judas or Mary there's a fair chance you're going to recognise the names, although maybe you can't tell the full New Testament stories. In other words, whether you’re practising or not, you’re Christian.

Even when willing to recognise that socially New Zealand is a Christian country, there's often an under-appreciation that much of the country's systems of law and overall moral code is informed by the same religious background. The kinds of things New Zealanders find morally repugnant, like murder and theft, are right there in the Bible and have remained in our legal codes for generations.
What really gets my goat though is the recourse to the Bible as a system for the exclusive and continuing interpretation of modern societies. Sure, there's a lot of wisdom in the Book, but I still find myself wondering how relevant it is in an absolute sense.

Lets very briefly go back to the mention of Islamic governance. In most Islamic countries their system of laws is based on the Qur'an and its peculiar morality. Now, essentially this makes it exactly the same as Christian countries. It's just a different system of moral codes. If you have a problem with their moral codes you might want to speak up, but doing so is unlikely to change their practices. And considering that Islamic fundamentalist demands for Christian democracies to change the way they do things is met with sneers and derision, it is probably fair that Islamic countries thumb their nose at us.
The real problem with Islamic governance is an issue of relative morality. Westerners often see Islamic morality as offensive or inferior, in much the same way as the Civilising Mission needed to bring Christianity to 'the savages'. Westerners also have a problem if Islam is seen to be applied as an absolute moral or legal code, as it was in Afghanistan.

In contrast to this type of absolute governance, what I personally see contemporary Christian political groups doing is trying to have a greater say in the morality of their own nation. And considering that this is often the very reason for being of Christian groups, defending the boundaries of acceptable morality, wouldn't condemning them for doing so be a little bizarre?

I think the trick is to know when to tell Christians to 'back off'. Sure, as with any other politically active group in a democracy Christians are completely entitled to their opinions and practices. The secularisation of the state several hundred years ago wasn't done to exclude Christians, it was done to make sure that more than one type of opinion was able to be heard. And this is the key point.
While Christianity may have a legitimate place in an obviously Christian nation like Australia or New Zealand, this doesn't mean that it or its followers get to have a monopoly on things like morality, even if it has a democratic majority. After all, wouldn't that give us a fundamentalist state?

The fact of the matter is that morality in Western democracies has changed a great deal in past few centuries, and not always for the worse. So while my old Good News Bible may say "if a man commits adultery with the wife of a fellow Israelite, both he and the woman shall be put to death" (Leviticus 20:10), that doesn't mean that if the wife did the dirty on me I'd buy a shotgun. Angry words? Yes. Ka-boom? No.

The impression I've been given is that all this politicisation of Christianity is occurring because they feel that they've been left out of the ongoing changes in our morality, and that the diversification of the state and politics has swung too far away from Christian morality and values. And this seems especially the case in the US, if documentaries like 'With God On Our Side' are any indication.

As I've said, Christianity in politics isn't necessarily a bad thing, but Christians themselves need to know when what they're demanding is outside the limits of acceptable democratic behaviour. Sure, oppose homosexuality, abortion and shagging, but your belief that these things are wrong doesn't automatically mean they are, or that they should be to everybody.
This is the clincher. There's a great little article on Troppo Armadillo about there being two types of belief. 'Distal' belief, which states, "I believe monkeys can go to heaven". And 'testable' belief, which states, "I believe monkeys can live in the forest". The key difference being that you can go to a forest and actually see a monkey. Which I think may coincidentally be monkey-heaven. But like I said, no gags.

The truly great thing about democracy is that it's an idea based on arguing things out. If you just believe something non-testable to be true, and can't or won't consider any alternative position, then you're ability to participate in the democratic process will be constrained by other members of your own society. In other words, democratic participation has to be reasonable.
Christians should never be condemned for participating in democracy and bringing their essentially conservative beliefs with them, but if they are unreasonable about what they demand (and after all, politics is all about competing demands), then they will find themselves marginalized in the same way as extreme right-wingers.

So sure, bang on about the decline of civilisation and the appalling morality of our promiscuous modern society. But be prepared to be told to sit down and chill out if you get out of hand. After all, people like me prefer our civilisation a little warped, and there's heaps of us.