GOVERNMENT funding has been withheld from a Christian organisation because its views on marriage are deemed non-inclusive.
The grant application from Victory Life Church to assist purchase a refrigerated truck to distribute food to Perth’s homeless was rejected due to the views of its founder, tennis great Margaret Court.
Lotterywest, a Western Australia State-owned agency, rejected the church’s application stating Mrs Court’s views did not align with its own “strong commitment to inclusion and diversity”, according to a report in The Australian newspaper this week.
WEAPON
The decision sparked a mini-revolt within Lotterywest with senior policy advisor Crispin Rovere last week resigning over the incident.
He said the agency had become a partisan weapon and was increasingly allocating funds on ideological grounds.
“There are people within the agency who clearly agree with the board’s directive and who have gone out of their way to enable the use of public money as a social weapon,” Mr Rovere said.
“There are people who don’t see any confusion between activism and public service.”
He said the Victory Life Church knock-back was one of many targeting certain groups who thought “incorrectly”.
Before founding the church, Mrs Court was the first female tennis player to win the Open singles Grand Slam.
She won 24 Grand Slam singles titles in total (11 in the Open Era), which is the all-time record. She also won 19 women’s doubles and 21 mixed doubles titles, giving her a record 64 Grand Slam titles overall.
Her all surfaces singles career-winning percentage of 91.74 is the best of all time according to the Sporteology website.
UNEQUALLED
Her Open Era singles career winning percentage of 91.37 per cent is unequalled, as is her winning percentage of 91.7 per cent in Grand Slam finals.
CEO of Lotterywest Susan Hunt said her board members were concerned about Mrs Court’s statements on gay and lesbian issues and same-sex marriage.
She said Lotterywest had recently approved large grants to other faith-based groups, such as St Vincent de Paul.PC
From the “Victory Life Centre” web site:
“Why do we receive Tithes and Offerings?”
That’s easy: they receive “tithes” because they are under the law, and not under grace. That is to say, the “leaders” wish to compel their followers to live under the Old Covenant rather than the New, and to thus be subservient to those who proclaim themselves as God’s mediators, when it it abundantly clear from the New Testament that there is only one mediator between God and men, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
So I’m afraid that VLC is not a Church at all; it is in fact a pseudo-Christian cult. They can parade all the piousness they want, but their good works are nothing more than filthy rags in the sight of God, who has clearly made known the Gospel of Salvation that is on the basis of FAITH ALONE. There is no compulsion under the terms of that Gospel to do *anything* other than place one’s faith in Christ, who was handed over to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification, and there is certainly no compulsion to hand over 10% of one’s income. As I told my two sons: if you are paying to hear the Gospel, it’s not the Gospel that you are hearing.
I can understand that Theology is not perhaps an area of subject matter expertise for the editorial staff at Politicom, their not inconsiderable knowledge of other disciplines notwithstanding, so I am happy to provide a heads-up regarding this matter. As for the money involved, it would have best been returned to long-suffering and much put upon taxpayers.
What – CRETINS – some in Governments have become!
Everyone is entitled to their own ideological views. You know: freedom of thought and speech – and all that!
The only criteria that must be considered is: how much good is this organisation providing to the needy citizens amongst us? I’d say PLENTY!
Government has now become the enemy of the people. It might be time to take back our guns. Sorry John Howard, but who would have thought Australians would need to defend themselves against a radicalised State bureaucracy.