An Uncomfortable Conversation About The ABC’s Religion and Ethics Department

Religious But Not Ethical?

Here in Australia, the ABC Religion and Ethics Department is proving itself very religious – at least when it comes to promoting the religion of The Sexular Age.  But in terms of ethics? Not so much. And that means it’s time to have an uncomfortable conversation.

How else to explain the article on the ABC website’s Religion and Ethics page last week by a purported academic from the UK in which it was claimed that there is very little evidence that puberty blockers have any effect on children?

Of course this is an opinion piece and the ABC Religion and Ethics Department has every right to publish it.  But it is what they do not say about the person who wrote the article that is most vexing. And, yet once again, most revealing about the ABC in general, and this department in particular.

Here’s the byline for the opinion piece:

So an associate professor. Nice!  I guess when you have someone with the credentials to do a public takedown of the well-researched and even-handed Cass Report in the UK which ordered a ban on all puberty blockers for minors in the UK, and the closure of the ideologically driven gender clinic, the Tavistock Centre, you should choose someone with some academic weight to their ideas. Someone whose view is not tainted by anything outside the facts.

Of course, what the byline does not reveal – and this is where things get messy (unethical?) – is that the good Rach Cocker-Rowland is trans gender male to female, and the director of a organisation called Trans Pride Leeds, in the UK. So not without some clear conflict of interest.  And so not a case of even-handed academia.

A cursory glance at the publicly available company directors’ register in the UK shows this clearly. Such information is not hidden and nor should it be. In fact it’s put into the public square to ensure that, among other things, potential conflicts of interest are revealed.

Let me be brutal. Why is this information not included in the byline on the ABC Religion and Ethics page? Why would the ABC leave this out? Why does the editor of the Religion and Ethics Department at the ABC, Scott Stephens,  not see fit to include this vital conflict of interest information in the byline?

Opinion as Fact

While this is an opinion piece, it is presenting ideologically driven material in a contested space, a space that has historically been divisive. This is being offered to readers as far more neutral than it actually is. The only conclusion one can reach is that such vital information is being redacted (censored?) to give the opinions within the article a viability and orthodoxy that they do not deserve.

Here is what the article itself states about the Cass report (given that the good Associate Professor could not ignore such a public document in toto):

What about the Independent Review prepared by Dr Hilary Cass in the UK? Doesn’t the Cass Review show that puberty blockers are unsafe? The Cass Review did not itself conclude that puberty blockers are unsafe — only that more research is needed. But as I have argued, it is not clear that more research is needed for puberty blockers to be safely prescribed. The Cass Review did express doubt that there is good evidence to support the claim that there are significant benefits to puberty blockers. Many organisations, medical professionals and researchers have, however, criticised this finding. The report has also been criticised for not taking evidence for the benefits of puberty blockers seriously and for not taking the testimony of trans children, parents and medical professionals who work with trans teenagers into account when evaluating their benefits.

The key of course is the word that Rach Cocker-Rowland skips over lightly at the start of that quote: “Independent”. And that’s the problem with the article? Its own lack of true independence. Once this piece of information about the author is included  it suddenly looks less independent and a lot more like a gaming of the conversation in order to reach a pre-arranged ideological conclusion.

Does the ABC Religion and Ethics Department appears to believe that such information about the author is irrelevant to the tone and reception of the article? That’s a question worth asking your ABC. Does the ABC Religion and Ethics Department believe that such information would recast the opinion piece in a light less favourable to the ABC’s own agenda around sex and gender matters? That’s another question worth asking your ABC.

The ABC loves its scientific experts. It has its pet scientists who it labels national treasures to call upon. It loves its evidence on absolutely every topic it holds forth on, at least those topics in which the science agrees with the ABC a priori cultural position. Dr Rach Cocker-Rowland is not an endocrinologist, but such expertise is apparently not a requirement when discussing this particular topic at this particular time. When such a time comes that the ABC’s position requires one,  the ABC will call on an endocrinologist, but that time is clearly not now.

Uncomfortable Conversations

But don’t just take my word for it. Have a listen to this episode of Uncomfortable Conversations by Josh Szeps, hosted by the former ABC radio personality who left to start his own gig after expressing concerns that there was not enough variety of opinion on the ABC. Josh’s podcast has become one of my favourites in recent months. He’s even handed in who he interviews. He asks tough questions, but always with sincerity and a distinct lack of disdain for his interviewee. All the good oil.

Josh is a hard-right, Christian Nationalist who grows a beard, smokes a pipe and has a trad wife. No, Josh Szeps is a politically liberal, gay man who is married to a man and who has a reputation f0r hosting guests on his radio and Youtube shows whose politics, religion and sexual framework are not his own.

In his podcast in January, Szeps absolutely shredded the ABC for several front-of-website news stories about the manner in which trans people were being treated by government officials in the US post-election. He fact-checked their news articles a dozen or so times and found them more than wanting. He concluded that they could only be intentionally biased, so bereft were they of actual reportage.

So when the ABC reported that Donald Trump’s newly minted executive order declared that there are only two sexes, the journalists state (front page remember, not opinion page), that Trump’s order “defines sex in an unconventional way”. That is not news reportage. That is ideology. And Szeps is onto it.

Szeps tore into the ABC by asking just how many minutes ago – and in just which parts of the world through time and space, such a view of sex – is “unconventional”. He pointed out how the journalists conflated the perfectly biological understanding of sex with the culturally variable understandings of gender that have sprung up in the West. And he concluded that that is not news. That is not reporting. That is ideology.   I highly recommend you sign up to Josh’s podcast. You’ll get a good idea of what is happening in Australia – not just America!

A Conversation around Conversion Therapy

Which brings us back to the ABC Religion and Ethics Department. Here’s an idea for a quiet Friday: What about publishing an article from someone in a faith community who is concerned about the recent enactment of the NSW legislation that bans that absolute unicorn of a practice that we know as conversion therapy?  That legislative move is a huge, and pernicious, overreach by government. It’s a severe curtailment of religious freedoms. And it’s a hot topic in the ethical and religious world in the West.

I’d love to see an article on the ABC’s Religion and Ethics page by a mainstream Christian leader pointing out the level of over-reach in this government legislation; a legislation that says to even pray privately for someone who wishes you do so around matters of unwanted sexual desires or gender concerns, is a crime punishable by imprisonment.

That’s a huge ethical matter with far reaching consequences. And it raises all sorts of questions around deeply ethical matters pertaining to liberty of conscience, freedom of speech and freedom of association. In short, it’s perfect fodder for an ABC Religion and Ethics Department, in which all things are equal. Yet, crickets.

Because of course, all things are not equal. Not at the ABC at least. If published articles on such matters are the indicator, then the Religion and Ethics Department appears just as hostage to the Sexular Age as the rest of the ABC.

Will  we ever see published on the ABC a counter-argument to the likes of a Rach Cocker-Rowland? Will we ever see an article by an evangelical leader in NSW that pushes back against the overreach of that conversion therapy legislation? Whose job would be on the line if such an article were to sneak its way through?

Don’t get me wrong. Evangelical leaders do get to write on the ABC Religion and Ethics page. Just not about anything that the ABC might disagree with. If you are a regular evangelical writer on that page, and you submit such a piece, expect it not to be published. And don’t expect to hear from the Religion and Ethics Department again. Your time basking in the sunshine of the ABC’s approval will be over.

I’ve only had brief interaction with the editor, Scott Stephens. And that was an online conversation in light of this article that I wrote about a Baptist Church in Sydney. This particular church stated explicitly on the front page of its website that when it came to marriage, it was an affirming church.  In other words, it did not view same sex marriage as opposed to the gospel, and in fact viewed it as a covenant relationship.

The storm that that article blew up!  I ended up not reading most of the comments, though plenty of people screenshot them and sent them to me.  Scott Stephens did not write publicly, but he did PM me with this statement “Take the post down. Issue a public apology”. I had already had several theological college lecturers tell me the same thing. I refused Scott’s request to do so and we had a fairly amiable enough private conversation. But it was clear we were going to disagree.

But I wasn’t put words in the mouth of the church or its leaders I was simply quoting the church’s own front page website. And then disagreeing with it. The church was clear about their views. I reported that view and gave my opinion on it. I wasn’t responding in bad faith to what they were saying. Nor was I hiding any facts that might colour the conversation differently. How can that warrant a “Take it down. Issue an apology?”

Journalistic Sins of Commission and Omission

If I had said something by commission – in other words I put something out there that was false and it coloured the argument unfairly – then I would retract it. But equally if I insinuate something by omission  – in other words if I put something out there without revealing some agenda or conflict of interest  – then ethically I should either retract the article or admit the omission and correct it.

Which is why I have such a beef with that opinion piece on puberty blockers. It sins by omission. There are facts about the author of that article that, if they were made known to the reader, would drastically reshape that conversation. And the ABC Religion and Ethics Department had a public duty to include it, and it failed in its duty.

It failed in ways, as Josh Szeps might say, that would have made some at the ABC, feel uncomfortable. But comfort and truth are not always friends. Hence the ABC is not ready for truly uncomfortable conversations at a time in our public and political life when we need to have them.

And worse still, the ABC would never think to sin by omission should a conservative opinion piece find its way through. No stone would be left unturned, no rabbit hole left un-gone-down.  Every organisation that the writer has ever been involved with that, in the ABC’s eyes, would diminish the credibility of the author would be presented for all to see. Sins of omission in this regard only go one way.

In the real world, the world outside the ABC-la-la-land of Ultimo in inner Sydney, difference of opinion, sharp differences, must be tolerated. If the response to opinions that the ABC does not like is to either never to publish them, or worse – to misrepresent them, then what does that say about the ABC and all of its departments?

What does it say about editors and staff who might hold different opinions to the cultural hegemony at the ABC? If they even exist any longer in that organisation?  After all I would never think to demand that someone take down an article simply on the basis that I disagreed with it. Not at all!  I’d simply argue a better case against it in the public square.

Truth Always Outs Itself

I am confident enough that the contest of ideas will reveal the truth. Truth has a way of outing itself. And those who don’t like truth, like to call for articles to be taken down. For apologies to be issues. For lessons to be learned. It seems that the ABC is yet to discover this. Or rather, that it is so hostage to ideology that it is more comfortable hiding the truth than in having uncomfortable conversations.

And what does this all say about the culture of the ABC if the likes of a Josh Szeps can find it so ideologically stifling that he no longer works there? That a liberal-leaning gay man feels the need to start his own podcast in order to get a diversity of opinion into the public square that was not open to him whilst at the national broadcaster? That says something damning about the groupthink going on there.

What does it say about the ABC Department of Religion and Ethics, and its vision and values, that on the very week that draconian and intrusive legislation is empowered in NSW that threatens religious freedoms it has no interest in discussing this in ways that are sympathetic to religious organisations?

This legislation gives enormous overreach to government power, provides a heavy cudgel for perceived transgressions, all while never fully defining the boundary lines for where the law might be broken. At the very least that sloppiness  seems worthy of an article on the ABC Religion and Ethics page. Heck, I’d even welcome a public conversation on the ABC from opposing viewpoints on this matter.

This legislation outlaws practices that even where they did occur, were historical, marginal, and constantly rejected by mainstream Christian groups. But the ABC consistently shows itself incapable of true diversity. Will we see such an opinion piece about this matter on the ABC Religion and Ethics page? And if we do, will it contain a byline that fails to include any conservative think tanks or groups to which the writer belongs that might colour his or her perspective?

To recast the ABC’s own headline in a more truthful manner: Publishing opinion pieces about how prescribing puberty blockers to trans teenagers, without including all of the potential conflict of interest of the author is as morally – and medically – contentious as it seems.