Who are ‘Doctors for the Family’?

Mother’s Day. It’s one of those terribly sentimental holidays where media gush about the importance of giving Mum a day off, department stores hold sales where everything is pink (right down to a cute little pink cordless drill for the ‘Handy-Mum’, god save us), and we all get to see news anchors say hi to their own mothers and make jokes about perhaps not giving them the right present.

This year, though, every potential parent in Australia got a slap in the face, thanks to News Limited. In itself, that’s not so surprising – but what is worrying is that no media organisation seems to have done more than the most rudimentary of investigation into the report.

The Herald-Sun published a letter signed by 150 doctors, who all expressed their concerns that same-sex marriage – oh, sorry, “so-called same-sex marriage” – posed a health risk to any children those couples might parent.

A health risk. That’s right. And just in case we weren’t sure what that might mean, the letter helpfully spelled it out in a footnote telling us about increased rates of HIV among those who engage in male-male sex.

The letter didn’t stop there, though. There is a further concern for children – that there might be terrible health consequences associated with ‘further “normalising” of homosexual behaviour’. Not least of these consequences is that people might be charged with “hate speech” (their quotes) if they speak out against marriage equality (sorry, sorry, “so-called same-sex marriage”, I keep forgetting), or that their kids might be somehow irrevocably damaged by remaining in Health Ed classes where they’re taught that sometimes boys wants to have sex with boys. Quite what that damage might be was left unspecified. Perhaps that they might learn how important safer sex practices are, and that they’re not damned to hell for who they love?

Naturally, other media jumped all over it. The AMA practically fell over themselves to get into the TV studios so they could denounce the letter, and a raft of evidence showing that same-sex parenting was no more or less damaging than any other kind made it to the airwaves. Uncomfortably, one of the signatories was Professor Kuravilla George, who serves as Victoria’s deputy chief psychiatrist. He’s also a board member of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.

Oops. How did that guy slip through the cracks? That’s the question everyone’s asking. How did someone with such blinkered – and frankly wrong – views make it into such a sensitive position? And it’s a good question. But there’s more going on here. What we’ve seen is just the surface.

The letter is headed up, ‘Doctors for the Family’. Question is, just who is this organisation?

It takes about five minutes to find out.

Doctors for the Family describes itself in this way:

“There are many organisations in Australia and internationally that support marriage – the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others – as the basis for family and a healthy society.

Doctors for the Family is a supporting medical organisation to highlight the health aspects of marriage and family and ensure a healthy future for our children.

Its purpose is to be a source of information and at times make representation to parliament or appropriate organisations to ensure policies that enhance and preserve the health and future of our nation.”

There’s no wriggle-room there. It’s an organisation that was specifically set up for the sole purpose of pushing a homophobic, anti-marriage equality agenda. It does not claim to make any form of objective analysis, merely to ‘be a source of information’. And there’s no one presented as a front person. Those who wish to contact the organisation are invited to email ‘web@doctors4family.com.au’ as generic a web address as I’ve ever seen. In itself, that should have rung alarm bells with journalists everywhere to start digging.

Go behind the website, however, and you find out what’s really going on here.

Via whois lookup, a moment’s work discovers that the site is owned by a Doctor Lachlan Dunjey, the first signatory on the letter. So who is he? Behold, everyone’s best friend Google.

Lachlan Dunjey just happens to be one of the driving forces behind the Church in Perth – a fundamentalist Christian group. The site helpfully provides us with a list of his articles, and we can see straight away that same-sex marriage is only one of Dunjey’s crusades – and that the ‘Doctors for the Family’ website is only one of his soapboxes. There’s anti-abortion via Choose Life Australia and Conscience in Medicine; so-called ‘personhood’ issues which affect stem cell research, contraception and embryo destruction; anti-Bill of Rights; and euthanasia.

All of these articles are liberally sprinkled with out-of-context quotes from the Bible, pseudo-science, and outright lies. Far from being simply a group of doctors concerned about the health implications of policy, Doctors for the Family is just another front for a fundamentalist Christian group with a hate-mongering agenda.

Here’s a sample, and it shows just where Dunjey is coming from:

“It is one thing to pass a law that permits evil but it is something more to pass a law that compels evil. We have not been here before in a civilised society. Yes, we need to change people’s hearts and minds by bringing them into the Kingdom of God.”

It doesn’t get much clearer than that. Dunjey is spear-heading a fundamentalist Christian attack (complete with recruitment drive) disguised as concern for the health of children – which is utterly reprehensible.

Oh, and best of all? Dunjey is a member of and former Senate candidate for the Christian Democratic Party.

All of that research and reading was accomplished in less than 30 minutes. And that brings up two questions:

1. How many signatories to that Senate submission knew who they were signing up with?

2. Why did no one in the media do even rudimentary research on Doctors for the Family, and find out who was behind it? Dunjey even fronted the media for a very brief soundbite, but nothing was said about his blatant religious agenda.

And here’s a final point – Doctors for the Family clearly attempted to deceive the Senate enquiry by misrepresenting themselves as a ‘health organisation’, rather than a religious group whose arguments are cherry-picked, distorted, and backed up by the flimsiest of ‘evidence’, all operating from a basis of religious dogma rather than science.

That should be the focus for the media, not whether their arguments hold any validity whatsoever.

There’s simply no excuse for letting that slip.

UPDATE:

Nickandrew analysed the signatories of the letter, and discovered around a 35% overlap with those who signed the Liberty of Conscience in Medicine declaration. That particular document affirmed that it had no specific ties to religion or faith, only conscience. Thanks to the efforts of Chrys Stevenson, though, that deception was quickly exposed.

And oh look, here’s our friend Doctor Dunjey again, along nearly 70 doctors who are members or organisers of specifically religious organisations. Many are Catholic, but fundamentalist groups are also well-represented (including – alarmingly – one associated with ‘healing miracles’). Stevenson’s work exposed this organisation as yet another deceptive religious lobby group.

This current issue isn’t an isolated incident … it’s part of a concerted campaign to deceive Parliament in order to push an intolerant and harmful agenda.

It’s time it was thoroughly exposed.

UPDATE, 14/5/12:

After a little more digging, I found out some … interesting information about the so-called ‘evidence’ on which Doctors for the Family relied in their Senate submission. Here’s your link.

You might not be surprised – but I think you will be appalled.