Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a program designed
to bring you up to speed,
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catch your
interest and inform you
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on religious
liberty developments
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in the US and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln
Steed, host of the program
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and for 22 years
editor of Liberty magazine,
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and nearly as
long on this program.
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And I'd like to
take you far away
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where I originally
came from, way down South.
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I've told people for years
talking to audiences in the US,
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I'm from the Deep South.
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Well, it's Deep South,
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the South of the great
Southern land of Australia.
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But talking about
religious liberty,
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it's hit me that
something took place down there
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a few decades ago
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that was very telling
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on the nature of
religious liberty
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and how easily
societal attitudes
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can turn against those of faith.
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Perhaps a few of
the viewers remember,
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especially if you are
readers of Adventist books.
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When I was book editor
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at Pacific
Press in Boise, Idaho,
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I was under
assignment to get a book
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based on the story I'm about
to share a little with you,
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the saga of the Chamberlains,
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Lindy and Michael Chamberlain.
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A Seventh-day Adventist
Church pastor and his wife,
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who with their infant
daughter and two young sons
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went out into the desert
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in the Center of
Australia at Ayers Rock
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where there's a massive monolith
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surrounded by
mostly desert plains
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with a few scrubby eucalyptus,
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and kangaroos, and
emus but not much else.
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They went camping
there and while...
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Even to this day,
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it's a little
obscure what happened.
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It appears
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that while they were
gathered around the campfire
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with their
children in a nearby tent,
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a dingo or a wild
dog crept into the tent
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and took the
child out of the sleep
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of a little bassinet is the term
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they use down there,
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in the presence of the two boys.
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But it was never clear
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if they saw it or
what they were doing.
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It was an incredible
headline used item for years
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and I was in Australia
during much of that period.
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And initially,
people were just overwhelmed
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with sympathy for the family
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as you'd expect
because to have a child
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that's just a few weeks old
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taken and probably
eaten by the wild animals
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was horrific.
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Unfortunately, the
family didn't help a lot.
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The father was a
Seventh-day Adventist minister
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and I think
because of their faith,
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they were able to
bear up reasonably well,
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and make statements to the media
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that they were not worried.
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They knew they would
see their daughter again
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beyond this veil of tears,
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but they had
hope for another time.
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That was good.
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But
unfortunately as time went on,
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that seemed to translate
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into a rather careless
attitude in the public mind
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because the next day
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Michael was there
taking photographs.
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He said he was
going to write a book
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about the event.
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In the inquest
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that was followed
closely by the public.
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The wife turned up in a
different dress every day
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and the newspaper
started covering it like
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a fashion moment
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and so people
became a little ambivalent.
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Were these truly
grieving parents?
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So a lot of gossip grew up
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that maybe something happened
different than an animal.
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Then a
misunderstanding kicked in
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Seventh-day Adventists
Protestant Christians,
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Bible believing and
prophecy explicating
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Protestant Christians
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and one of the emphases
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of the Adventist
Church is on health.
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We're very much
opposed to alcohol,
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tobacco and other
habits and substances
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that will ruin
our body's integrity
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and, of course,
cloud our minds about
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understanding spiritual things.
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And in spite of that the husband
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had run anti-smoking clinics
in his church and as a gimmick
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but very unfortunate
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when the media
attention focused on them.
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He used to carry
a little coffin down
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in the middle of the church
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and have people throw
their cigarettes into it
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as he was asking
them to stop smoking.
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Well, a little coffin
seems more than prescient
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for a family like that.
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People started to wonder,
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"Was it foreshadowing
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their efforts to
do away with a child?"
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So rumors grew up like crazy.
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But the judge, like
most judges kept to the law
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and tried to
have personal justice
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as well as legal justice.
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And so at the
hearing, they made it public
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and he decried all of
the rumors and innuendos
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that were going on.
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And he said, "These are
truly grieving parents."
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He says they did
not harm their child
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and exonerated them.
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And that should
have been the end of it,
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but
unfortunately there was a fight
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even within the church.
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And a dentist
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from the same
religious community
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was convinced that
they had done something
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so he went to the police.
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They gave him the little
jacket that had been found
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and he took that to England
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and here is
where farce kicks in.
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He took it to England and
had a dingo expert in England.
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There's no dingo in
England, examined it.
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And the idea
that he brought back
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was that there was
not teeth marks on it.
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These were scissor marks.
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And so a whole
scenario was cooked up
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whereby with the
group around the fire
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the mother had ducked
away for just a moment,
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killed the child with scissors,
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stuffed his body in a camera bag
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and come back
and acted normally.
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The timing was improbable,
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as well as the
rationale was crazy,
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so then the police started
really checking on this couple.
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Again, they
didn't help themselves
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very much.
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They separated them
with quiz separately,
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of course, with
tape recorders rolling.
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And the wife sure
of her innocence said
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to the policeman in the car,
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she said, "Even if I did
it, you couldn't prove it."
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And he says,
"You're a very clever woman,
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but we will get you."
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So those were all
unfortunate human elements
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that contributed to it,
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but there's no question
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that as this thing
revved up religious prejudice,
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misunderstandings,
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and then outright disliked
minority group kicked in.
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And it went on
for years and years
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and in the end,
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Lindy
Chamberlain was put on trial,
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convicted and sentenced to,
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I think it was 20
years but a lifetime,
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essentially with hard labor.
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Her husband was
convicted of being an accomplice
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but given a suspended sentence,
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which is where the
judge showed his clemency
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because the judge
was very easy on them
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but the community were not
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and the jury in that
area were very prejudiced.
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They even allowed to go
home at night and discuss things
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and what's the
news and all the rest.
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But in the
sentencing guidelines for her,
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the judge had no
choice so it was obligatory.
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With the husband, he showed
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that he didn't really
think that this even happened.
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And the government,
as I listened to it,
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were looking for an
excuse to release it from prison
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because it's not unusual.
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Even when a parent
does kill a child like that,
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they'll put it down to
extenuating circumstances
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like postpartum
depression or whatever.
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But what I
really want to bring up
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here in this short discussion
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is once religious
prejudice kicked in,
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it then divided the church.
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And half of the church members
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believe she'd done it, half not.
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In the wide community,
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the vast majority
of citizens believed
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that this woman was guilty.
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They do till this
day, incidentally.
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So there was
infighting in the church,
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half of the church
members were prayerful about it,
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the other half
were politically active,
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and used to hold
rallies on the Sabbath day,
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even demanding her release.
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And I talked to some of them
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and they did notice
that there was a connection
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between for one
of a better word,
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religious liberalism
and the political activism
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of those that were
supporting political reasons
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to get her out of prison.
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But it tore the
church apart and the country
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was in a turmoil
periodically over this.
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In the middle of all of this,
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I was listening
to the legal programs
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on government radio.
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And there were two
things that happened
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that made me realize
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the stakes were very, very high.
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As in America,
Australia has great guilt
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about its treatment of
the indigenous peoples.
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The United States
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has gotten over
it to a large degree,
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but you know,
there were land grants,
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reservations and so on
given to the Indian tribes
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and they're out of sight,
out of mind for most people.
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In Australia, it's
a little more public
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because of the
civil rights movements
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of recent years.
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They've taken up the
cause of the Aboriginals
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and given them
the land back also
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and recognizing
sacred places and so on.
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But in recognition
of the abusive nature
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of colonialism
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and the White
settlement in Australia,
00:10:16.85\00:10:19.65
they have long
allowed native peoples
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to give unsworn
testimony in court.
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That's not allowed
in the US that I know of
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and that was out of
deference to the fact.
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And Australian Aboriginals
are not an aggressive people,
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nothing to do with
colonialism or whatever.
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There are just a very
passive quiet, sorts of,
00:10:36.20\00:10:40.77
a nature of their race.
00:10:40.80\00:10:43.20
And so to allow
them to appear in court
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were normally
under cross examination,
00:10:46.41\00:10:49.21
they could be intimidated,
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and they would say nothing
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or crack under the
attorney's questions.
00:10:52.58\00:10:56.79
It had been allowed
00:10:56.82\00:10:58.15
that they could
give the testimony.
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It would be unchallenged
to go into the record.
00:10:59.55\00:11:02.52
In the middle of
this Chamberlain thing,
00:11:02.56\00:11:04.83
where the followers of
Lindy were trying to elect
00:11:04.86\00:11:08.10
their own representatives
00:11:08.13\00:11:09.76
into the Northern
territory where this took place,
00:11:09.80\00:11:14.10
into the Northern territory
assembly with the stated aim
00:11:14.14\00:11:17.27
that they would then
use their legal powers
00:11:17.31\00:11:20.08
to release her from prison.
00:11:20.11\00:11:22.98
And one of the
Adventist lay people,
00:11:23.01\00:11:27.52
a wealthy
journalist had uncovered
00:11:27.55\00:11:30.79
supposedly new testimony
from an Aboriginal tracker,
00:11:30.82\00:11:33.62
who could prove,
00:11:33.66\00:11:35.69
"prove that the
body had been dragged
00:11:35.72\00:11:39.26
under the home of a ranger
00:11:39.29\00:11:43.50
who then shot the
animal and disposed the body."
00:11:43.53\00:11:47.77
Crazy stuff.
00:11:47.80\00:11:49.70
And here on the legal
program, they were saying,
00:11:49.74\00:11:53.98
"No reference to
the Chamberlain thing."
00:11:54.01\00:11:55.68
But suddenly in
the middle of this
00:11:55.71\00:11:57.71
that they were in the process
of removing this clause that...
00:11:57.75\00:12:01.25
or this provision
that allowed natives
00:12:01.28\00:12:05.02
to give unsworn testimony.
00:12:05.05\00:12:08.56
So it removed a
massive protection
00:12:08.59\00:12:12.06
from an entire people
00:12:12.09\00:12:14.06
in trying to get this
one person out of jail.
00:12:14.10\00:12:17.47
That was bad enough
but then a few weeks later,
00:12:17.50\00:12:19.70
I heard something that
is much more relevant now
00:12:19.73\00:12:23.20
but it was very
frightening at the occasion.
00:12:23.24\00:12:25.47
This was not well before 9/11.
00:12:25.51\00:12:27.48
This was in the 1980s.
00:12:27.51\00:12:31.55
And the lawyers
came on this program
00:12:31.58\00:12:33.55
and they said the
greatest threat ever
00:12:33.58\00:12:35.62
to civil
liberties is taking place
00:12:35.65\00:12:37.59
in the Northern Territory.
00:12:37.62\00:12:39.59
They said they're
in the process of...
00:12:39.62\00:12:41.69
They put forward
a bill that would...
00:12:41.72\00:12:44.86
an anti-terrorism bill.
00:12:44.89\00:12:46.53
And at that point,
00:12:46.56\00:12:47.90
there had never been a
terrorist act in Australia.
00:12:47.93\00:12:51.00
The closest to it,
00:12:51.03\00:12:52.93
there's a lot
of Serbs and Croats
00:12:52.97\00:12:54.70
that have made
their way to Australia
00:12:54.74\00:12:56.81
and because we
know the Balkans War,
00:12:56.84\00:12:58.54
what that produced there
00:12:58.57\00:12:59.91
but in Australia
it was just antagonism
00:12:59.94\00:13:01.58
between the
elements of the community.
00:13:01.61\00:13:03.68
And I remember on one occasion
00:13:03.71\00:13:05.05
someone
exploded the garbage can,
00:13:05.08\00:13:07.05
probably put a
firecracker or something in.
00:13:07.08\00:13:09.28
That was the closest
to a terrorist action.
00:13:09.32\00:13:11.72
So here according to this
00:13:11.75\00:13:14.66
law review report,
00:13:14.69\00:13:18.09
they said this great
threat to civil liberties
00:13:18.13\00:13:20.43
was coming under
an anti-terrorism bill
00:13:20.46\00:13:22.90
and the bill will
be set up this way.
00:13:22.93\00:13:25.97
They would establish an
anti-terrorism Commissioner,
00:13:26.00\00:13:30.74
who would not be bound
by the rules of evidence.
00:13:30.77\00:13:34.78
Now that's quite startling.
00:13:34.81\00:13:36.71
Both in Australia and
England and also in the US,
00:13:36.75\00:13:42.35
there's the
rules of Habeas corpus
00:13:42.38\00:13:44.29
and the conventions of,
00:13:44.32\00:13:47.36
you know, a trial by jury
00:13:47.39\00:13:48.79
and you know, all of
these conventions of fair trial,
00:13:48.82\00:13:51.39
fair and speedy
trial and you're innocent
00:13:51.43\00:13:53.86
until proven guilty and so on.
00:13:53.90\00:13:55.30
That wouldn't
apply in this case.
00:13:55.33\00:13:56.77
He's not bound by
the rules of evidence
00:13:56.80\00:13:59.30
and he would hold a secret
list of terrorist organizations,
00:13:59.33\00:14:03.61
a secret list,
never made public.
00:14:03.64\00:14:06.21
And if you belonged to a member
00:14:06.24\00:14:09.34
of one of these
secretly listed organizations,
00:14:09.38\00:14:13.01
you would be
subject to immediate
00:14:13.05\00:14:15.02
and arbitrary arrest
00:14:15.05\00:14:16.72
and imprisonment without trial
00:14:16.75\00:14:19.52
on hard labor for
the rest of your life.
00:14:19.55\00:14:21.56
I mean, it's just...
00:14:21.59\00:14:22.92
You couldn't hardly
credit such a thing.
00:14:22.96\00:14:24.73
And it clearly was a response
00:14:24.76\00:14:28.00
to the political
pressure being brought
00:14:28.03\00:14:31.07
to gain release
of Lindy Chamberlain.
00:14:31.10\00:14:35.24
A very sad situation.
00:14:35.27\00:14:37.51
I will speak a
little bit more about it
00:14:37.54\00:14:39.07
after the break
but stay with me.
00:14:39.11\00:14:41.68
And we'll continue
the tale of the desert
00:14:41.71\00:14:45.25
from Australia and
civil and religious liberties.
00:14:45.28\00:14:47.88