UNITED PROTEST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 August 1942, Page 4

UNITED PROTEST

AGAINST WAR TIME MORAL LAXITY MADE BY AUSTRALIAN CHURCH LEADERS. DRINK AND OTHER EVILS. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 16. An attack on war time moral decadence by the heads of seven Protestant churches in Sydney has again directed attention to “the very serious condition of affairs that threatens the moral stability of the nation.” Liquor, lack of parental control, the brown-out and the new freedoms given youth in the war effort have been blamed for the present laxity. The published protest makes six points:—

First, the drink evil has attained alarming proportions. Secondly, young girls are falling victims to intemperance and through it yield to immoral desires.

Thirdly, preventives are an official issue to soldiers going on leave. Fourthly, the advertising and sale of contraceptives to the civilian population has become a large trade.

Fifthly, erotic stimulation is being caused by suggestive pictures in magazines and advertisements, lewd scenes in some plays now being produced, and by the purveying through the post of pornographic literature. Sixthly, the Government has introduced a Bill granting pensions to the so-called “de facto” widows, thus placing a further premium on the disregard of the sacred obligations of marriage. The statement is signed by H. S. Mowall, Anglican Arcnbishop of Sydney; C. F. Mac Alpine, Moderator. of the Presbyterian Church of Australia; T. M. Taylor, President of the Methodist Church of Australia; R. C. Turner, chairman of the Congregational Union, J. M. Crawford, President of the Baptist Union; S. Stevens, President of the Churches of Christ; E. J. Harewood, Commissioner, Salvation Army. The protest is widely supported. . The seriousness of the falling birthrate and the rising incidence of social disease are stressed by civil as well as church leaders.