Anzac Day for All not just morons

"Just hope that as we remember Servicemen and women today we remember the Australia they fought for - wasn't gay marriage and Islamic" – Jim Wallace via Twitter April 25, 2011

For those of you who don’t know, and many of you probably didn’t until today, Jim Wallace is the head of the Australian Christian Lobby and former SAS Serviceman.

While Wallace is obviously in touch with technology he is clearly out of touch with society, history and reality. Anzac Day, perhaps Australia’s most uniting and cathartic day of the year, coincides with Easter Monday this year, which makes Wallace’s tweet even more bizarre and offensive.

Wallace seems to think that Anzac day and the feats over the decades of thousands of service men and women are righteously reserved for those of us that fit within his narrow view of what Australia should be. I for one would never presume to generalize about the motivations of those who have served their country, but as the son of a Vietnam veteran, I think I can fairly say that it wasn’t so we could all live in an intolerant and non-secular society.

Over 1400 Australian’s serving in the Islamist Afghanistan to build the capacity of local forces to secure a stable environment for Afghanis and reduce threat of terrorism there and abroad

Does Wallace think the Australian’s serving today are less noble than those who served before them?

Wallace has since ‘unreservedly’ apologized for his tweet but that hasn’t stopped an immediate and sustained backlash by fellow tweeters.  We enjoy many of the freedoms we have in this country today because of the sacrifices of our armed services, which means that people like Wallace can make offensive and ill informed comments and people like me can refer to him as a dip shit for doing so.

Lest We Forget.