Controversial Cleric or Just A Boofhead?

Politics here can be quite colourful. We start in October last year with Australia’s senior Muslim cleric, Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali who compared scantily-clad women to “uncovered meat”, the inference, later denied, being that they had only themselves to blame if they were molested by men. This provoked a storm of protest from all sections of society.

Fast forward to this week when the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, warned members of the NSW State Government that they faced consequences in their religious life if they supported a bill to extend stem cell research. More outrage, including from NSW Cabinet Minister Nathan Rees who compared the cardinal to “that serial boofhead, Sheik Alhilali.”

Another Cabinet Minister and Catholic, Frank Sartor, said the remarks were reminiscent of the Dark Ages and added: “I’m very sceptical about people who claim to speak in the name of God….because if you look at history, people have been burnt in oil in the name of God.”

No word from the controversial cardinal as to whether that’s what he has in store for Frank and any other MPs voting the wrong way, but I can tell you that a “boofhead” is defined as a fool by my Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary (yes, really), probably based on “bufflehead”, buffle being an obsolete word for buffalo.