Is Q&A serious?

Last night I watched the ABC TV show, Q&A. As always, it was a passionate and engaging discussion. When the topics revolve around religion, homosexuality and women's rights a Molotov cocktail is imminent and last nights discussion was as explosive as expected. Yet as the program finished, sadly, I felt that an opportunity had been missed. An opportunity to have a thoughtful, reasoned discussion on some really important issues.

I felt that the selection of the panellists was mainly to blame. It was appropriate that Archbishop Peter Jensen was invited on the show to answer questions regarding a number of recent, controversial issues, particularly the call for women to submit and Jim Wallace's recent discussion on homosexuality. But my main question is, why was the main atheist protagonist Catherine Deveny? Deveny's contributions were simplistic, disrespectful, insulting and self refuting.

When asked if she respected marriage, she responded with 'no', but continued to claim that we should have gay marriage, and gay divorce! She demonstrated little awareness of the message of the Bible and she claimed that she was intolerant of those who are intolerant - not recognising the contradictory nature of her claim.

As Jensen attempted to have a sensible, reasonable discussion, Deveny was cracking jokes, suggesting that a marriage service conducted by Sydney Anglicans was equivalent to getting married in a museum by dinosaurs. This is hardly an appropriate attempt at engaging in some really serious issues. It's hard for me to stand in an atheist's shoes, but I felt she would have embarrassed my cause - particularly if modern atheism claims to stand for rationality and reasoned thinking. Jensen came across to me as the calmer, more reasoned panellist.

I did value the contributions of Anna Krien. I felt she added real value to the discussion when she was given an opportunity to speak, but I felt that overall she was a treated as a little superfluous - she was never asked a direct question by the audience (contrast Jensen, who was asked four!)

Surely there are more thoughtful, reasonable athiest presenters than Deveny who could have engaged with rigour and respect, the issues raised by Jensen's presence on the panel?

Q&A is a rare forum where those with opposing views are gathered for a thoughtful, stimulating and usually respectful discussion of the issues of the week. I enjoy the show, because the different perspectives are often represented fairly and well. Many criticise our modern political discourse as being shallow and dominated by sound bites. Q&A is usually a forum to rise above this malaise, yet unfortunately last night, I felt it failed.