Letter to The Editor - Prejudiced and intolerant mindset that has intensified in recent decades

To The Australian        Matthew Lesh has provided a fine defence of the crucial importance to our justice system of the presumption of innocence ("Sexual assault too serious a crime for a campus verdict", 19/10). The universities of Sydney and Tasmania need to pull back from their proposals for home patch arbitration of rape assault charges on the basis of a balance of probabilities. Behind these proposals, as behind so many wild and woolly campaigns by radicals, lies a prejudiced and intolerant mindset that has intensified in recent decades. Where did this obtuse stubbornness come from? The answer is probably twofold: the loss of strength of the high quality intellectual traditions of Christianity (as opposed to relatively mindless forms of populist Protestantism) and the appalling rapidity of so much of modern life, which does not provide time for deep consideration of the implications of change of policy.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic