No To Pope Protest

The huge cross national, multi cultural celebration of Catholic faith has been a huge success. People from around the world including many from poor nations who know a lot more about injustice than a small group of middle class white protestors have shown a thirst for what is right. The Catholic Church is not perfect. Trust me, Catholics know it better than some of the protestors. But the protestors need to realise that people make their choices about condoms and who are you to tell others to use them. BTW, many Catholics do. Also, todays church is not that of 100 years ago. I don't hold you accountable for Stalin's terror or the human rights abuses in Communist China despite many of you clinging to socialist rhetoric. Nor should you attack Cathoilcs for past crimes of the church. Today's church is about human rights, helping the poor, fighting things which degrade life like capital punishment, war, abortion etc and trying to realise our own failures and imrove on them. The secular extremism demonstarted by some is becoming a threat to basic human rights and has deteriorated into intolerance. And just so you know there are many progressive Catholics. I also was at APEC demos, marched against the attack on Iraq which the Catholic church clearly opposed and visited East Timor to support the freedom struggle there. My opposition to things like abortion and my belief in God may not sit comfortably with some on the left but remains the views of a huge section of the world. Peace to all.

Actually I was a protestor and I'm from one of the poorest suburbs in Sydney, and a former Catholic myself.

A number of the people I spoke to who were protesting were capitalists (right wing), and I didn't see the NSW Government spending $160 million dollars of tax payers money on World Atheist Day, which happened to have been the 19th July 2008.

Oh yeah, and why does the G&L Mardigras get only marginal late night coverage on SBS, when every channel, including SBS show every aspect of so called "world youth day". And where is the coverage for Black History Month, which is this month. And why did they show Aboriginal Pligrims, but not Aboriginal protestors?

And why did Channel 7 say that we 'hurled abuse' at Catholics, when all we said was "The Pope is Wrong, Put a condom on"? Meanwhile, some pilgrims told us we were going to hell, and swore at us? (though many were quite friendly)>

Simple, even though Catholics account for less than 30% of the population of Sydney, the media involved, and Morris Iemma, are Catholics.

Just a couple of responses.

" I didn't see the NSW Government spending $160 million dollars of tax payers money on World Atheist Day"

I didn't see 200,000 people at World Atheist Day.

"...why does the G&L Mardigras get only marginal late night coverage on SBS"

G&L Mardi Gras is a yearly event which, many would argue, has outlived its usefullness, certainly its newsworthiness. It seems even the G&L community's support of this event is waning if the financial difficulty that the event is experiencing is anything to go by.

"And why did they show Aboriginal Pligrims, but not Aboriginal protestors?"

I saw Aboriginal NTP protestors on Seven's evening news on Friday night. Why have you singled out aboriginal protestors anyway? What does it matter the racial backgorund of the pilgrims or protestors? What is the point of this question?

"Simple, even though Catholics account for less than 30% of the population of Sydney, the media involved, and Morris Iemma, are Catholics"

You might be arguing for some great, Catholic conspiracy, but as you state, around 30% of the population of Sydney is Catholic. If we assume that the populations is 4.5 million, then that means that some 1.35 million people in Sydney alone were represented by the event. So it's hardly an event representing a small fringe of the population.

"....why did Channel 7 say that we 'hurled abuse' at Catholics"

Probably because some of you did. And you also hurled condoms. I'm not saying that you ALL hurled abuse, that you ALL hurled condoms, but you have to take responsibility for a small minority in your organisation, kinda like the Catholic Church has had to take responsibility for a small minority within their organisation.......

You may remember the NTP Coalition in the federal court a week or two ago, fighting the good fight in its crusade to defend our freedom of speech. The NTP argued that the right to cause an "annoyance" was fundamental to freedom of speech and, as a result, had the NSW State Government's ill conceived WYD nuisance laws overturned. So, with this sort of pedigree in the defence of our liberties you'd expect that their own website would be a bastion of free speech, right?

Wrong! The NTPC's own website had a forum that is now shut down, supposedly for excessive "flaming". Now I'm not sure whether the definition of "flaming" extends to expressing an opposing opinion but, in the lexicon of the NTPC, it seems to. In the forums there was a debate going on about the merits and validity of their cause. During that debate, the Head Administrator, a fellow going by the screen name "Star Adrael" would frequently delete certain sections of people's posts for this supposed "flaming". I myself was subjected to such deletions in my posts for some fairly mild rebukes in response to opinions that ranged from outrageous to downright bigoted. But it didn't stop there. Star Adrael would also, where he saw fit, insert editorial comments into the posts of others! Star Adrael would proudly claim that the NTPC were opposed to all forms vilification yet breezily and off-handedly made such statements as "the Catholic Church indoctrinates babies" and "the Catholic Chruch supports "pedophilia" (sic) and homophobia" When I lightheartedly suggested that pedophilia "rather sounds like a foot fetish", guess what happened? That's right, deleted for "flaming"!

In the end I suspect it all got rather embarrassing for NTPC because, after my own and others repeatedly pointing out their own ideological inconsistencies the forum was shut down...... for "flaming".

So with all of that in mind, I call upon the No to Pope Coalition, in the interests of free speech, to restore the forum, even if only to allow the public to read the posts and to make up their own minds on the opinions that were expressed. I further call upon the NTPC to reinstate all posts in their original, unedited form so that the public can make their own judgments on what constitutes "flaming" Then the public will be better equipped to judge whether you are worthy guardians of our civil liberties or whether you aren't just a bunch of "flaming" hypocrites!

Ok Tiger :)

Obviously some issues from both of us making generalisation. I try to fix now.

You make the generalisation that everyone from NTPC shares the same ideology
; that is, they are Raelians that belong to the Socialist Alliance. I couldn't disagree more, even though Pope Alice is hilarious, and I was a protestor / vountary member of the coalition, I am neither a Raelian or a member of SA.

Star Adrael, on the other hand, IS a Raelian, and I base this on actually looking up Raelian websites. And the Socialist Alliance (whilst hypocritical in many respects like all political parties) has a strong communist bent, which you should know, is broadly secular / atheist and would presumably value Darwinism, which is at odds with Raelian ideology (scientific creationism). So there are inconsistencies with assuming that even people who seem to belong to the same subgroups within a group actually do.

His/Her? censorship on your supposed flaming, well I didn't read it, and even if I did, assuming you weren't making serious death threats, it should damn well be reinstated. I'm anti censorship after all, and you know what, that's why I got so shitty about WYD in the first place.

Now your comments re: implied "Singling out" of Indigenous protestors. Understand where you got that, now heres what I mean. Did you hear the speech given by Indigneous protestors at Taylor Square? Probably not. And Ch7 didn't air it either, and yet the abuse of Indigenous kiddies by clergy in the scenario of the stolen generation, and the general issue of child abuse in NT etc is definitely RELEVANT. But most footage of Indigenous RE: WYD I saw on all channels was showing happy koori pilgrims on the harbour bridge. Good, there are multiple sides to the coin, but I think mainstream media was the one being 'selective' and subliminally using footage as a political wedge, which it has done with many issues, if you've been looking. But basically if Rudd had apologised to I dunno, Catholics, for being stolen and abused, then I would talk about Catholic protestors. But it was not the case.

as for the mardigras, well that lost its politiks about 10 or 15 year ago when the coppers stopped beating people up and sydney council started charging for stall space on open day. doesn't mean its not relevant to wider audience, its an annual event held every year that attract tourism, like the footy finals. but it's apparently not important for prime time. nor is the sydney writer's festival, which goes way out west too. why? it's too artistic, and art far too often leads to free thought. so does sexuality. oh dear, i'm getting too counter hegemonic. better censor myself. ;)

meanwhile if you run around calling paraders faggots and poets alcoholics, you're not going to get fined $5,500 for it. nor are they asking for the worlds faggots and alcholics to sleep over in your local state-run primary school just for the privelege of wearing a feather boa and / or dipping it in ink. Come to think of it even George Bush and the whole big wide world of Olympics didn't ask that either, and that even includes the other 70% of the worlds non catholics :)

good day to you tiger.

If I was a red or pagan or whatever rallying against christianity I would be thanking the catholic church for being but that the biggest shopfront charade in public however in reality the biggest occult threat to Christ ever. Some real christians dont call the Catholic Church the Great Harlot of apcalypse millenialism for nothing you know!.