In which the NSW government goes mad again ...

... and no one is terribly surprised.

Every now and then governments startle me with their idiocy. Left or Right, they're all prone to it. In the latest example of political power = utter divorce from reality, the NSW State Government has decided that it is a crime for people to annoy or offend pilgrims at World Youth Day. Read about it here.

World Youth Day is basically a gathering of a few hundred thousand Catholics, who are descending on Sydney to hang out with the Pope and do Catholic things. Including carting about the corpse of a saint. Which is weirdly cool from a medievalist perspective. Various parts of the city have been handed over to the Catholic Church to do as they will for the month, while other parts have severely limited access for non-pilgrim residents.

Now this new legislation makes it a crime to annoy or offend pilgrims. So the protesters planning to hand out condoms (there is a sleepover for teen pilgrims at one of the events, I suspect the condoms would be useful!) can be strip-searched, fined over $5000 and jailed. People dressed in 'offensive T-shirts' can be subject to the same responses. Someone who runs through a mass of pilgrims in a desperate bid to make it to their train, same.

This probably means that I need to postpone the protest that I was planning against the Jensenite Sydney Anglicans -- quietly sitting in their services wearing a T-shirt that says "Eat bacon or lobster? Hypocrite!"

What really annoys me is that all of the laws regarding hate speech have weasel clauses allowing religions to say what they like. So the Pope can stand up and declare that my family is not a family (my mum's a lesbian), but I cannot stand nearby quietly holding a sign proclaiming 'Team Salah al-Din, We Choose Rosewater.'

What makes me crazy is that this is the same government that has allowed a lot of hate speech against Muslims, but will not allow even legitimate questioning of Catholicism. Now I am as unimpressed by the current state of much of the Islamic world as the next history buff, but let's be realistic here, if only in terms of sexually transmitted issues (from AIDs to botched abortions) that could all be cleared up with condom use, the Catholic Church is responsible for many times the deaths of Islamist terrorism.

I have some friends who wonder at my godless heathenism. I marvel at their ability to maintain personal faith given the bad faith of so many churches. Thank goodness for the Quakers.

In which the NSW government goes mad again ...

... and no one is terribly surprised.

Every now and then governments startle me with their idiocy. Left or Right, they're all prone to it. In the latest example of political power = utter divorce from reality, the NSW State Government has decided that it is a crime for people to annoy or offend pilgrims at World Youth Day. Read about it here.

World Youth Day is basically a gathering of a few hundred thousand Catholics, who are descending on Sydney to hang out with the Pope and do Catholic things. Including carting about the corpse of a saint. Which is weirdly cool from a medievalist perspective. Various parts of the city have been handed over to the Catholic Church to do as they will for the month, while other parts have severely limited access for non-pilgrim residents.

Now this new legislation makes it a crime to annoy or offend pilgrims. So the protesters planning to hand out condoms (there is a sleepover for teen pilgrims at one of the events, I suspect the condoms would be useful!) can be strip-searched, fined over $5000 and jailed. People dressed in 'offensive T-shirts' can be subject to the same responses. Someone who runs through a mass of pilgrims in a desperate bid to make it to their train, same.

This probably means that I need to postpone the protest that I was planning against the Jensenite Sydney Anglicans -- quietly sitting in their services wearing a T-shirt that says "Eat bacon or lobster? Hypocrite!"

What really annoys me is that all of the laws regarding hate speech have weasel clauses allowing religions to say what they like. So the Pope can stand up and declare that my family is not a family (my mum's a lesbian), but I cannot stand nearby quietly holding a sign proclaiming 'Team Salah al-Din, We Choose Rosewater.'

What makes me crazy is that this is the same government that has allowed a lot of hate speech against Muslims, but will not allow even legitimate questioning of Catholicism. Now I am as unimpressed by the current state of much of the Islamic world as the next history buff, but let's be realistic here, if only in terms of sexually transmitted issues (from AIDs to botched abortions) that could all be cleared up with condom use, the Catholic Church is responsible for many times the deaths of Islamist terrorism.

I have some friends who wonder at my godless heathenism. I marvel at their ability to maintain personal faith given the bad faith of so many churches. Thank goodness for the Quakers.