In which the NSW government goes mad again ...

[blamebrampton]

... 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.

Comments

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

Oh! Oh! Grr, argh! Surely there must be some discrimination laws that are violated by this?

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

Or, you know. Antidiscrimination laws.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Alas, all of the anti-discrimination laws have exemption clauses for religious belief. Oh the irony!

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

Hahaha! Oh, that would be truly funny if it wasn't so stupid. Good job that religion isn't a touchy subject for anyone, then, and that "annoyance" and "inconvenience" are such objective terms.

It's completely beyond me how anyone can fail to see the Pope's disinclination to save millions of lives with two simple words as pure evil. Moral high ground? I rather think not!

[pushdragon.livejournal.com]

I'm not reading about it because it would make me too cross.

Though i can understand that it's important to protect the conservative wing of the church from villification so that it can get on with the serious business of villifying those who need to be villified.

Maybe if we re-cast Mardi Gras as a pilgrimmage it will attract the same protections?

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I despair of a world where Pells and Jensens are seen as pillars of anything. It does reinforce my atheism, though. A just god would be smiting by now.

You don't want the Mardi Gras Pilgrimage; the Stations of the Cross would be far too disruptive to traffic ...

[azurelunatic]

Indeed, hooray for the Quakers. If I had to choose a Christian sect, I'd go back to them in a heartbeat. (Dad was Quaker; Mama stayed away from religion.)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

One of the few groups that seem uniformly to have read and be interested in following the central tenets of their faith. And then humble about it. No wonder they're not in charge of anything ...

[azurelunatic]

Though that's in the macrocosm. In the microcosm ... well, there are Many Interesting Times to be had when any given group is hashing out something that's to be done for the community benefit.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. People will still be people no matter what. Though I like to think that Quakers who have Behaved Badly feel especially guilty afterwards.

[azurelunatic]

It's not so much Behaving Badly as it is many enthusiastic people, all going for the same general goal -- this thing, and in a form that will be accepted by the collective -- all earnestly attempting to convince the others in good faith that Their Idea Is Best.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Sorry to laugh, but I can just imagine a whole room of people trying to make their point while simultaneously being Very Humble. Ah, bless.

To change the subject just slightly

[the-peahen.livejournal.com]

Apparently a certain quaker that lived in SA during the early 1900s had a fondness for chocolate (or at least recognised their commercial value).

His name was Alfred E. Haigh.
http://haighschocolates.com.au/our_company/history.html

It doesn't mention it on the company website, but it is yet another things the quakers got right.

Re: To change the subject just slightly

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

What are you doing here? Shoo! This is my silly lj. But yes, chocolate frogs ...

Re: To change the subject just slightly

[the-peahen.livejournal.com]

Ok, I will go away now.

[jamie2109.livejournal.com]

How bloody ridiculous!

Grrr, no wonder I left the RC church years ago.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

No wonder I stopped sleeping with boys from the ALP years ago!

[deensey.livejournal.com]

Oh things that piss me off also, this.

Very much this.

GRAH. Australia, land of free speech for white christian males, preferably only the ones who read the telegraph.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

But we can't have paid maternity leave or trains that function! There's no money!!

Sigh.

[jackieohno.livejournal.com]

This is so funny, because one of my childhood friends (who's Catholic) asked me if I wanted to go along with her church contingent to World Youth Day, and I didn't know how to break it to her that I've been mostly agnostic for a long while now. I'll have to tell her this piece of (ridiculous) news! Do you think there'll still be protestors, though?

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

If my peer group is anything to go by, then an awful lot of people who were just planning to ignore WYD are now planning to come up with ways to skirt the boundaries of legality. Though we could all run out of care long before then ...

[jackieohno.livejournal.com]

More power to your peer group then! They totally should find new and inventive ways to protest, I mean if it's non-violent then anything goes, eh?

(Not that I have much experience with protests. Ahem.)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

We have guessed that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are right out ...

If you go mad and decide to come, I can pop into town and annoy you over a coffee, then you can have me arrested, pilgrim!

[jackieohno.livejournal.com]

OMG! I just googled the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (for I was ignorant of them) and that is just so amazing. I especially like Sister Risque of the Sissyteen Chapel. Haha. Because apparently I'm really a trapped teenaged boy inside.

I will make my way over to Sydney (and Melbourne!) one of these days, rest assured, but I think I'll give World Youth Day a pass. Unless I can dress up as an OPI nun too...?

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Good, aren't they?

You could dress up as an OPI nun, and stand with my friend who will be dressed as a condom!

[bryoneybrynn.livejournal.com]

All I can say is "Ha, sucker!" because about five years ago we had World Youth Day here in Toronto and oh god did it suck. We totally had the same debate about condoms (though they were distributed, and used, I might add). They had the big Pope fest in a park in the north of the city. They completely underestimated the amount of Port-A-Potties they'd need and they failed to properly ensure clean up - the result? There was a sewage flood that ran downhill and flooded a big furniture store. And the city refused to pay for damages. Nice.

The worst part though was the bloody pilgrams everywhere!! Standing in groups of 20 on the street corners blocking my way, crowding the subways - seriously, my rushhour subway wait went from 2-3 cars to 4-5 cars. Just always roving around in their matching back packs getting in the way! Drove me insane!! And yes, it is not nice of me but I can't help it. It was so irritating. And because I dislike religion a lot, the fact that it was all for some catholic love-in just pissed me off more.

Also, WTF with the crazy legislation? That's just so wrong, I want to cry. I don't know if I offended any pilgrams while they were here but I know I elbowed more than one when they stopped in the door of the subway trying to decide if this was the car they wanted to get into or not... *rolls eyes*

Heathens unite!! Huzzah!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

OH NO! A good friend of mine is managing the infrastructure side of it, including portaloos; I will wish him luck. He has basically decided that everyone attending will be an idiot with entitlement issues, given the standard of the organisers. I am just wanting it to go away. The state gov keep saying "It's like the Olympics", to which we are all replying "Oh it's just not!"

[bryoneybrynn.livejournal.com]

Toronto did that too - "It's an honour to be chosen for this international event" blah blah blah. It was shit, figuratively and literally (hee!) and everyone knew it.

You just have to wonder how many of them went home pregnant...

[meishali.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remember that event. It's more like six years ago... I remember being asked by some friends from high school (yah, I went to a Catholic school) whether I was going to volunteer at the event. Um...no, thank you.

The Toronto Catholic School Board isn't too bad; they encourage condom use, don't think gay people are evil, and are generally a tolerant, friendly bunch. However, the Pope is an entirely different story.

[lisbet.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry...it sounds just awful!:(

Out of curiosity, which dead saint are they carrying around?

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, though I told a lie and he is apparently only beatified. Still, he was a looker ...

[meredyth-13.livejournal.com]

Don't we have laws against these kinds of laws?

*headdesk*

Seriously, we have to get this freaking religious favouritism out of our politics and lawmaking. The world is not made up of Christians and Everyone Else who must by nature be a freak, a spawn of satan, a terrorist or a radical leftwing immoral bastard.

*goes back to headdesking*

I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure. ;)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Alas, they have half the city put aside. I blame the insane state government. I never thought the Libs would look good, but if they were all like Barry O'Farrell and without the attendant Hillsongers, I;d be voting for them. Sigh.

[(Anonymous)]

Pssst, Mere, taking a cheating moment at work to say email me your address, I have a little pressie for you that I can post today, but nowhere to post it to!

[snottygrrl.livejournal.com]

[*runs by*]

[*waves*]

just bopping by to say hi and check that you've disappeared from my email because you're busy or sick, but not because i've done anything untoward. have i told you how much i love you for your gigantic list you made me? even if i won't be able to go to leeds or york due to time constraints and an irrational need to go to brighton?

[*adores you to death*]

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

CRAZY BUSY!! But I have some Bath and Brighton suggestions, too, will write them up for you on the weekend. Can;t type much now, kitten balancing on shoulder ...