Notes: Saturday, February 5-Tuesday, February 8, 2011

1. Recent developments regarding so-called gay marriage

1.1 Mr. Pearson on an attempt by the Sodomites' League to silence opposition to 'gay marriage'

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/oversensitivity-can-only-compromise-debate/story-e6frg6zo-1226000416817

Excerpts:

In December [Graham Young, "the founding editor of a well-regarded e-journal called On Line Opinion"] published a piece arguing the case against gay marriage by the pro-family campaigner, Bill Muehlenberg, and then a series of spirited exchanges on the merits of the argument. It was not the first article he'd run on the subject ; that honour had gone to Rodney Croome, a gay activist. Nor were most of the essays run opposed to gay marriage.

Young commented on the blog in mid-December. "The On Line Opinion approach is one that many find difficult to accept, and we are currently under attack from a number of gay activists because we dared to publish [Muehlenberg's essay] which is mostly a pastiche of comments by gay activists, even though the majority of articles I can find on the site support gay marriage. And by attack I mean attempting to intimidate me, sponsors or advertisers. How ironic . . . when we are sponsoring the Human Rights Awards."

[...] On account of the Muehlenberg piece, Young told me two major advertisers had just pulled out: the ANZ Bank and IBM. Comparing this year's January gross ad sales with last year's, he calculated that revenue from his main category of advertising had fallen by 96 per cent. Young is worried that these bizarre decisions will adversely affect other websites as well as his own and could even lead to some of them closing down.

Courts might construe that as the result of an indiscriminate secondary boycott, in contravention of the Trade Practices Act.

That's because Young and a group of other political sites have formed a network called The Domain, to bundle up their readers as a more attractive package for advertisers. The sites are very diverse in terms of ideology, from the ultra-leftist John Passant, to the more mainstream centre-Left Larvatus Prodeo, Club Troppo, Andrew Bartlett, skepticlawyer and the likes of Henry Thornton and Jennifer Marohasy.

[...] So I approached the public relations people at IBM and the ANZ Bank, to find out whether the decision to punish an article against gay marriage by withdrawing their ads was corporate policy.

[...] The initial responses from the PR people in both corporations was that it was news to them and they'd get back to me before my deadline. The ANZ's Stephen Ries replied first. "ANZ does not advertise on any opinion-type websites that may cause offence or segregate any individuals or group. In this instance our advertising was placed through an automatic advertising placement service and once we were alerted to the content we removed our advertising.

"The removal of our advertising should not be viewed as a violation of free speech; it's simply that we choose not to advertise on blogs that do not align to our organisational values."

Oh, brave new world! Apparently anything less than uncritical endorsement of gay marriage no longer aligns with the ANZ's organisational values. What's more, the loss of ad revenue to all the blogs in the Domain network, irrespective of each site's stance on the issue, is neither here nor there and has nothing to do with their freedom of speech.

It's also worth noting that despite the blanket assurances of not advertising on opinion websites, the ANZ was advertising on New Matilda on Friday.

IBM's Matt Mollett's reply was more gnomic. "To optimise reach with its target audiences, IBM continuously reviews and refines its advertising strategy based on a range of considerations, including demographics and content."

Young suspects that the peg on which to hang the internal decision to withdraw advertising within both organisations was a code developed by IASH, the Internet Advertising Sales Houses, which he declined to sign.

The code is a triumph of political correctness gone mad, and badly needs rewriting. Schedule C provides that IASH Australia members "are forbidden to place advertising on sites containing barred content - in other words, any of the inventory defined below - in any circumstances. Content articulating views intended or reasonably likely to cause or incite hatred of any race, religion, creed, class or ethnic group. Content articulating views calculated to cause offence to or incite hatred of any individual or group."

The last sentence is the loopiest in the schedule. It forbids anything that might offend anyone. This would neuter not just contentious articles but the free flow of comment on them that gives blogs their character. As Young says, this section threatens any Australian discussion site. "No newspaper could sign up to this and have discussion threads that were anything other than anodyne."

Labels: A.N.Z., G.L.B.T., I.B.M., marriage, morality

Related:

1.1.1 Letters to The Australian on the matter:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/gay-lobby-and-the-marriage-debate/story-fn558imw-1226001080435

Labels: A.N.Z., G.L.B.T., I.B.M., marriage, morality

1.1.2 Mr. Muehlenberg on the matter:

http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2011/02/05/marriage-mischief-and-the-pink-mafia/

There Mr. Muehlenberg provides a link to the On Line Opinion piece in question, and in a comment of 7.2.11 / 2pm at that blog post one Gregory Storer, who is, according to Mr. Muehlenberg, "a homosexual activist; [a former] candidate for the Secular Party of Australia in 2010, and still belong to it; and ... the one who launched the complaint against Online Opinion", writes that

people will go to the advertisers when they aren’t happy with something that the advertiser is supporting, that is our right, and that’s what I did. ANZ and IBM have diversity policies, I drew there attention to them advertising on sites counter to their policies. [...] And of course, I’m not the only person to have complained about this – so can’t take full responsibility)

I think that this episode is a reminder to employees of companies with these 'diversity policies' that they should be very discrete about voicing any opposition to the Sodomites' League and its works.

Labels: A.N.Z., G.L.B.T., Gregory Storer, I.B.M., marriage, morality

1.2 The Australian Christian Lobby and, separately, a Tasmanian Liberal Senator launch petitions against 'gay marriage'

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/same-sex-first-then-polygamy/story-e6frg6nf-1226001084805

Labels: A.C.L., G.L.B.T., Guy Barnett, marriage, morality

1.3 "ACL takes campaign for marriage to the NT"

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=24948

Labels: A.C.L., G.L.B.T., marriage, morality

1.4 "French High Court affirms Traditional Marriage"

http://members7.boardhost.com/CathPews/thread/1296769612.html

Labels: France, G.L.B.T., marriage, morality

1.5 Sodomite's League to run pro-'gay-marriage' ad campaign for St. Valentine's Day/Mardi Gras; "At the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva last week, Norway recommended that Australia should amend the federal Marriage Act to recognise same-sex marriage"

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/ad-puts-a-face-to-gay-marriage-issue-20110205-1ahn4.html?skin=text-only

Labels: G.L.B.T., marriage, morality, Norway

2. "New bible translation to remove the word "holocaust" from the Old Testament"

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1100418.htm
http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=397519#397519
http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=397527#397527

Labels: Scripture, theology

3. "One third of the Catholic theology professors in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have signed a declaration calling for women’s ordination"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35913

Labels: theology, womenpriests

4. "New insights on manipulation of 1960s papal commission on birth control"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35907

Labels: contraception, Magisterium, morality

5. "Young Australians paid to have STD test"

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/young-australians-paid-to-have-std-test-20110131-1aaxd.html

Labels: health, vice

6. Interesting books reviewed/mentioned recently

6.1 "King Alfred the Great"

http://www.catholica.com.au/gc0/ak3/163_ak_010211.php

Labels: Alfred the Great

6.2 "God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says"

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/more-ways-to-be-happy/story-e6frg8nf-1225998118866

Labels: morality, Scripture, theology

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. John of Matha, Confessor, A.D. 2011

Notes: Tuesday, February 1-Friday, February 4, 2011

1. On Egypt and developments there considered with respect to the State of Israel

From the Herald the other day:

Writing in the Israeli daily Haaretz, military analyst Amos Harel says: "The collapse of the old regime in Cairo, if it takes place, will have a massive effect, mainly negative, on Israel's position in the region. In the long run it could put the peace treaties … in danger, the largest strategic assets [Israel has] after the support of the US."

Explaining what is at stake, a senior Israeli official is quoted in The New York Times: "For the US, Egypt is the keystone of its Middle East policy. For Israel, [Egypt] is the whole arch."

The former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, Eli Shaked, writes: "The only people in Egypt who are committed to peace are the people in Mubarak's inner circle, and if the next president is not one of them, we are going to be in trouble."

[...] Ron Lesham warned in Haaretz of the consequences of Egyptian politics operating without Mubarak: "The parties will be myriad and fragmented, colourless and disappointing, left-wing and right-wing - and all of them hostile to Israel. An unstable, rudderless transition period, a parliamentary democracy in the Turkish model, if not the Iranian, will give rise to a religious regime that within a few years will presumably be in control of the best-trained and best-equipped army in the Middle East."
[my square-bracketed ellipsis, italics and other square-bracketed interpolations in the original,
http://www.smh.com.au/world/peoples-gain-is-loss-for-us-and-israel-as-arab-allies-falter-20110201-1ach7.html?skin=text-only]

Labels: Egypt, State of Israel

2. "Obama signs Russia arms pact"

Excerpt:

US officials said Mr Obama would make the ceremonial gesture in the Oval Office, before the milestone pact comes into force on Saturday at a ceremony in Munich attended by both nations' top diplomats.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the new START agreement's ratification last Friday after the Russian parliament passed the pact, which was endorsed by the US Senate last month.

The treaty comes into force when the two nations exchange their respective "instruments of ratification".
[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/obama-signs-russia-arms-pact/story-e6frg6so-1225999016923]

Labels: Russia, U.S.A.

3. On exaggerated reporting of the Australian Christian Lobby's (A.C.L.'s) reaction to the N.S.W. Coalition's plan no longer to abolish ethics classes

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/christians-vent-anger-after-opposition-abandons-promise-on-ethics-classes-20110203-1afjh.html?skin=text-only

When the critical thinker reads a headline about "Christians vent[ing their] anger" above a first line beginning with the words "FURIOUS Christians", he or she thinks "Those are pretty strong words. Are they warranted?" Now can anyone read that article and tell me how one could answer that question in the affirmative?

Labels: A.C.L., S.M.H.

4. Mr. Ackland on the High Court's dealings with Church-State relations

The excerpts which are of interest to me:

The constitution says that the Commonwealth cannot make a law for establishing a religion, or for imposing religious observance or prohibiting the free exercise of religion. Importantly, ''no religious test shall be required as qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth''.

In 1981, in a case brought by the Defence of Government Schools people, a majority of the Barwick court said state aid was perfectly kosher and did not violate the constitution. Only Justice Lionel Murphy accepted an argument that decisions of the US Supreme Court which prohibited direct government support for religious institutions should be followed here.

The majority did not take a particularly broad view of our constitutional provision, confining the restraint to laws that sought to ''establish'' a religion in Australia. As long as the government did not officially identify itself with one religion or another, then all would be well.

[...] Ron Williams says his children have been subjected to religious zealotry by chaplains employed through the Scripture Union. He has persuaded the Sydney solicitor Claude Bilinsky and barrister Bret Walker to challenge the program on constitutional grounds in the High Court. The case will be heard in May, not as an appeal but as part of the court's original jurisdiction.

[...] Then there is the crunch constitutional point. Any school chaplain engaged under this scheme holds an office under the Commonwealth. By requiring these chaplains to comply with certain guidelines, a ''religious test'' as a qualification for a government job is imposed. This, it is argued, breaches the constitution.
[http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/religiously-follow-the-rules-or-catch-church-in-bed-with-state-20110203-1afbf.html?skin=text-only]

Labels: Church and State, Constitution, High Court of Australia, law

5. Someone who does not oppose assisted suicide on the notion of 'dying with dignity'

An interesting letter in today's Herald:

Throwing in the towel is not dignity

John Newton and Bryan Milner (Letters, February 3) are taking liberties with the English language. Dying with dignity? I don't think so.

Euthanasia legislation parading as dying with dignity is a misnomer and insults those with true dignity. It is silly for a society to make suicide, or even assisting suicide, a crime, but it is hardly a dignified exit to life. When we accord ''dignity'' to those who throw in the towel and say that those who fight to the end ''lack dignity'', we have lost the concept of dignity.

Dignity refers to the human spirit, to qualities worthy of esteem or respect. It has nothing to do with whether someone needs help to eat or go to the bathroom. By all means let people exit how they want but please don't say it was dignified. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with throwing in the towel but that is what it is.

When you feel the need to wrap your actions in inappropriate words to make them palatable, you probably don't truly believe you are doing the most honourable thing.

Mary Ancich Birchgrove
[http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/recovery-too-great-a-task-to-leave-to-charity-20110203-1afbc.html?skin=text-only]

Labels: euthanasia

6. A couple of interesting websites which I've discovered

Via the Blogger profile of a commenter at Fr. Zuhlsdorf's blog I've discovered that the philosopher Edward Feser has a blog:

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/

The first post which I saw at Dr. Feser's blog linked to an article entitled "The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Law":

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/02/oderberg-on-natural-law.html

Natural-law ethics's three metaphysical presumptions are the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and psychological liberty. I have not read Dr. Oderberg's paper yet but I would be quite interested to do so, if I have time.

Labels: morality, natural law, philosophy

7. "A Review [by Mr. Muehlenberg] of Unplanned. By [former "Planned Parenthood" clinic director] Abby Johnson."

http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2011/02/04/a-review-of-unplanned-by-abby-johnson/

Labels: Abby Johnson, abortion

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Andrew Corsini, Bishop, Confessor, A.D. 2011