Apparently 47,273 wingnuts have signed a petition demanding that Apple restore a religious iPhone app that has been banned. OK, so what is this all about?
Apparently there was a 4,700 word declaration by some ministers. It was made available as an iPhone app and then was banned.
So who wrote this? It has three original authors:
- Chuck Colson – Previously known as “Richard Nixon’s hard man, the ‘evil genius’ of an evil administration”, who went to jail and suddenly found God. Has been a prominent evangelical wingnut ever since.
- Robert P George – The guy who played a key role in morphing the neo-con’s into theo-con’s and integrating it into mainstream Republicanism
- Timothy George – Who truly believes that issuing this thing puts them in the same league as Martin Luther
It then took off and was endorsed by many. Is it just a declaration of faith? Hell no, its actually a political tool to ensure that extreme Republicanism uses religion and not economic arguments to go after Obama.
The Petition site keeps that all under wraps and simply says …
a group of prominent Christian clergy, ministry leaders, and scholars released the Manhattan Declaration on November 20, 2009 at a press conference in Washington, DC. The 4,700-word declaration speaks in defense of the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty.
Now least you wonder what the problem here is … note the turn of phrase “sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty“. Thats basically religious speak for the following stance:
- Anti abortion (Think Catholic … for example the recent case where the official catholic position was that a critically ill woman should be left to die and should not have had the abortion of 11-week old fetus to save her life … in essence, support for religiously motivated murder)
- Anti gay (Being gay is, from their perverted viewpoint, evil … the fact that its perfectly natural and has been observed within every species on the planet makes no difference, they have an apparently holy text written by a bunch in ignorant goat-herders about 2,500 years ago, so if its says being gay is evil then thats their stance)
Now as you might imagine, that is all (quite rightly) deemed to be highly offensive to a large proportion of the population, so Apple banned it when they received objections.
Is this oppression of free speech? No its not, let me explain. If you read the text of this thing you can see why … it actually says …
We acknowledge that there are those who are disposed towards homosexual and polyamorous conduct and relationships, just as there are those who are disposed towards other forms of immoral conduct.
Now think about it for a moment … this is open hostility and discrimination against a proportion of the population, and truly is highly offensive. This is in the same league as say a declaration that all Irish people are evil, or all people of a specific skin color are evil. This quite clearly breaches Apples terms of agreement, so Apple are fully within their rights to pull this highly offensive rant.
The original version drove this point home, it had a poll that asked questions such as “Do you believe in protecting life from the moment of conception? Y or N” and “Do you support same-sex relationships? Y or N”. Twenty-five points were awarded for each “correct” answer. A pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage response was considered incorrect. After the app was removed, drafters of the Declaration submitted a revised one which no longer contained this poll
Said Chuck Colson, one of three drafters of the document:
As a sign of goodwill, we have removed the poll and have resubmitted the app without it.
Colson insisted that the declaration contains no offensive or inflammatory language and does not promote hate or homophobia.
The Manhattan Declaration declares that God loves all people.
I suspect he truly believes that and is blind to the fact that his claim is complete bullshit, as demonstrated by the document itself being openly anti-gay.
These folks can believe whatever they wish, but they don’t get a free ride to tout their bullshit. If they wish to attempt to push it out into a public forum, then it should be no surprise that those they attack will (gasp!) raise an objection. You can see the next card coming from their stacked deck, so lets rebuff it now. No this is not religious persecution, nobody is kicking in their doors or burning crosses on their lawns.
When faced with religious claims regarding morality … be skeptical … this so-called moral majority is neither moral, nor a majority.