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World Youth Day condom protest against Pope
by Sydney Morning Hearld
Thanks to Michael Murray for the link.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/sydney-condom-protest-against-pope/2008/06/24/1214073209465.html
World Youth Day condom protest against Pope
Joel Gibson
Condoms will be handed out to pilgrims en route to a papal Mass at Randwick Racecourse on World Youth Day as part of a protest against the Catholic Church's attitude to homosexuality, contraception and abortion.
A coalition of religious, atheist, gay and lesbian groups will stage the rally in Taylor Square from midday on Saturday July 19 before marching to the main event of the week-long World Youth Day celebrations.
Protest organisers are expecting thousands to gather on Oxford Street and Anzac Parade to rally against the church's attitude.
Rachel Evans, organiser of the NoToPope Coalition formed for the event, said she expected between 1000 and 5000 protesters to turn out and was confident there would be no violent confrontations with pilgrims.
"We will say to them, 'Take up the campaign within the Catholic Church to promote condoms.' We're not planning to get into any trouble. We don't want to condemn Catholic youth for being Catholics. We want to condemn the Pope for being homophobic and anti-condom."
Ms Evans, 33, who represents Community Action Against Homophobia and whose father was a Uniting Church minister, said the coalition would notify police of its route in the next couple of days but she feared the NSW Government "wants to be heavy-handed with protesters".
She said the Pope's teachings contributed to 67,000 women dying every year from backyard abortions and a suicide rate among gay youth that is seven times the average.
"He is clearly a bigot ... many in the Catholic Church are also raising these issues, condemning the Pope for his hateful ideas."
Karl Hand, pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church, "the home of inclusive Christianity", said he hoped there would be no confrontation between protesters, pilgrims and police, but he would not be surprised if it occurred.
He said the Catholic Church misrepresented Christianity and was "extremely uncompassionate towards people who need condoms, abortions, recognition of their relationship - and it's just not being provided by this massive worldwide church that is supposed to be a spiritual leader of people".
Other groups in the NoToPope Coalition are the Socialist Alliance, Resistance, Atheists Sydney and the Raelians, a religious sect that has claimed to have cloned the world's first human being.
Raelian members Eden Bates and Gerry Texeira said it was unfair that their leader, Claude Vorilhon, known as Rael, was denied a visa upon application while the Pope was being feted by Australian governments.
"In the Raelian movement we are very, very clear that all humanity has been designed and part of that design is to have diversity," Ms Bates said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/sydney-condom-protest-against-pope/2008/06/24/1214073209465.html
World Youth Day condom protest against Pope
Joel Gibson
Condoms will be handed out to pilgrims en route to a papal Mass at Randwick Racecourse on World Youth Day as part of a protest against the Catholic Church's attitude to homosexuality, contraception and abortion.
A coalition of religious, atheist, gay and lesbian groups will stage the rally in Taylor Square from midday on Saturday July 19 before marching to the main event of the week-long World Youth Day celebrations.
Protest organisers are expecting thousands to gather on Oxford Street and Anzac Parade to rally against the church's attitude.
Rachel Evans, organiser of the NoToPope Coalition formed for the event, said she expected between 1000 and 5000 protesters to turn out and was confident there would be no violent confrontations with pilgrims.
"We will say to them, 'Take up the campaign within the Catholic Church to promote condoms.' We're not planning to get into any trouble. We don't want to condemn Catholic youth for being Catholics. We want to condemn the Pope for being homophobic and anti-condom."
Ms Evans, 33, who represents Community Action Against Homophobia and whose father was a Uniting Church minister, said the coalition would notify police of its route in the next couple of days but she feared the NSW Government "wants to be heavy-handed with protesters".
She said the Pope's teachings contributed to 67,000 women dying every year from backyard abortions and a suicide rate among gay youth that is seven times the average.
"He is clearly a bigot ... many in the Catholic Church are also raising these issues, condemning the Pope for his hateful ideas."
Karl Hand, pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church, "the home of inclusive Christianity", said he hoped there would be no confrontation between protesters, pilgrims and police, but he would not be surprised if it occurred.
He said the Catholic Church misrepresented Christianity and was "extremely uncompassionate towards people who need condoms, abortions, recognition of their relationship - and it's just not being provided by this massive worldwide church that is supposed to be a spiritual leader of people".
Other groups in the NoToPope Coalition are the Socialist Alliance, Resistance, Atheists Sydney and the Raelians, a religious sect that has claimed to have cloned the world's first human being.
Raelian members Eden Bates and Gerry Texeira said it was unfair that their leader, Claude Vorilhon, known as Rael, was denied a visa upon application while the Pope was being feted by Australian governments.
"In the Raelian movement we are very, very clear that all humanity has been designed and part of that design is to have diversity," Ms Bates said.
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Posted: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 | PermalinkComments 1 - 32 of 32 |
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers2. Comment #198546 by Ygern on June 24, 2008 at 8:39 am
Hmm, the Raelians are nutters themselveshttp://rael.org/rael_content/rael_summary.php
But I'm all for letting the Pope know how many people oppose his Church's immoral and naive teachings on contraception.
Their policy on condoms is also killing people by the millions in Africa, to say nothing of perpetuating poverty.
Other Comments by Ygern
3. Comment #198557 by mordacious1 on June 24, 2008 at 8:51 am
Well good for them.They should give one to the pope, since he is a dick.
Other Comments by mordacious1
4. Comment #198584 by Cartomancer on June 24, 2008 at 9:19 am
Apparently it's a very ill-kept secret among the world's governmental intelligence agencies that ratty is a big fat queen himself. So my friend from the Israeli intelligence service says anyway. That'd certainly explain a lot of his homophobia, nasty old bigot that he is.But what a crowd! Stern, Dawkinsean atheists rubbing shoulders with mad-as-hatters raelians, happy-clappy christian milksops, flamboyant gay rights folk and rabid socialists waving Das Kapital and singing the battle hymn of the republic at full blast. I can hardly imagine what the pope might do if personally confronted by such a motley crew - well, apart from growl angrily and shoot lightning bolts from his fingers like he did to Mace Windhu in Return of the Sith. Fortunately with all those rubber condoms around our plucky band of heroes will be properly insulated from such an attack, rendering ratty impotent to resist their demands.
So Say No to Pope children! If anyone comes up to you in the playground offering you pope, just say no. The smallest amount could get you hooked - many addicts started off with just a half cardinal or a handful of bishops before moving on to the hard stuff. Even if all your friends are whacked out on pope (also known on the street as papa, pontiff, holy father, vicar of christ, old man ratty and by many other names) resist their calls that you join them. Pope ruins lives, wrecks families and alters your brain. You might end up with no rational faculties at all, wearing a dress and dribbling insanely as you chant Latin canticles and wave a thurible over your head. The St. Bonaventure Home for Terminal Pope Addicts on Vatican Hill is full of such unfortunates. Don't do it!
Other Comments by Cartomancer
5. Comment #198585 by qomak on June 24, 2008 at 9:20 am
Raelian members Eden Bates and Gerry Texeira said it was unfair that their leader, Claude Vorilhon, known as Rael, was denied a visa upon application while the Pope was being feted by Australian governments.
I agree. It was quite unfair that they did not imprison this Rael bastard for the juicy fraud that he is.
Other Comments by qomak
6. Comment #198588 by Spinoza on June 24, 2008 at 9:23 am
Strange bedfellows, indeed. Other Comments by Spinoza
7. Comment #198590 by burn0gas on June 24, 2008 at 9:24 am
Here's to giving out comdoms...
'FUCK' YEAH!
:-)
Other Comments by burn0gas
8. Comment #198595 by DavidSJA on June 24, 2008 at 9:29 am
Cartomancer said:alters your brain
I think you meant "altars your brain".
Other Comments by DavidSJA
9. Comment #198599 by DamnDirtyApe on June 24, 2008 at 9:35 am
Other groups in the NoToPope Coalition are the Socialist Alliance, Resistance, Atheists Sydney and the Raelians, a religious sect that has claimed to have cloned the world's first human being.
Argh.... a coalition with those nutjobs? Grief... I'd rather gnaw off my own arm.
Other Comments by DamnDirtyApe
10. Comment #198603 by advocatus_diaboli on June 24, 2008 at 9:43 am
Argh.... a coalition with those nutjobs? Grief... I'd rather gnaw off my own arm.
I'm all for supporting their choice not to breed.
Other Comments by advocatus_diaboli
11. Comment #198622 by Linda on June 24, 2008 at 10:11 am
A few years ago when the other pope came to Toronto for a 'youth' conference a group tried to hand out condoms to the kids but this was quickly stopped by the police. I for one was pretty darn upset and telephoned our MP immediately. He was all gaga for his 'holy father' and didn't want anything to rock the dog and pony show. After a few more calls to the mayor's office etc. condoms were then allowed to be distributed. I'm sure it wasn't just me complaining however it is worth remembering that speaking up is the only way to put things right.On the Sunday of that weekend a huge outdoor mass was held. It seemed a delicious twist of irony that the weather didn't co-operate and there was a very heavy rainfall. After the rain stopped the silly kids stuffed their rain gear into the port-a-potties, which were then dumped into the sewage system. The result was that it blocked up and over flowed into a local furniture store destroying the inventory. The first photos of the mishap were on the web but they quickly disappeared as all Toronto media wiped the mess from the news.
http://www.wcr.ab.ca/news/2003/0113/wyd-flood011303.shtml
Good luck Australians.
Other Comments by Linda
12. Comment #198624 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on June 24, 2008 at 10:14 am
Condoms will be handed out to pilgrims en route to a papal Mass at Randwick Racecourse on World Youth Day as part of a protest against the Catholic Church's attitude to homosexuality, contraception and abortion.and Child rape, support of dictators, stem cell research and science in general, jews, other christians. Should I go on?
Other Comments by ThoughtsonCommonToad
13. Comment #198632 by Prankster on June 24, 2008 at 10:21 am
CartomancerRemind me never to read your posts while drinking fizzy beer-makeszzzzz a terrible mess of the keyboarrrrrrrrddddd and monitor?
Brilliant as always!
Other Comments by Prankster
14. Comment #198654 by liberalartist on June 24, 2008 at 10:49 am
oh, how I miss the days when youth protested against the establishment and rejected authority. Now they pant after the pope as if he were Elvis! So only a rag-tag group of feel-good christians, liars and atheists are left to protest against one of the biggest ani-human rights violators on the planet. so sad. Other Comments by liberalartist
15. Comment #198658 by Lucas on June 24, 2008 at 10:50 am
The Raelians may be a little wacky, but they are relatively harmless, and in this case, they are being positively helpful. As we've all discussed before, you don't have to agree with someone on everything to accept their help on the important things. Clones, space gods, ex-race car driver prophets or not, the followers of Rael have the right attitude about condoms, so I welcome their help in challenging those who do not. Other Comments by Lucas
16. Comment #198729 by b0ltzm0n on June 24, 2008 at 12:02 pm
The Raelians may be a little wacky, but they are relatively harmless...
Someone probably said the same thing about Christians a couple thousand years ago.
Other Comments by b0ltzm0n
17. Comment #198901 by Thor'Ungal on June 24, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Someone probably said the same thing about Christians a couple thousand years ago.
This just suggests we need to keep an eye on them. But until they develop plans for world domination they still seem harmless.
Other Comments by Thor'Ungal
18. Comment #198902 by robotaholic on June 24, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Cartomancer, that was hilarious! Other Comments by robotaholic
19. Comment #198909 by AoClay on June 24, 2008 at 5:37 pm
They have to thrown in that 'misrepresenting' Other Comments by AoClay
20. Comment #198912 by acs on June 24, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Clearly most of the posters arent from Australia.The NSW police force (and NSW labor government for that matter) has a strong catholic tradition. When the paper says 'but she feared the NSW Government "wants to be heavy-handed with protesters"' She's not kidding round.
Strangely enough, Bishop Fisher (ex-lawyer turned catholic priest) tried to make a public statement that we should tolerate World Youth Day on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation website. It received more responses than any post in history, most of them negative.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2273687.htm#comments
After all they are spending 150 million of my tax dollars to fund the damn thing.
Also, Check out www.worldtruthday.org - as you will see, organisers are trying to raise donations to hire lions to take care of the christian crowd. Estimated that we will need 50,000 lions to finish the job.
Other Comments by acs
21. Comment #198926 by Lightnin on June 24, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Cartomancer for the win!Just as well I'm in slummy Newcastle, I won't have to wade through 4.98 X 10-19 moles of Catholics.
Other Comments by Lightnin
22. Comment #198973 by Phasic on June 24, 2008 at 11:22 pm
The Raelians cloned the world's first human being?I'm sure we had human beings before then...
Other Comments by Phasic
23. Comment #199053 by hexhunter on June 25, 2008 at 6:19 am
Linda said:
A few years ago when the other pope came to Toronto for a 'youth' conference a group tried to hand out condoms to the kids but this was quickly stopped by the police. I for one was pretty darn upset and telephoned our MP immediately. He was all gaga for his 'holy father' and didn't want anything to rock the dog and pony show. After a few more calls to the mayor's office etc. condoms were then allowed to be distributed. I'm sure it wasn't just me complaining however it is worth remembering that speaking up is the only way to put things right.
On the Sunday of that weekend a huge outdoor mass was held. It seemed a delicious twist of irony that the weather didn't co-operate and there was a very heavy rainfall. After the rain stopped the silly kids stuffed their rain gear into the port-a-potties, which were then dumped into the sewage system. The result was that it blocked up and over flowed into a local furniture store destroying the inventory. The first photos of the mishap were on the web but they quickly disappeared as all Toronto media wiped the mess from the news.
http://www.wcr.ab.ca/news/2003/0113/wyd-flood011303.shtml
Good luck Australians.
Here's a useful tool for cases like this, go to www.archive.org and use the 'Wayback Machine'. They archive sites reguarly, so the local news sites may have deleted all traces of the occurance, but the Internet Archive will still have a version of it.
Good Luck
- Deus X Machina
Edit: Oh, but it takes 6 months for the site to appear. So last years version will be on their, but none of this years will...
Other Comments by hexhunter
24. Comment #199079 by Faithhead on June 25, 2008 at 7:06 am
"He is clearly a bigot ... many in the Catholic Church are also raising these issues, condemning the Pope for his hateful ideas."
If a person says it, its discrimination.
If the pope says it it becomes Dogma.
No double standards!
Either man should be free to discriminate openly.
Or the Pope (and by extention God-Papal infallibility) is a bigot.
Other Comments by Faithhead
25. Comment #199116 by King of NH on June 25, 2008 at 7:44 am
Other groups in the NoToPope Coalition are the Socialist Alliance, Resistance, Atheists Sydney and the Raelians...
Whoa, whoa, whoa...
whoa...
whoa...
The Raelians? What? I mean.. I just... I don't know what to say. All of these groups that seem at least close to normal, and these... Huh? The article should have a warning somewhere before just tossing Raelians in there and giving them a quote to boot. I had to go back and read the whole thing over.
Other Comments by King of NH
26. Comment #199142 by Border Collie on June 25, 2008 at 8:33 am
The Catholic Church has a 'attitude' about homosexuality? Oh, they do, they do!!! Oops, I mean, they personify it. Silly boys in their cute little outfits! Hey, Catholic Church, deal with your issues, be gay, stop molesting little children.Other Comments by Border Collie
27. Comment #199157 by esuther on June 25, 2008 at 8:53 am
Border CollieQuite right!
We KNOW why the Catholic Church has IssYews about queers.
All these men who deal with their repugnance for sex with women by putting on dresses and chanting in Latin. Oh, Puleese.
And I know a dozen dykes (I'm allowed to use that word) who used to be in convents.
The Church is a sodding HAVEN for people who don't want to do the hetero thing and cannot, for the world, imagine an alternative other than living with their own sex and playing dress-up.
They all look like such clowns, the Catholic boys in their lace dresses and pointy hats, the Jews in their curley things and beanies, the Muslims with their prayer bumps and their asses in the air, and the evangelicals in their polyester suits and puffy pink faces.
Other Comments by esuther
28. Comment #199172 by DamnDirtyApe on June 25, 2008 at 9:08 am
I'm convinced the article is trying to lump Atheists with the Raelians. Good grief, If anyone can get hold of someone from this coalition can they find out what really went on from their perspective?
This would be like the Anons having a joint protest with Scientologists against facists. It plain doesn't make any sense.
Other Comments by DamnDirtyApe
29. Comment #199180 by rotaTOR on June 25, 2008 at 9:26 am
Even if all your friends are whacked out on pope (also known on the street as papa, pontiff, holy father, vicar of christ, old man ratty
LOL!!
Other Comments by rotaTOR
30. Comment #199372 by emmet on June 25, 2008 at 3:52 pm
One of my biggest problems with Razi is that he was the one who promulgated and updated the RCC official policy of non-cooperation with law enforcement investigating clerical child rape. They abused the diplomatic immunity of the Papal Nunciature to render incriminating evidence unreachable by search warrant.If any other organisation had behaved similarly, a special police task-force would be established to infiltrate and destroy the organisation, and the Pope would be arrested the instant he set foot outside Vatican City to be extradited to any of several countries where the conspiracy he orchestrated perverted the course of justice. But because they're a religion, they can collude in the ass-rape of children with impunity.
To me, that's a criminal conspiracy to aid and abet child rapists, leaving Razi with far less moral credibility than Little Nick Carozzo.
Other Comments by emmet
31. Comment #211360 by CyanSlowly on July 15, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Raelians!!!wow, they came out of nowhere, that's hilarious.
Other Comments by CyanSlowly
32. Comment #213810 by bleu80 on July 19, 2008 at 12:50 am
Well done to Rachel Evans who organised the hugely successful no to Pope rally!!!She had the courage to go against the establishment and fight it all the way by taking the Australian govenment to court and winning after they bowed to the Catholic Church in their attempt to prevent freemdom of speech and intimidate people from speaking out.
She inspired others by showing that one person can stand up have a voice and change the system and in doing so brought other people out to protest against the Pope and antiquated message of the Catholic Church.
I'm sure Dawkins and Darwin would be proud!
Other Comments by bleu80
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1. Comment #198542 by Raiko on June 24, 2008 at 8:33 am
Does anyone have more information on this? Are suicide rates among Catholic homosexuals higher than in non-homophobic groups? Are there reliable statistics on backyard abortion? If what she's saying is even remotely the case, all the more "bravo" for the protest!
Other Comments by Raiko