mediawatchwatch.org.uk

A group of Jerry Springer: The Opera fans has started a campaign to get the show back on the road. The website is bringbackspringer.com.

Site owner Sam Bannister writes:

we all are united in one thing, we are certain that it is not right
for something like Jerry Springer the Opera to be closed down as a result of
dirty tactics by groups such as Christian Voice, who are using their
religion as a weapon to censor and destroy anything which is not to their
liking.

We do hope that this campaign will educate people and continue to provide a
message, perhaps even becoming a general free-speech campaign, but our
primary aim at the moment is to see the return of Jerry Springer the Opera,
and to remove as much opposition as we can, by carefully constructing
arguments and seeking ways to continue the production.

Good luck to them!

A conservative employee of Orange has been suspended after complaints about an article he published on a blog. Conservative Home carried a “Leftie Lexicon” written by Inigo Wilson which, among other typically Tory and not-very-funny “definitions” included this one:

Islamophobic – anyone who objects to having their transport blown up on the way to work.

and this:

Palestinians – archetype ‘victims’ no matter how many teenagers they murder in bars and fast food outlets. Never responsible for anything they do – or done in their name – because of ‘root causes’ or ‘legitimate grievances’.

This caused the dribbling Allah-struck loons of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee to have a minor fit. Several of them telephoned and emailed Orange until Wilson was suspended. Said an Orange spokesman

We take the opinions of our customers very seriously and believe that this matter warrants further investigation. We have therefore suspended an employee while this investigation takes place.

Now, Inigo Wilson may be a Tory twat with a underdeveloped sense of humour, but what he writes on a blog in his own time is surely no business of his employer. And the fact that a few calls from a bunch of religious maniacs has meant he is now in danger of losing his job is rather worrying.

(Via Pickled Politics)

UPDATE: It appears that Wilson’s suspension may not have much to do with the infantile whinings of the MPAC goons after all. Sunny at PP reveals that Wilson had a consultancy role at Orange which required him to liaise with local communities and convince them that it was ok to have a mobile mast in their neighbourhood. Here is his “Lefty Lexicon” definition of “consultation”:

a formal system for ignoring public views while patronising them at the same time. London’s Congestion Charge for instance.

If this was reflective of his attitude to his job, Orange are within their rights to reconsider his position.

Last February the Iranian newspaper Hamshahiri held a holocaust-denying cartoon competition. The idea was to get revenge for publishing the Mo-toons and to “test the boundaries of free speech”.

The childish caper was somewhat undermined by the instigation of an Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest. Now the results of both competitions are set to be displayed. The Iranian efforts will be in a museum in Tehran, and the Israeli ones at the Tel-Aviv Comics, Caricatures and Animation festival on 26-29 August. Which do you think will be the funniest?

The organisers of the Iranian exhibition say they are testing the West’s commitment to free speech. As a measure of this commitment, we shall be keeping count of the number of Iranian embassies burned down and the number of people who are killed in riots provoked by this exhibition. Here is the tally so far:

Embassies torched – 0
People killed – 0

Watch this space!

UPDATE: The Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest exhibition in Tel Aviv has been cancelled.

The Catholic Church in Scotland has voiced its support for the police investigation into the GPA Bloody Bible ad. Scotland Yard are investigating whether or not the Gay Police Association committed a “faith crime” (there is no such thing), by suggesting that there was sometimes a link between religious belief and homophobic violence.

Peter Kearney, spokesman for the Scottish bishops, described the ad as “outrageous and intolerant”.

This is exactly the kind of intolerance that gay groups claim they are trying to clamp down on.

Once again, it is the Christian Bible which has been singled out with a headline which has Christian connections. It is another sign that Christianphobia has become fashionable and acceptable.

The word “Christianphobia” was coined in an attempt to emulate the tactic used by Muslims to silence any criticism of their religion by giving it a label akin to “racism”.

Meanwhile, Conservative Scottish MSP Murdo Fraser has table an motion in the Scottish parliament condemning the ad:

[Parliament] rejects this assertion as totally erroneous; values Scotland’s Christian community and the contribution it makes to our society and our culture; deeply regrets that any police officer would choose to place an advertisement in any medium to make such a gratuitous insult to a section of the Scottish population; and hopes that the all police officers will act in a manner that reflects fully the attitudes, values and beliefs which Scotland, as a modern society founded on the Christian faith.

As David Lyle, the GPA Scotland officer responded,

The GPA article and statement in The Independent only sought to highlight the facts. […] People cannot be allowed to hide behind the cloak of religion as an excuse to commit hate crime

(Hat tip Gagwatch)

The news that knife attacks in the UK had risen by 73% was welcomed by “Massah” John Beyer of Mediawatch-UK. He leapt at the opportunity, in a letter to The Times, to claim that the figures validated his deeply-held beliefs.

Unfortunately for him, the report from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College London made no mention of Beyer’s central claim – that TV, film and computer games “validate” the use of knives to a significant extent. The reason it wasn’t mentioned is no doubt because of the lack of evidence that the claim is true. Not that this lack of evidence has ever concerned the chubby smut-campaigner, who has never shown any sign of understanding what the word “evidence” actually means.

Year after year, Beyer and his gang of biddies watch endless hours of TV, pen and paper in hand, monitoring every “fuck”, “shit”, shot, and stab so that they can publish their findings and display them as “evidence” that sex and violence on TV leads to sex and violence in reality. It’s true. We’re not joking. That’s what they do.

From the letter:

If fictional macho heroes normalise the use of knives, as our monitoring of films on television for the past 15 years shows, should we be surprised if real life is reflecting what is commonly portrayed on the screen?

Notice the leap? Beyer doesn’t.

Not only does he fail to note how many of the fictionalised incidents are actually glamorised by being performed by “macho heroes” – he fails demonstrate a causal link between these depictions and real world violence. The confusion of correlation and cause is something Beyer has never managed to come to terms with – and yet he still states, with supreme confidence:

One thing is certain: a coherent future strategy in tackling knife crime must embrace the portrayal of fictional violence in our entertainment.

The Independent’s Pandora reports that the BBC agreed to drop Australain comic Jim Jeffries from its upcoming Heaven and Earth show.

Jeffries is currently appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe with an act entitled The Second Coming, which claims to be “his most morally bankrupt show to date”. He was meant to take part in a debate with Stephen “Dog Shit” Green on the subject of blasphemy on the BBC’s Sunday morning religious affairs show. But Green refused to engage with such a “sick repellent man”.

Freedom of speech doesn’t go so far as being blasphemous. This is a matter of God being gratuitously insulted. God is Almighty and beyond insult,

said the bigoted bibliolater, typically oblivious to the self-contradiction.

Jeffries expressed his disappointment:

It’s stupid because I was looking forward to dropping the knob gags and having a serious debate about blasphemy. He could easily have beaten a hungover bloke on a Sunday morning.

Pink News reports that Stephen “Dog Shit” Green of Christian Voice has lodged an official complaint with Sussex police after police chief Joe Edwards took part in Brighton’s gay pride parade on Saturday. CV had fielded a counter-protest of about six Bible-quote-placard-wielding fundamentalists.

Green has interpreted the police chief’s participation in the event in an idiosyncratic way:

What he’s saying to the Christian people of Sussex is that he holds their faith in contempt. That’s a very serious thing.

Hmm.

He also called for the arrest, under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, of two men kissing. No arrest was made. The public spectacle of a same-sex kiss was, apparently

offensive to normal people.

The remarkable thing is that Stephen Green genuinely considers himself qualified to make such a judgement.

The Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship campaigned vigourously against the unamended Racial and Religious Hatred Bill on the grounds that it “infringes freedom of speech” (ie, their freedom to preach). Yet now they are pressing for the GPA to be prosecuted for a “faith crime” (there is in fact, no such thing in UK law) because of an advert which suggested that religious belief can sometimes lead to violence against homosexuals.

In their latest mailshot, they claim that the police have received over 40,000 complaints about the advert, and the ASA over 300. They also report that The Independent, to its credit, “have had a disappointing attitude to complaints and we understand that they have not even looked at many of the e-mails they received on this issue”.

The criminal investigation of GPA is ongoing. The so-called “faith crime” which the LCF hopes that the GPA has committed relates to Section 32 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998:

an ‘insulting representation’ which is ‘likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress’ to the person reading it

Section 32 covers racially aggravated harassment, so unless the LFC can prove that Christians are a race apart, they don’t have a leg to stand on. Let us pray that the Metropolitan Police, who are investigating the case, the ASA, and the Police Complaints Commission convincingly reject the complaints of these unconscionable, whinging hypocrites.

Just for the record, here’s what the Bible has to say about homosexuals:

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. [Lev 20.13]

Incitement to murder? Isn’t that against the law?

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. [Rom 1:26-27]

Ah – so it’s God who makes homosexuals? Christians had better stop condemning them in that case.

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. [1Cor 6:9-10]

Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. [1Tim 1:9-10]

Seems like an “insulting representation” of homosexuals to lump them in with murderers, thieves, and liars. Might even be construed as “likely to cause harassment, alarm and distress” to the person reading it.

Ban the Bible! It hurts people’s feelings!

Germaine Greer defends her stance on the Brick Lane fiasco in an article in today’s Guardian, but her reluctance to concede any points leads her to revise her own words.

In the original article that caused the backlash from Rushdie and Natasha Walter she stated:

The community has the moral right to keep the film-makers out …

In today’s article, she says:

Natasha Walter, writing on these pages, claims not to know what I could possibly mean by saying that the residents of Brick Lane have a “moral right” to refuse to cooperate with the people making the film of Monica Ali’s book.

Er, but that’s not what you said, is it GG? She goes on:

You don’t have the moral right to stop the process

And the difference between keeping the film makers out of Brick Lane and stopping the process of filming in Brick Lane is…?

Basically all Greer was trying to say all along was that writers can sometimes expect to get a bit of flak – a fairly mundane and uncontroversial point. She says, “I don’t believe in censorship of any kind at any level”. The problem is, in her original article she gave her implicit support for a group whose aim was to stop the filming (ie to censor), and who were willing to resort to violence to achieve that aim.

A simple “Sorry for being silly” was all that was required of her.

Armando Ianucci’s latest comedy, Time Trumpet, caused considerable offence before it was even shown on BBC2 last night. The Daily Mail reports on the uproar, quoting several MPs who were particularly concerned about its Oscar-style “Terrorism Awards” ceremony.

Some previews are available on the website (see link above). MWW was particularly amused by the real footage of Natasha Kaplinsky and Jeremy Bowen reporting on the al-Grrraaba Mo-toon protests, cut with spoof placards which read:
– BEHEAD THE INFIDEL AND CACKLE AT HIS STUMP
– CUT OFF THE TITS AND BALLS OF THE APOSTATES AND FEED THEM TO THE PROSELYTES
– SET FIRE TO THE ENEMY’S FLAG JUMP UP AND DOwN ON IT THUS EXTINGUISHING IT RELIGHT FLAG REPEAT AS NECESSARY
– DEATH TO EVERYTHING AFTER THE 8TH CENTURY
– SLAUGHTER THE LAUGHERS
– HUNT DOWN THE SARCASTIC TOWNIES AND GAS THEM LIKE BADGERS
– KILL ISLAMAPHOBES QUEERS ESPECIALLY
– JEWS GLISTENING MALIGNANT POLYPS

Ha ha ha!