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| Islam Illegal Under Australian Law? | |
| 2004-02-23 | |
| Islam was an illegal religion because the Koran preached violence against Christians and Jews, a Christian group told a judge yesterday. Back in the 60s, there was a commotion in the Commonwealth when Zambian president Julius Nyerere banned the Jehovah’s Witnesses as a "public nuisance." Imagine the uproar, not excluding that from car bombs and Michael Moore’s mouth, if the Oz courts actually bought this argument and moved to ban the RoP. I mention Moore because he is practically a living god to Oz lefties, enjoying about the same status among the down-under Pinko element that the late Hirohito possessed in pre-war Japan. The group’s barrister, David Perkins, said that Christianity was established under Australia’s constitution and had special protection, especially through the blasphemy law. Mr Perkins told the Victorian and Civil Administrative Tribunal that if the state’s new religious hatred law intended to fetter the teaching of Christian doctrine it was invalid. Victoria’s Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 referred to lawful religion, and it was in that sense, he said, that by preaching violence Islam was disqualified. This act is then used to silence Christians who fail to adhere to the politico-cultural orthodoxy. As usual, Orwell saw it coming. "The Koran contradicts Christian doctrine in a number of places and, under the blasphemy law, is therefore illegal," he said. In the first case under the act, the Islamic Council of Victoria has complained that Catch the Fire Ministries, Pastor Danny Nalliah and speaker Daniel Scot, also a pastor, vilified Muslims at a seminar in March 2002. Opening the defence yesterday, Mr Perkins said Christianity was embedded in the constitution. He said the law still entitled Christian religious principles to a special place. He said the reference in the constitution to the people "humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God" referred to Christianity and was inserted at the request of Christians. He said Australia’s blasphemy law - still in force, if little used - took precedence over the state act, and the Victorian Parliament could not legislate away protection given by the blasphemy law. The law of self-preservation should also come into play at some point but it is not thus far codified. OTOH, if the blasphemy law were enforced, the denizens of Melbourne’s pubs and nightclubs would be rounded up and imprisoned en masse. Mr Perkins cited the Choudhury case in England, involving Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses, which held that the blasphemy law protected only Christianity, not Islam. An excellent precedent Judge Michael Higgins asked if Mr Perkins meant that the Victorian law did not protect Muslims? Mr Perkins replied: "Yes." Judge Higgins: "So it might protect Christians but not Muslims from vilification?"Judge Higgins said a no-case submission claiming the seminar was exempt as a religious activity would fail "at this time", so Mr Perkins withdrew the application. The judge said it was "strongly open" that the seminar breached the act. He based this on listening to the tape of the seminar, evidence of the effect it had on the complainants, expert evidence about Pastor Scot’s references to the Koran, and that the seminar was not limited to academic study of what the Koran says about jihad. He said the seminar described the attitudes of a small group of fundamentalist Muslims who "lack association with those Muslim people who live and work peacefully in this community".
Catch the Fire Ministries is not exactly a poster-child for secular modernism itself, since they claim among other things that Catholicism is not really Christianity (though they don’t claim it is illegal), but their defense does raise some interesting questions about the status of Islam in countries that do in fact have an established Christian church. | |
| Posted by:Atomic Conspiracy |
| #10 Kwame is right of course. It was Kenneth Kaunda who banned the JWs. I was thinking about Nyerere in connection with the overthrow of Idi Amin and just had a brain fart on this post. Incidentally, as Kwame probably knows but others may not, Frederick Chiluba was a hard-core Christian fundamentalist and officially declared Zambia to be a Christian nation in 1994. He was in various kinds of trouble over it for the rest of his term as President, with international These do-gooders are even-handed though, they spared nearly (but not quite) as much attention for the various slave-traders, torturers, mass-murderers, and friends of Saddam Hussein in the Islamic countries of Africa. Chiluba defied all known standards of PC after 9-11 when he declared that Zambia would ``stand with the United States to fight international terrorism for preservation of Christian values and democracy.'' |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2004-2-23 2:30:01 PM |
| #9 Kwame - welcome to Rantburg. Yep, Julius Nyrere was the first president of Tanganyika/Tanzania. Good catch. It may be "worthless information", but it's a typical Rantburg U comment! 8^). Whitecollar redneck: Actually, the October Revolution was an attempt to replace the religion of Christianity with the Orthodoxy of Marxism - both equally required blind faith. THe biggest difference is that even Marx determined in his later years that his early work, "Das Kapital" had serious flaws - something the Communist orthodoxy deeply buried from the "masses". It was a source of power, and that's all that mattered. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-2-23 12:37:43 PM |
| #8 N. Guard I'm not equating atheists with the commies (I would share a foxhole with any of the RB atheists), but the first atheist crusade was called the October Revolution. |
| Posted by: whitecollar redneck 2004-2-23 12:26:30 PM |
| #7 Just a quick correction. Nyerere was never president of Zanbia. I think it was Tanzania. Zambia has had three presidents; Kaunda, Ciluba and the current Levy Mwanawasa. Useless info, I know. |
| Posted by: kwame 2004-2-23 10:42:16 AM |
| #6 As a Buddhist, I don't need to follow church, mosque, or temple to believe in God, that's submitting to humans concepts of the divine. God isn't an ego, God is physical reality. At least Christians-Jews have a good heart, that's the side I'll be on when the world clashes. |
| Posted by: LotusBlossem 2004-2-23 10:32:07 AM |
| #5 If crusades are done by Christians, I wonder what a "holy" war led by athiests would be called? Re-eduacation campaign? Reason-ade? any ideas? |
| Posted by: N Guard 2004-2-23 10:05:45 AM |
| #4 Thank G-d I'm an athiest. Just kidding, couldn't help it...... |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-2-23 8:27:35 AM |
| #3 You guy's are right,this"Clash of Civilazations" has been comeing for a long time. I'm a Christian,and it doesn't matter a whole lot if you guy's believe in God or not I like ya anyway. |
| Posted by: Raptor 2004-2-23 7:03:05 AM |
| #2 Well said Mr. AC! I am also an atheist, view the WoT as clash between secular science and technology driven societies and religous fundamentalism (which for the purposes of this discussion includes much of the Left). I know who going to win. I'm just not sure of the body count required to get there. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-2-23 4:51:48 AM |
| #1 Oops, forgot that my Rantburg cookie had crumbled. This one is mine, so Michael Moore fans and osama bin Laden groupies should issue their fatwas accordingly. I am an atheist, btw, but I choose to support my Jewish and Christian neighbors in this global war to preserve Judeo-Christian civilization (and what we have really is that, heathen commie propaganda notwithstanding). The reason for my stance is simple. Since I can't shoot all of them (though I promise to try if it comes to that), the Islamofascists would gleefully hang me from the nearest tree, if not worse, for expressing disbelief in their barbarous moon god cult. Christians may not like my beliefs, or lack of them, but I am in little danger of a lynching, let alone legal execution. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2004-2-23 3:23:22 AM |