[geocentrism] FREE SPEECH.
- From: "philip madsen" <pma15027@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <governor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "geocentrism list" <geocentrism@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <ags@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "ABCs of Faith www.abcsoffaith.com" <latonyk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:41:45 +1000
AUSTRALIA TO END INTERNET FREEDOM
By Rev. Ted Pike
Australia will now join China in blocking free access to the internet.
Responding to decades of pressure from the Anti-Defamation League, the
Australian government has announced it will ban all “illegal” internet content
produced in or entering Australia. Under ADL-orchestrated Australian hate laws,
it has already been unlawful to hold up homosexuals, Jews and Muslims to
“humiliation or intimidation" in the public forum, including the internet.
Incoming material on the internet, however, has remained largely unregulated.
The government, projecting a comprehensive internet filter, originally assured
internet users that they could legally receive banned content by contacting
their providers and circumventing such restrictions. Now the government says
they can’t. All illegal content, which should include everything from
pornography to political and religious speech violating Australia’s hate laws,
will be forbidden. It will be illegal to create or receive communication which
the government disapproves.
Actually, according to Colin Jacobs of Electronic Frontiers Australia, the
National Internet Filter would have little effect on such illegal internet
content as child pornography since it would not cover file-sharing networks.
We may conclude that politically incorrect speech would probably bear the brunt
of censorship. (See, "Australia to implement mandatory internet censorship")
Meanwhile, ADL and its European arm INACH, the International Network Against
Cyber Hate, tirelessly work to find legal resources and technology capable of
ending criticism of homosexuality, Jews and Israel on the internet. ADL admits
this is difficult through conventional legal or technological means.
But it's not difficult when ADL can persuade governments to ban “hate speech”
outright!
Is America Next?
How could America, ostensibly protected by the First Amendment, also lose free
speech on the internet?
For starters, Congress could pass ADL's federal hate crimes bill, the Matthew
Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, this winter. In 1971, Canada enacted ADL’s
very similar federal hate law. Soon, it was extended to criminalize "hate
speech" originating on Canadian websites. Sec. 13.1 of Canada's human rights
statute outlaws even such internet speech as is “likely” to cause embarrassment
to federally protected groups.
If the Obama/ADL hate bill is passed, internet “homophobic hate speech” in
evangelical media, as well as in pulpits, will become illegal. 1 The hate bill
is ostensibly directed only against violent hate crimes in the States. However,
a federal hate bill will quickly overflow such limits, as prosecutors and
judges broaden it to protection of the “hurt feelings” of sodomites.
Hate crime laws, whether state, federal, or international, are already showing
an alarming tendency to overreach existing legal definitions and restraints.
Hate gestapos indict, letting the tedious court system catch up with them,
perhaps years later. The main objective of current hate law strategy is to
press the limits, seeing how much can be gotten away with. Prosecutors hope to
shape public opinion, frighten opponents and set legal precedents that will
provide steppingstones to even greater assaults on freedom.
Free Speech Casualty in Canada
One evangelical casualty of Canada’s hate law is Rev. Stephen Boissoin.
Canada's Free Speech Monitor: “For writing a letter critical of homosexuality
to the Red Deer Advocate, he had been ordered by the Alberta Human Rights
commission to pay a $7,000 fine, apologize for criticizing one of Canada’s
privileged minorities (homosexuals) and never again, in any venue, criticize
homosexuals. He has thus been asked to renounce a key tenet of the Christian
faith. In times past, men and women have died rather than knuckle under to
political correctness and renounce their faith. Rev. Boissoin is defiant and
has vowed no apology and is appealing the outrageous decision. In a decision
reminiscent of Red China executing dissidents and then sending a bill for the
bullet to the victims’ families, Rev. Boissoin was ordered to compensate his
persecutor to the tune of $5,000 for the time and effort he had spent trying to
gag the pastor.”
Quoting from LifeSite News (June 9, 2008):
“On Friday [June 6], the Alberta Human Rights Commission ordered Alberta pastor
Steven Boissoin to desist from expressing his views on homosexuality in any
sort of public forum. He was also commanded to pay damages equivalent to $7,000
as a result of the tribunal’s November decision to side with complainant and
homosexual activist Dr. Darren Lund. The tribunal has also called for Boissoin
to personally apologize to Lund via a public statement to the local newspaper…
Lund made his complaint after Boissoin published a letter to the editor in the
Red Deer Advocate in which he denounced homosexuality as immoral and dangerous,
and called into question new gay rights curricula permeating the province’s
educational system. “Children as young as five and six years of age are being
subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual
literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent
guise of equal rights,” wrote Boissoin in the letter. In an interview, Boissoin
told LifeSite News.com that he’s under attack not only for his letter but, more
significantly, for his beliefs. ‘The point I am trying to make here is what’s
being attacked at the core is what I believe, according to my personal beliefs
and my religious beliefs.’ Most disturbingly, says Boissoin, is that the ruling
calls for him to ‘cease publishing in newspapers, by email, on the radio, with
public speeches, or on the internet, in the future, disparaging remarks about
gays and homosexuals.’ Boissoin wondered to what extent the right to freedom of
expression in Canada will be deteriorated, stating, ‘I am not allowed to hold
onto my views.’ … ‘Absurd beyond absurd—I will never make a public apology; I
stand by what I said.’”
Worse Could Come
Christians/conservatives, this and much worse are what you can expect in the
years ahead if ADL's federal hate bill is passed this winter. Though
discouraged by the Obama/Democrat victory, you must rouse yourselves to
protest!
Two years ago, when ADL reintroduced their federal hate crimes bill into the
House in the first week of January, the religious right did virtually nothing
to warn their constituents. Only after I alerted WorldNetDaily’s Bob Unruh of
the crisis in mid-February and his crucial WND article went out to millions did
massive protest to Congress begin. (See, Killer Instinct Needed to Defeat Hate
Bill)
Free speech will not survive if Christian/conservative America repeats such
delay. From the moment the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act is
reintroduced, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, American Family
Association, WorldNetDaily, and many evangelical leadership groups must
initiate a flood of protest to the House, particularly members of the House
Judiciary Committee. We must respond as if our freedom depends on it, or we
will probably never get another chance to save liberty. As in China, Canada,
and now Australia, free speech will become a memory, perhaps never to be
grasped again.
Endnote:
1. The original 1968 federal hate law, upon which present federal hate bills
greatly expand, criminalizes speech. It says that if anyone’s public speech
encourages another to an act of hate-motivated violence, the original speaker
can be tried as a federal hate criminal along with the active offender whom he
has influenced.
Title 18, U.S.C., Sec. 2a says:
(a) Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets,
counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a
principal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rev. Ted Pike is director of the National Prayer Network, a
Christian/conservative watchdog organization.
TALK SHOW HOSTS: Interview Rev. Ted Pike on this subject. Call (503)
631-3808.
NATIONAL PRAYER NETWORK, P.O. Box 828, Clackamas, OR 97015
www.truthtellers.org
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