Mr. Abbot - no religious freedom for you
Wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Mr Abbott, get your rosaries off my ovaries" does not amount to the religious vilification of Catholics, a Victorian tribunal has ruled.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) has struck out a case brought by pro-life campaigner Babette Francis, who had sought to have the T-shirts banned.
The T-shirts were produced by the YWCA during last year's public debate over who should control access to the RU486 abortion pill and refer to federal Health Minister Tony Abbott, a practising Catholic.
One of the T-shirts was worn in federal parliament's upper house by Greens senator Kerry Anne Nettle.
"I do not think that the sale and distribution of T-shirts containing it (the slogan) incite hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of Mr Abbott, Mrs Francis or any other Catholic," he ruled.
I still say requesting a Catholic to keep their Rosaries off their ovaries has got to be the easiest request ever made of any of us. While I think it is a bad idea to spend time trying to ban t-shirts with contemptuous slogans in the first place it certainly seems that the slogan does indicate contempt. What in effect the slogan says is that Mr. Abbot should not be allowed to pray the Rosary to end abortion. That he should have no religious freedom to practice his beliefs.
On another note when is the YWCA going to officially change their name? Shouldn't it be Young Women's Pagan Association or some such name? Just what do you have to do to earn a radical feminist badge?
Known as 
"What in effect the slogan says is that Mr. Abbot should not be allowed to pray the Rosary to end abortion. "
That's a very extreme and literalist reading of it, don't you think? It sounds like a political rhyme that attempts to say "keep the church out of the state".
Last night, while I was asleep, did ovaries become state property?
The slogan is a call for you all to mind your business and keep your religion to yourself :)
" ... The slogan is a call for you all to mind your business and keep your religion to yourself ..."
Which raises the question, does what one does sexually behind close doors (or elsewhere), effect society & me ... my family?
What these slogan masters don't quite understand is that it does. Currently, there seems a campaign afoot to refocus on AIDs ... I am seeing AIDs articles everywhere I turn, yet I don't read in any of them (even in our Catholic paper) about personal responsibility ... just how we must keep financially giving (& how Christians have given enough $$, help or condoms because of the doctrines) etc.
Meanwhile, I read in my local paper Planned Parenthood just opened an EXPRESS mall outlet in the town next to ours ... where any parent's teenage girl can stop in a buy body lotions etc. while picking up her morning after pill ... so convenient ...
Meanwhile, some school district out East was wondering what was going on in their small town because the pharmacy was getting 30+ teenage girls one weekend coming in for morning after pills - because parental consent wasn't needed - only to find out that there was a trend in town for having group sex parties (as in swinging) ....
Amazingly, the article circled around the "school's concern, the school's statements, the school's addressing what 'they' were going to do, etc.", but not one comment from parents or what they were going to do .... nanny state?
Meanwhile, I read about how some cities & states have a crisis in the rise of calmydia case among teenagers and super syphillis among gays ....
Does any of this effect me and my family? According to some, I am to think it doesn't .....
I think it's more an issue that people don't realize that political slogans and T-shirts are improper attire for work. ;)
correction "chlamydia" .... typing and thinking of "conundrum"
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9808/11/teen.sex/
"Twenty percent of all the tests done in girls between the ages of 12 and 19 were positive for chlamydia," said Dr. Gale Burstein, an adolescent medicine specialist. "Also, 30 percent of the girls had at least one positive chlamydia test in the study."
The higher-than-expected rate of chlamydia infections in just one inner city prompted the authors of the study to recommend doubling the frequency of chlamydia screenings to twice a year.
"We're recommending screening all sexually active adolescent females for chlamydia infection, regardless of symptoms, partners, any kind of condom use, or prior STDs (sexually transmitted diseases)," Burstein said. ..."
Hoodlum.
Well please follow your own advice and mind your own business and keep your atheism to yourself. Since by your logic nobody can act on their philosophy and must be quiet.
Illusion, I hope you're not referencing the alleged Carroll County sex parties. Unfortunately for all the prudes looking to control people's sex lives, those stories have been completely discredited.
I'm sitting here thinking about all the rosaries I have prayed. How are "my rosaries," the ones I have prayed to end abortion, supposed to be "on" anyone's ovaries so I can get them off?
This woman's T-shirt slogan must be a demand that I [and others] stop praying the rosary to end abortion. Unless it is a demand that I ACCEPT her support to killing unborn human life -- seems to reflect more on her need to be affirmed in her okayness with offing her baby[ies].
It's not so much contemptuous as it is pitiable.
Well, let's all not just sit there -- let's work those beads and pray for this poor woman!
I do do that Jeff. I don't allow my atheism to influence my public policy beliefs. Hence, I support your right to pray, worship, donate money to child molestation victims, and propagate your cliched conversion story as you see fit.
Thank you hoodlum, that is so nice of you.
Why can't we all be like you, instead of working so hard to deny atheists the right to not pray, to express their opinions, to give money to brothel managers and drug dealers and to share your electron-generated sequences of words (they can't be "thoughts", since there is nothing that is not material, right?)
I am so thankful for your teachings.
i'm a former crystal meth, cocaine, & GHB user who used to paricipate in leather sex parties & cruise a local bath house. it's only by God's grace did i not get infected with the HIV-virus. i truly believe that God spared me for a greater purpose. God Bless my mom, who had been praying the rosary daily for my deliverance. God heard her prayers & worked on me when i hit rock bottom. i turned my life back to God 2 years ago. i've been drug free, sex free, and oh-so-very happy. so please, keep praying the rosary everyone!!!
Thanks for sharing your story, Jeron. Sometimes we think that "just" praying isn't enough.
Too bad the woman with the t-shirt is more serious than so many of us with rosaries. If only those rosaries were being used....
That is typical of the empty pro-abortion rhetoric. There is no truth in the pro-abortion movement. All they have are stupid sayings. We on the otherhand have sonograms!
I have a great idea. Tonite Jeron, Broed, Miss Jean, Roberto & Jeff & anyone else who is a Believer: Let's unite our Rosary intention for Hoodlum et al. Since he's an atheist, he can't possibly object to being prayed for since there's no one hear our prayers, right??? God bless you, Hoodlum :)
The atheist's pro-life page:
http://www.godlessprolifers.org/home.html
Thus devestating the notion that being against abortion is an arbitrary theistic religious artifact.
The T-shirts sparked widespread outrage when Greens senator Kerry Nettle wore one into Parliament during heated debate over who should control the abortion drug RU486.
That tshirt is just plain bad taste, I thought it was typical of the greens though, they are like that all the time.
G: I am in, but I do frequently pray for him/her. My sarcastic tone is just to point out that his/her points are not taken seriously because they are just immature rants. But I am sure our prayers are more effective than my replies.
Thanks for the suggestion.
'Tis a far, far better thing to pray for the hoody than to respond to him. The last few days folks have been pretty much ignoring him. That is really the kindest thing to do as debate is beyond him. Poor thing.
Now as to the rosaries and ovaries: just bad taste in work attire - tremendously bad taste, but there isn't much one can do about that.
What really cracks me up is when pro-aborts begin chanting that slogan when there are primarily non-Catholics protesting in front of a clinic... One very exhuberant Evangelical gal who was a regular out in front of PP wasn't sure if she should be offended or not. :-)
"That's a very extreme and literalist reading of it, don't you think?"
Um, no, I think you don't know what "literal" means.
A literalist understanding would be that it is desired that any rosary chaplet owned by Mr. Abbott should not come into physical contact with the wearer's reproductive organs.
Duh!
My rosaries are no where near their rosaries, I'll have you know. I can't afford that much disinfectant.
Sorry, Jeff, Typo:
My rosaries are no where near their OVARIES, I'll have you know. I can't afford that much disinfectant.
One point of fact relevant to that mindless slogan is that when a woman is pregnant she doesn't ovulate. Of course that doesn't really matter because the slogan is basically a Gollum-like shriek of "We hates it!"
Scott W.
interesting link.
The slogan is a call for you all to mind your business and keep your religion to yourself
Sure. Just as soon as secularists keep their anti-Christianity to themselves. It's a two-way street.
Unfortunately for all the prudes looking to control people's sex lives, those stories have been completely discredited.
Personally, I'm not actually all that interested in what people do in their bedrooms and I'm much less interested in that than they are in telling *me* all about what goes on there - like perfect strangers telling me they've had a vasectomy etc!!