The Vestige Of Ignorance - AUKSANO & The SABC Sabotage Religious Freedom In SA

In a post on Facebook on the SABC's page, the SABC advertised a video of a recent appearance by AUKSANO as follows: 

"Satanism in South African schools is on the rise and incidents of that has puzzled communities. A learner was sentenced to 10 years for the murder of a friend in Randfontein. Three men and a minor are in court connection with the so-called satanic ritual killing of Kirsty Theologo. 

Will Somebody Please Think Of The Children?

I regularly meet a friend of mine, who is a Christian reverend, for drinks at a local coffee shop. We enjoy casual chats about religion, persecution and human needs and frailties. He mentioned to me that there is no ONE Christianity, but many, and that today there are more than 200 different formally identified "mainstream" denominations - or "churches" around the world. Ironically, each one considers itself to be the ONE TRUE Christianity, or at least, the face of it.

EC Mirror Casts Poor Reflection

Some of you know that my city, Port Elizabeth, will be hosting its first ever Pride event this year - an event which I am proud to say I am involved in, be it in my own small way. ECGLA, an organization I am part of, stands behind the Nelson Mandela Bay Pride - which will take place on the 24th of September - with one or two smaller events on the side during the month leading up to the main event.

I have to say that so far I have been pleasantly surprised to note that there have been no negative encounters, nasty letters in the press, and no hate mail specific to the Pride event. In fact, we were even surprised and excited to learn how positive the public appears to be about Pride. Of course, there always has to be one bad apple in the basket, doesn't there?

Today I was forwarded an email reply to a request sent out to newspapers in our area to publicize an event which forms part of the run-up to Pride.

On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 11:18 AM, EC Mirror Admin wrote:

A Place In The Sun

No matter what I am or what I have done, I am also just as human and just as flawed and vulnerable as anyone who thinks they are perfect, or stronger, or better than me. 

 

Nevertheless, it seems there are always people who think that because I am not straight like them, and not living the gender I was born in, that I am "anti-social", have a persecution complex, a huge chip on my shoulder, and am either less intelligent than they are, or that I am just plain stupid.

Resistance Is Futile

Thinking about all the gay-hating homophobic and transphobic groups infesting our fair country today, and masquerading as religious or even educational or even civil institutions - I counted the big boys. 

 

Right at the top of the list of lunatics, there's the "Christian Action Network" (CAN), a vocal umbrella body which appears to operate like a sort of sanctuary for the crazies - a haven for smaller independently created activist bodies set up around a seemingly shared or common (I mean, really common) ideology of Christo-fascism. Together, they share the limelight from whatever local press will be desperate enough to give them attention, resources, and of course, rotate their talking heads to address rallies, meets and whatever these people get up to in their spare time.

 

After occasionally stirring up all sorts of drama over "blasphemy" in student magazines, publishing perverse false "expose's" on homosexuality, and whipping the minority of religious conservatives in South Africa into a froth about "moral" issues like abortion and the "Sexpo" in Cape Town, this body - which I would eagerly describe as a nest of domestic terrorists, has fallen remarkably quiescent of late. 

 

In the meantime, other, newer associated groups which haven't been around the political stage quite long enough to lose their veneer of public respectability yet, have emerged to take their shared repugnant anti human rights agenda into the halls of South Africa's government.

Out Of Focus

Has anybody taken note of what's happening in our northern neighbor Zim-BOB-we lately? 

 

Not only did they refuse to include the human rights of their pink community in the negotiations for their country's new constitution - but they are now saying they will build criminalization and punishments for homosexuality into it as well.

Can't say I'm the least bit surprised.

Sad, but true.

It's A Small World, After All

When Uganda recently tabled its Bill which would effectively have instituted the death penalty for homosexuality and a pink genocide, many countries applied great pressure to Uganda to drop the Bill. So far this Bill has been put on hold, yet in Uganda gay people still face an existing law which prescribes a 14-year prison term simply for being gay - just as in Malawi and several other former colonial African countries.

Malawi has just this week rewarded a gay couple with the maximum prison term for loving each other - 14 years of hard labor, a potential - and even likely death sentence in such a prison. The world has begun to apply pressure on Malawi too because of this outrageous human rights abuse, but the question remains - how much pressure will they apply, and what will happen if Malawi doesn't budge?

Alternative Healing

I was impressed by two stories this week. I know, it is only Tuesday, but I am already beginning to think it will take something pretty extraordinary to top the past few days, at least for me - and at least, in the field of human rights in South Africa. 

Owning The 'H' Word

The "H" word. 

 

We all know it. 

 

We have all felt it. 

 

Sometimes we use it to describe traffic jams, the stuff we find on our sandwiches, the work we do, or getting up on a Monday morning. 

 

We use it so easily, but sometimes things happen to us that we can't control - things that are done to us by other people who for that moment, had control over our lives and made us feel powerless, insignificant and small. 

 

And then it is that we redirect the injury done to us by others back at them - and make it all worse.

We own the "H" word, and we eagerly claim it with both hands - not realizing that it is not us who wields it, but it which wields us.

 

The word I'm discussing here is, "hate".

Hate is bad for everybody.

Tick Tock

As some of you may have heard by now, Media24 - the former employer of South Africa's new Ambassador (excuse, me - "High Commissioner") to Uganda - is challenging the constitutionality of section 10 of Act 4 of 2000.

'It's Okay To Say 'Gay = Stupid' - BCCSA

In yet another case in point of human rights and equality laws not being adhered to and misinterpreted according to personal bias - and made to fail those whom they were intended to protect, "The Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa refused to uphold the complaint, saying that "the word gay was not used to refer to homosexuality, but according to widespread current usage of the word amongst young people, to a carefree attitude and unjustifiable statements."

Once Upon A Hate-Crime

Come kiddies, gather round - aunty Tina is going to tell you all a story... and I want to share it with you because it made me think. Pay attention in class, because I will be throwing lollipops at anyone I see sleeping - and there will be questions afterwards.

Once upon a time, Mr. Mouse looked through a crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.

Genocide In Eight Easy Steps

"Never again", the world says - and yet genocide has occurred numerous times since 1945. The most infamous recent example is in Rwanda, but Saddam Hussein also dabbled in genocide against the Kurds in Iraq back in the 1980's. And it still goes on today - with the state-sponsored murders of gay people in Iran, the religious fundamentalist militias in Iraq, the mob violence and murders of gay people in Jamaica and Uganda. The laws being passed in numerous countries which turn ordinary people into criminals and fugitives based solely on their sexuality or gender identity are a precursor to genocide. They put it in people's minds that such people are a threat and are in fact criminals.

Hate Speech - The Gospel Of Genocide

Let's focus on hate speech today, shall we?

A petition on the "Petition Spot" website, a service which allows the creation of online petitions caught my attention - it is creatively entitled "Sign to kill all the gays". The subtitle of the petition says "Gays are gross and do not have the right to live. This is a petition to get the government to kill them all. Please sign if you support my cause."

It has been up there since September 14 2009, and so far it has a whole 39 signatures. Stop the press. Perhaps they should have advertised it in Uganda, Jamaica, Iraq and Iran to meet their target of 1 million signatures. Shame, poor deluded little psychotics.