Tag: Free speech

LETTER: Archbishop Julian Porteous: Everything his way

(Background reading: ABC: Stop misrepresenting Martine Delaney’s complaint about the Tasmanian Catholic Church and Archbishop Julian Porteous)

Letter in the Hobart Mercury, January 19 2022:

Hobart Mercury – January 19 2022

EVERYTHING HIS WAY

ARCHBISHOP Julian Porteous is all over the place on free speech. Last week he said Tasmania’s law against humiliating, intimidating and bullying behaviour needs to be overridden by Canberra so he can “feel comfortable” to “respectfully” express his religious views.

I don’t recall Jesus insisting on the right to humiliate people, so what does the Archbishop want to say that he can’t say now? One clue might be in the booklet he distrib­uted against marriage equality that suggested same-sex marriage will “mess with kids”. This claim prompted a complaint that was subsequently dropped when the Archbishop refused to amend the disrespectful phrase, and the book­let is still distributed today.

The Archbishop has silenced members of his own church, in­cluding Father Frank Brennan whose invitation to speak in Hob­art was revoked because he sup­ported marriage equality.

It seems the Archbishop wants everything his own way: he wants to define what is “respectful”, he only wants free speech when he is talking, and he wants a special exemption from laws the rest of us have to abide by. We should not allow the law to be made by people who think they are above it.

Peter Grayson-Weeks
Beauty Point

At The Good Sauce “free speech” comes at a cost

The good folk at The Good Sauce have an interesting way of doing business.

According to their About statement they’re a “free speech platform”:

ABOUT

We believe you want a source of news & opinions you can trust. You want a media source that is not compromised by anti-everything narratives. This is:

Some of the best conservative thinkers in Australia and New Zealand have combined their independent voices here to build a free speech platform with shows you can watch or listen to as well as articles you can read.

We might sometimes disagree with each other or even you, and that’s okay. We’ll do so with sincerity & civility, and you’ll get to reach your own informed conclusions.

What must not be compromised is good public policy, or Truth.

Three days ago I posted a very respectful comment on an article on their site:

http://disq.us/p/2asmppv

Tonight I went to post another similarly respectful comment on another article on their site. To my surprise I found they had banned me from commenting. No explanation, no warning, no nothing.

They’re welcome to set the rules on their site, but it’s hard to take them seriously when on the one hand they claim they’re all about free speech, sincerity and civility, and on the other hand they shut down people they don’t want to hear from without even an explanation.

Free speech, yeah nah.