The Greens oppose the CPRS not because it is too weak, but because it will point Australia in the wrong direction with little prospect of turning it around in the timeframe within which emissions must peak, says Senator Christine Milne.
The moral police hard at work on the Gold Coast
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Forget about the moral police in downtown Riyadh or Tehran, they are alive and well on the Gold Coast. Last week, a 16-year-old boy was minding his own business walking down a Gold Coast street when suddenly he was swooped upon by a police officer. And why? Not because this young man was heading off to burgle a house, grabby an old granny and run off with her handbag, or let down the tyres on a parked car. But simply because he was wearing a T-Shirt with a slogan and picture which this morally challenged police officer found offensive. The T-Shirt read “Jesus is a c-nt” and showed a nun m-sturbating. The poor unsuspecting lad now faces court charged with offensive behaviour. And why is taxpayers’ money being wasted — yes wasted — on charging and prosecuting this kid? Because, copper Aaron Ottaway told the media, “I’m not religious but that’s just offensive.” So Sergeant Ottaway, no doubt in your job you see lots of offensive objects, hear lots of offensive words, and read lots of offensive scribblings. You must have to work 24/7 arresting and charging all this offensiveness. In fact, if Sergeant Ottaway was to do a little checking, he would find that the “Jesus is a c-nt” T-shirt is freely available around the world, as has been the case for some years. Those who wear T-shirts like “Jesus is a c-nt” no doubt do it to attract negative reaction from others, and this was probably the motivation of the young man in question. But should the law, which is generally a sledgehammer, be used to criminalise such conduct, given there is no victim in question, and no loss to society? The answer is surely, in this day and age, no. There is also another important issue here — we should not fall into the trap of thinking that the c-word is used it is inherently offensive to do so. There are many women, feminists and lesbians in particular, who think that to find the word “c-nt” offensive is to discriminate against women. Inga Muscio, an American writer, wrote a best seller in 1998 called “C-nt: A Declaration of Independence.” She argued that the word c-nt was once a symbol of the power of women, and therefore women should not fear using the word. And young British journalist Kate Allen wrote in 2003 that:
This tale of moral policing from the Gold Coast is yet another unfortunate reminder that the nanny state is making a spectacular comeback in Australia. Not a week goes by without some moralist whinging about swearing on television, young people getting hammered, or raunchy images being shown on kid’s TV. In fact, so absurd are the actions of the Gold Coast police that they have been noticed by scientist and leading crusader for rational thought Richard Dawkins, who has publicised the Gold Coast case on his website. |
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14 Comments
In many European languages the word for female genitalia represented by our ‘c’ word is not the derogative term used for name calling or insulting someone or even said with a facial snarl expression nor received as a put down. In fact it has its own nick name and is used more by women than men as an exclamation so commonly and without detectable community offence.
In these languages the derogatory term of greatest put-down in a name calling stoush or competition is the ‘common name’ for the male genitalia or the p-nis.
In English the male genitalia terms when used in name calling are only sometimes the mildest put-down or barely derogatory and far more often not at all. They can be more so when combined, i.e. d-ckhead, c-ck sucker.
But English speakers are known to have a different attitude to women in general to other Europeans.
Society has to draw the line somewhere Greg. I might want to parade in a T-shirt that says “help the depressed - buy them a gun” or something similarly offensive, but should i have the right to do so? I don’t personally mind if some yobbo wants to show the world what a tw_t they are, but i do object to my kids being exposed to, and becoming desensitised to such behaviour.
Does his Tshirt affect the way he f-cks or relates to his girl friend or boy friend or visa versa?
Should ‘law’ protect one from anothers deliberate/wanton/premeditated efforts to obviously offend one by wearing something or wearing nothing in a public place where a victim can’t be targeted for a particular offensive effort?
If the law was to allow willy-nilly offence in this way should it then be changed in terms of the ways in which one is allowed to respond to being deliberately or carelessly offended? Should it be unreasonable or against the law to be offended? Should it be unreasonable or against the law to respond reasonably against the offender when being offended? Think in terms of other peoples right to peace in a public place and peace in their head while in a public place not ones own relationship to something that one knows will be obviously offensive to some others.
Greg Barns and Crikey are both fucking cunts
I’m fairly sure that the dress code in a prison is enforced, so that is likely not a good analogy
Getting desensitized by a tshirt? If you go out into public life there are many more things that can desensitize you. The guy wearing the shirt did it to provoke a reaction. If you want to deny him this, simply ignore him
this is another example of wannabe rebels who just want to be noticed. “I dont have the guts to say it to your face, so i’ll wear a T-shirt that says it instead” is just so common these days. “Ooh, look at me, I can offend people”. What do you want? A meadel or for someone to give a crap?
At the end of the day, we have to hold politicians at least partially responsible for this state of affairs. This article does not state specifically what crime this lad will be charged with, and I’m not familiar with Queensland state law, but I’m guessing it’s roughly equivalent to SA’s Summary Offences Act, which contains lots of references to uses of ‘insulting’ or ‘offensive’ words being illegal in various circumstances. The vague nature of these definitions mean that police will always have to make their own judgements, and it follows that there are going to be occasions when these judgements are not in line with the broader public view of the matter. If the legislation better defined what it was and was not meant to cover, then the discretionary powers of the police would be reduced, and there would be less occasions where we’d need to criticise them. Although this t-shirt is insulting to some and not to others, I don’t think that the world would be a worse place if it was not available for purchase. On the other hand, if I had a t-shirt advocating condom use and happened to be in Sydney this month, I’d be wearing it every day and parading past every cop I could see.
Right, Ruth, and that’s exactly the point. If the convicted criminals exhibit a “higher” standard of dress than some otherwise unoffensive 16-year-old, doesn’t that indicate that a profane t-shirt is not the menace to society the Gold Coast fun police would have you believe.
I’ll shortly be travelling to the Gold Coast for the third time with young teenage daughters. I’d be interested to see the reaction of the many Middle eastern tourists there to a religiously offensive Tshirt depicting a moslem religious character masturbating ( like the nun in question). Sure, the only aim of this young man was to cause maximum offense and embarrasment to others, but what’s the point? Are the police really supposed to support his right to spoil the day of others around him?
I worked in a male prison for six years, and saw regular evidence that the language and dress standards exhibited there on a daily basis were much higher than that exhibited by people such as this ‘socially challenged’ moron.
I believe you’ll find it is the sentiment on the t-shirt which will explain why it ended up on Richard Dawkins website and not an endorsement of your argument about Police resources Greg.
Many times I have seen signs saying “John Howard is a cunt”. I didn’t find it in the least offensive. Is it offensive to say that Jesus is a cunt because some people believe that he is the son of their invisible friend. Men are frequently described as wankers.i Is it because the masturbater is a woman that it is offensive? Why is that?
Does the woman who is so protective of what her daughters see rush ahead of them to paint over the grafitti before they can read it? What a fuss about a trifle!
God, this stuff is enough to make me want to decamp to the Gold Coast with the express purpose of pumping NWA’s “F*** tha Police” at maximum volume until people learn their lesson about getting the cops to act as guardians of taste. Society doesn’t have to draw the line anywhere near monitoring people’s t-shirts. Jesus. What are we turning into?