John Mills, President of the Society for Promotion of Community Standards Inc, (SPCS) has hailed as “bold, morally courageous and legally sound”, the classification decision issued to him today by the Chief Censor’s Office, that permanently bans a T-shirt he argued was “grossly objectionable due to its obscene content” and “completely vilifies the central figure of Christianity”. The Censor’s Office agreed with Mr Mills, an elder at the Kapiti Christian Centre, that the T-shirt, worn and flaunted in a large public gathering on the Kapiti Coast and a part-image (censored) of which was published in the Kapiti Observer newspaper, should be classified “objectionable”.

The censor noted its sexually degrading image of a traditional Roman Catholic nun, and its grossly obscene and blasphemous language directed at the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is worshipped, adored. praised and revered as the central Person of Christianity. The use of vile Satanic imagery emblazoned on the T-shirt, including depictions of dripping blood, linked to the heavy metal band “Cradle of Filth” and lewd and inflammatory content directed at Christians, was also noted by the censors. (Mills praises the Kapiti-Observer for initially highlighting the nature of the offensive apparel).

In the classification decision (No. 800513) on the apparel entitled “Vestal Mastur#ation (Cradle of Filth)” dated 26 June 2008, signed by Ms Nicola McCully, the Deputy Chief Censor, it states:

“The injury to the public good that is likely to be caused by the availability of this T-shirt originates from the manner in which it associates an aggressive and misogynistic meaning of the “harsh, brutal and generally unacceptable” word c### with Jesus Christ, and depicts an image of a chaste woman engaging in sexual activity. A fair interpretation of the messages conveyed by this T-shirt is that Christians should be vilified for their religious beliefs, and that women, including chaste and celibate women, cannot stop themselves engaging in sexual activity…” (OFLC No. 800513)

John Mills points out that the Society itself was founded by a nun – the late Patricia Bartlett (d. 2000) – who regularly had to put up with anti-Christian vitriol from the Society’s detractors who promoted sexually offensive and degrading images of women (hard core pornography) that regularly represent them an inherently inferior. Mills says “I am shocked that censors, in particular female censors like McCully, can allow truckloads of hard core porn to be classified for adult home entertainment use in New Zealand, ‘for sexual titillation purposes’, when they all know that research shows that such images, repeatedly viewed, fuel a misogynistic and sexually depraved mindset that produces the bad fruits of rape, incest, pedophilia and a host of other morally depraved vices.”

For bacground to this complaint see: http://www.bayofplentytimes.co.nz/local/news/offensive-religious-t-shirt-angers/3674327/

See TV3 news report:

http://www.3news.co.nz/News/WorldNews/CradleofFilthtshirtbanned/tabid/417/articleID/61586/Default.aspx?ArticleID=61586

Your late edition News, weeknights with Samantha Hayes. Chief censor bans heavy metal t-shirt of filth Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:16p.m. http://www.3news.co.nz/Video/Nightline/tabid/368/articleID/61714/cat/17/Default.aspx#video A t-shirt advertising a British metal group’s album has been banned in New Zealand. Chief censor Bill Hastings says it is the most offensive piece of clothing he has ever seen, “because it fuses religion with the most aggressive, misogynistic word in the English language, with sexual activity depicted on the front that implies even celibate women can not resist sex”. The top has been deemed ‘injurious to the public good’ and capable of inciting religious hatred. “It’s illegal to possess it, it’s illegal to deal with it in any way. Sell it, rent it, hire it, give it,” says Mr Hastings. The t-shirt advertises an album by extreme British metal group, Cradle of Filth. In Australia, a 16-year-old was arrested and charged with offensive behaviour for wearing it. Here, a member of the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards brought it to the chief censor’s attention. “The language used is totally unacceptable, and it’s always been regarded as obscene and whenever that word is used and directed at the founder of a belief system it’s sure to cause grave offence,” says David Lane. But highly offensive language by itself is not enough to have a publication banned. In this case, it is the sexually explicit imagery on the front of the t-shirt combined with those words which has made it illegal. Mr Hastings says while there is a chance to appeal the decision, so far no one has. 3 News

AAP Friday, 21 December 2007

Posted: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4332725a12.html

In the mid 1990s, Peter Danaja noticed life was changing at Maningrida, an Aboriginal community east of Darwin.

Already the children had stopped listening to their parents. They were talking of sex, ribbing each other with dirty jokes, turning their backs on ceremony and culture.

Mr Danaja, a senior community leader at Maningrida, says this coincided with the introduction of pornographic and violent movies.

Graphic sex scenes were also making their way on to commercial television stations and the years to come brought hardcore porn on pay TV.

Perhaps no one realised the impact this would have on young Aboriginal males at Maningrida.

"Nowadays kids rebel against us," Mr Danaja said in a letter read to the NT Supreme Court in Darwin this week during sentencing submissions for one of the more disturbing cases of child abuse in recent years.

An 11-year-old boy was attacked by two adults and three teenagers on three separate occasions at the coastal Arnhem Land community, between May and August last year.

During the screening of a pornographic DVD, the child was anally penetrated by both Cleaveon Cooper, then 18, and a 16-year-old before being fondled by a 15-year-old.

The juveniles cannot be named because of their ages at the time of the attacks.

Later than evening, the boy performed oral sex on Isiah Pascoe, then 19, while Cooper rubbed his penis in the area of the child’s buttocks.

His 13-year-old friend – who had been laying on a mattress watching television – then attempted to penetrate the young boy.

On another occasion, possibly after police returned him to the community despite doctors finding he had gonorrhoea, the group went swimming at the Army Beach outside the town.

There he was sexually abused again by Cooper and the youngest offender.

In total the group pleaded guilty to eight sex offences, including sexual intercourse with a child under 16 and gross indecency.

A psychologist’s report tendered to the court during sentencing submissions found all five offenders had a narrowly formed view of the world and lived in a community where overcrowding was rampant, particularly in the wet season, and there was "very little for young people to do".

They live in a remote corner of the territory and sometimes hunt and fish. Other times they are bored, with no jobs, easy drugs and limited schooling. English is spoken as a third or even fourth language and teenagers have little understanding of European ways nor the tools to make sense of it.

"A feeling of helplessness and frustration in the community. . . is quite palpable," the report said.

Justice Trevor Riley sentenced four of the group to a total of 32 months in prison. While acknowledging the role of pornography and other environmental factors in the lives of the offenders, he said: "These matters do not excuse or justify what took place".

The sentences ranged from 15 months for one attacker, to a good behaviour bond for another, and one month in juvenile detention for the youngest offender, who was less than two years older than his victim at the time of the attacks.

"They are each young men, they have each had a very basic formal education, their schooling has been sporadic and of little impact upon them," Justice Riley said.

"English is for each of them effectively a foreign language, they have limited understanding of European ways, they have been brought up in a remote location. . . and the psychologist regards each as having cognitive skills below their chronological age."

Justice Riley also questioned how and why pornographic material was so readily available to the group.

"The viewing of such material must provide impressionable young people with a distorted view of the world and what is not acceptable conduct," he said.

"How that (the porn) came to be there has not been explained, what impact that had upon the youthful offenders is not known to me. What cannot be doubted is that the playing of such material for young people is quite unacceptable and should not have occurred."

The case is reminiscent of those outlined in the Little Children are Sacred report, which prompted the Howard government’s emergency intervention.

It found evidence of systemic child abuse fuelled by grog, pornography, poor education coupled with a breakdown in traditional values, cultural alienation and government neglect.

Child offenders, it said, were compelled to rape out of rage, confusion or despair. Their actions could also be traced back to a childhood sexualisation, where children as young as three were regularly exposed to graphic pornography.

The inquiry – which travelled 35,000km to 45 territory communities – made 97 recommendations, including a tightening of pornography laws.

"We found a lot of sexualised behaviour between children. Children acting out what they have either seen at home in overcrowded houses or through pornography being left around, magazines as well as DVDs as well as videos," said co-chair of the inquiry Pat Anderson.

"Everywhere we went, everyone complained. Both men and women complained about pornography."

Defence lawyers in the Maningrida case repeatedly pointed out their clients had a limited understanding of sex.

"When it came to matters of sex he was clueless, save that he watched porn. . . that was in essence his sex education," said Cooper’s lawyer Peter Elliott.

Peggy Dwyer, who represented the youngest defendant, said: "He also spoke to me about mimicking what he saw in a DVD but not knowing really what was involved in sexual activity."

Outside the court, Mr Danaja spoke about the need for education, mentors and outside help.

"A lot of the kids are now. . . are starting to drift away from their responsibility to the cultural values that we have," he said.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4332725a12.html

Theodore Robert ‘Ted’ Bundy (Nov 24, 1946 – Jan 24, 1989) raped and murdered scores of young women across the United States between 1974 and 1978. After more than a decade of vigorous denials, he eventually confessed to 29 murders, although the actual total of victims remains unknown. Typically, Bundy would rape his victims, and then murder them by bludgeoning, and sometimes by strangulation. He also engaged in necrophilia. He was convicted of killing 36 women and girls.

Bundy was executed in the electric chair at Florida State Prison in Starke Florida. He became a born-again Christian while he awaited execution on death row. He explains to Dr Dobson his deep sense of shame and remorse over his cimes and how, while in prison, he had found forgiveness for his sins through Jesus Christ and peace as he faced his “Valley of the Shadow of Death”. Bundy recognised that he deserved to die and that it was a just sentence. He eventually cooperated with law enforcement agencies and disclosed all the details he could recall about all the homicides he was involved in.

Dr James Dobson says that “circumstantial evidence is overwhelming” from numerous studies that there is a link between hardcore violent porn and violent sexual behaviour. For example, an FBI study he cites involving 36 serial convicted murderers, revealed that 81% of them (29 out of 36) had a long-term and predominate interest in violent hardcore pornography.

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