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The World Youth Day Papal Circus is due in Sydney (Randwick Racecourse) for six hellish days at the end of July. So far, things have been going well for the God botherers in fancy dress, as the secular state bends like a choir boy to get that clerical shaft of approval.

First, the good people of New South Wales have forked out over $160 million of tax payers’ money (up from $40 million and still rising) to defray the costs that the poor Church is facing. Then we found out that large parts of the city would be restricted, including locking people out of their own driveways, knocking down public trees, and generally inconveniencing people trying to get on with their normal, everyday lives. Now, to top it all off, we’ve discovered we can’t take the piss out of these idiots or protest the Catholic Church’s repugnant policy towards pedophiles, sex education, or contraception.

EXTRAORDINARY new powers will allow police to arrest and fine people for “causing annoyance” to World Youth Day participants and permit partial strip searches at hundreds of Sydney sites, beginning today.

The laws, which operate until the end of July, have the potential to make a crime of wearing a T-shirt with a message on it, undertaking a Chaser-style stunt, handing out condoms at protests, riding a skateboard or even playing music, critics say.

Police and volunteers from the State Emergency Service and Rural Fire Service will be able to direct people to cease engaging in conduct that “causes annoyance or inconvenience to participants in a World Youth Day event”.

People who fail to comply will be subject to a $5500 fine.
www.smh.com.au

These laws exceed anything that was put in place for the Olympics or APEC. Nice to know that being a skirt-wearing God botherer allows you to stop people from exercising their rights. Anti-abuse organisations have been specifically told that they must have any banners or T-shirts they wish to wear approved by the police (and no doubt through them, and the hard-core Catholic Police Commissioner, the Church) and must not protest at any of the main WYD sites or face arrest. So, first we rape your body as children and then we rape your rights as citizens. Great to see that the Church is still practicing the see no evil, hear no evil approach that let all these consecrated child molesters get away with abusing children for so long. Now, if all these annoying little people would just go away and let us worship our invisible friend in the sky in peace; at one with our misogyny and homophobia.

Hopefully, these laws are just going to provoke people to get very pissed and make their displeasure clear.

The director of GetUp.org.au, Brett Solomon, did not rule out a campaign of protests or pranks among his 280,000 members to highlight what he called the “absurdity” of the rules, even if it meant fines of $5500. Many had not been angry before about the papal visit. “We could organise 1000 people in annoying or inconvenient T-shirts to people the route,” he said.

The groups planning protests include anti-homophobia and pro-contraception organisations, atheists, agnostics, gay- and lesbian-friendly churches, victims of abuse by Catholic clergy, and civil libertarians.
www.smh.com.au

I was going to ignore the entire process, but now my annoying shirt and I are going to get an outing because I’ll be damned if my rights are going to be impinged to protect the delicate sensibilities of people who believe they eat human flesh every Sunday.