I woke up this morning to the headline, "Gareth accused of blasphemy", and I just shook my head and thought... poor Gareth. Gareth is on the receiving end of South Africa`s rather large dumb club. At first I thought that news report was going to deal with Gareth's reading of "The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses" that he did the other morning on 5FM. What I thought was so ironical about that show is that he was simply quoting from the Bible... and still the freaks in our society got upset about it... but more on that later. Here is one of the Biblical phrases that Gareth read out on air:

That show instantly mobilized all the Christians with no clue and within hours petitions were running around the Internet calling for him to be pulled off the air. Clearly those Christians think that their God is pretty useless and if offended by what Gareth had to say needed these plebeians to run around the Internet for it, because they seem to think that God is too weak to do anything about it himself. Seriously people.. what ARE you thinking?

Here's a perfect example of one of the many simpletons on the Internet. Her name is Gerda and she clearly thinks that praying does not help, so what she did was go and write a HelloPeter complaint about what Gareth had said on air. Does Gerda seem to think that HelloPeter is more powerful than a prayer to her God?

If you look at that first link I posted to the News24 story you will notice the Hitler Youth in our society had this to say about Gareth;

June Jousten,"What really gets to me, is that this seems to happen on a daily basis and that the South African Broadcasting Association does little to zero about it."

June... you are a hypocrite straight out of the starting block. The SABC regularly uses our tax money on Sunday morning SAFM shows to broadcast, "Songs of Praise" to everyone. Whether they want to listen to it or not. There are a lot of people (a real lot of people) out there who really don't wanna listen to that and I am sure more than a few are offended by it. However, we tolerate it. Now Gareth clearly has an opinion that differs to yours and just like you, Gareth is allowed to view his opinion and his beliefs. Tolerance is a two way street, but you only seem to get upset when its not going in your direction.

Tell you what, we can make a deal with you June. Remove all the religious propaganda that is on public radio and we will then promise not make comments on it, but as long as you are shoving religious dogma and your point of view down other peoples necks, expect there to be a balance of opinion.

The next comment was by someone called Gerda-Mari Povey who had this to say about Gareth, "You know what, Gareth, I love your show, but this morning u shocked me!!!! just wanted to say, God is not petty!!!!!

"I pray that something drastic will happen in your life, that will allow you to experience the loving kindness and mercy of God..."

"As a Christian, I really felt offended," she told News24. "He (Gareth) should have more respect for people's religion. He has offended many of his listeners."

"What if my children had heard his comments. It was very irresponsible of him. I'm normally the kind of person who just keeps quiet, but this time it was just too much."

Gerda, you are clearly the person who made the Hellopeter post and clearly confused. You ask what had would have happened if your kids had heard it? What about my kids having to listen to the religious rubbish spewed out on TV and radio waves? You are wanting to brainwash my kids into believing in your fairytale but are not happy if there is an opposing point of view. Since your God clearly didn't give a poo when you prayed to him you then took it a step further and asked called for Gareth to be pulled of the air. Have you ever heard the saying, "Ban a book today burn a person tomorrow"? Just because you don't like hearing something does not give you any permission to have it removed from the air.

South Africans... and I suppose other dumb people around the world have this weird Hitler fetish to want to ban anything they don't like listening to. They seem to think that they can instill their fascism onto you. Free speech doesn't work like that Gerda. The most important type of free speech to allow is that that you hate hearing the most. Take that pious carrot out of your ass Gerda and allow people to have different points of view to your own, because despite what you may think.. you don't know everything and your are NOT always right. The world is made up of many different people with many different points of view and if you had your neo-nazi way, you would like everyone to think and believe what you do.

People like you disgust me. You are the poster child for a lot of whats wrong in the world. If you don't like what Gareth is saying.. DONT LISTEN. Change the station or switch it off. There's no need to go instill your religious fanaticism on other people. Its like if you don't like what I am writing. DONT READ IT. Yeah.. a little self moderation will get you very far.

I totally agree with Gareth's comment;

"If God is great, why would he be so easily offended by what a mortal man says? If God has such an ego, then he must be petty."

Gerda and June.. if God has a problem with what Gareth said do you not think he is big enough to deal with it himself? Do you really think he is so weak that he needs people like you running around doing his chores for him? Do you understand the term "omnipotence"?

Its no wonder South Africa is in the mess it is with people like this running around. I am sure God would rather want Gerda and June to be out amongst the poorest of the poor.. trying to uplift people and ease their suffering.. instead.. they're think they have being given Gods baton to beat anyone into submission who has a different point of view. Gerda.. instead of starting useless petitions to stifle free speech and to take away basic human rights from people, why don't you go down to your local squatter camp and feed a starving poor kid? Oh wait.. its easier to sit on your ass, to pretend you know what God wants, and to start useless petition emails.

The nice thing about this is that people who wanna tell you what to think and say like Gerda... are in a minority. In a recent poll on one of South Africa`s most popular websites, over 88% of people thought that what Gareth had said was acceptable. That at least is a heartening sign that the sickness of censorship is not as wide spread as it used to be.

UPDATE:

This spam dropped into my inbox and for once it was not a Nigerian harvesting email address`s but something rather worse.

Hi everyone,

Can we please draw up a petition that Gareth Cliff publicly apologises for
offending listeners or resigns failing that we will stop supporting 5fm
and stop listening to the show completely.

If we managed to get the "Satanism promoter" to leave Rapport I am sure we
can get the desired effect with Gareth Cliff

Please put your name at the bottom of this e-mail and forward every 100
names to tanyal@firsttech.co.za

I will be sending all the names of all the listeners that feel the same to
Broad Casting Complaints SA

I attach my response to the reply he sent to Gerda-Mari Povey.

Let's show Gareth how "petty" God's people can be.

So feel free either to voice your support, or email your annoyance to that bolded email address.

A member of the MyAdsl forum has mentioned that you can use this as a template.

Dear Tanya,

Today I received an email petition, apparently co-ordinated by yourself, in an attempt to remove Gareth Cliff from the air because he has different beliefs to you.

I'm extremely concerned about people like yourself - you're clearly part of that increasingly vocal and beligerent minority of fundamentalists, predominantly Christians, in South Africa who have recenly co-ordinated a number of attempts to silence voices that do not conform to your world view.

Please understand that we live in an open, democratic society that enshrines in its constitution the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression. Historically, one of the first steps in a fascist state has always been to destroy voices of dissent. As soon as open discourse in a society is disallowed, the fundamental foundation of all personal freedoms is undermined. Also understand that the very constitution that enables people like Gareth Cliff to openly say what he believes is the same constitution that allows you to gather in fellowship with your Christian bretheren every Sunday.

In a multicultural society, all walks of life should be able to practise their own beliefs and voice thier own opinions. You may disagree with them, but frankly, as long as they're not inflicting harm on others, it's not up to you or anybody else to dictate how they live their lives. Please desist from your public bullying of those whom you deem unsavoury.

Have a lovely evening, I know I will - I'm off to watch The Golden Compass.

Regards

Carl

Please feel free to email this on to all your friends ask them to let Tanya know what they all feel.