An American, Australian ,Israeli, British "Judeo Christian Friendly " blog.

Quote

Warning to all Muslims the world over seeking asylum and protection from the manifestations of their faith.
Do not under any circumstances come to Australia, for we are a Nation founded upon Judeo Christian Law and principles and as such Australia is an anathema to any follower of the Paedophile Slave Trader Mohammad's cult of Islam.
There is no ideology more hated and despised in Australia than Islam.You simply would not like it here.
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Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
Voltaire French author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist (1694 - 1778)
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Those who demand you believe that Islam is a Religion of Peace also demand you believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Aussie News & Views Jan 1 2009
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"But Communism is the god of discontent, and needs no blessing. All it needs is a heart willing to hate, willing to call envy “justice."
Equality then means the violent destruction of all social and cultural distinctions. Freedom means absolute dictatorship over the people."
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Take Hope from the Heart of Man and you make him a Beast of Prey
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“ If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival.
“There may be even a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves”
Winston Churchill. Pg.310 “The Hell Makers” John C. Grover ISBN # 0 7316 1918 8
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said.
This matters above everything.
—Confucius
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'a socialist is communist without the courage of conviction to say what he really is'.
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Hontar: We must work in the world, your eminence. The world is thus.
Altamirano: No, Señor Hontar. Thus have we made the world... thus have I made it.
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Voltaire said: “If you want to know who rules over you, just find out who you are not permitted to criticize.”


--------Check this out, what an Bum WOW!!!!




When those sworn to destroy you,Communism, Socialism,"Change you can Believe in" via their rabid salivating Mongrel Dog,Islam,take away your humanity, your God given Sanctity of Life, Created in His Image , If you are lucky this prayer is maybe all you have left, If you believe in God and his Son,Jesus Christ, then you are, despite the evils that may befall you are better off than most.

Lord, I come before You with a heavy heart. I feel so much and yet sometimes I feel nothing at all. I don't know where to turn, who to talk to, or how to deal with the things going on in my life. You see everything, Lord. You know everything, Lord. Yet when I seek you it is so hard to feel You here with me. Lord, help me through this. I don't see any other way to get out of this. There is no light at the end of my tunnel, yet everyone says You can show it to me. Lord, help me find that light. Let it be Your light. Give me someone to help. Let me feel You with me. Lord, let me see what You provide and see an alternative to taking my life. Let me feel Your blessings and comfort. Amen.
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"The chief weapon in the quiver of all Islamist expansionist movements, is the absolute necessity to keep victims largely unaware of the actual theology plotting their demise. To complete this deception, a large body of ‘moderates’ continue to spew such ridiculous claims as “Islam means Peace” thereby keeping non-Muslims from actually reading the Qur’an, the Sira, the Hadith, or actually looking into the past 1400 years of history. Islamists also deny or dismiss the concept of ‘abrogation’, which is the universal intra-Islamic method of replacing slightly more tolerable aspects of the religion in favor of more violent demands for Muslims to slay and subdue infidels"

*DO NOT CLICK ON ANY SENDVID VIDEOS *


Anthropogenic Global Warming SCAM

Monday, February 10, 2014

Schapelle Corby.... Bogan criminals are not heroes

Bogan criminals are not heroes

Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun
February 10,2014

HEAR that cheering — that soundtrack of our shame — as Schapelle Corby is released from a Bali jail? See media outlets wave as much as $3 million at the convicted drug smuggler for her story, to add to the $270,000 her family earned from her autobiography?

See Corby, the heroine of last night’s Channel 9 biopic, whose writer sighs she feels “very much for Schapelle” and “I carry that compassion before being worried about legal things”.




See Labor’s leader, Bill Shorten, shamelessly tell the mob “I don’t know all the ins and outs of what she has done” but he, too, wants “that woman back in Australia as soon as possible” because “that’s what matters to me”?

So I don’t blame Indonesia’s Justice Minister, Amir Syamsuddin, for that curl to his lip when he announced on Friday that he’d granted Corby early parole, not through “generosity” but “the laws of the land”.

You see, he said, “we are a dignified nation”. Unlike ... Australia?

I love this country, but then a Corby opens a jail cell and lets out a fetid blast of our convict culture — that deep, feral resentment of the mob of any check to its licence.

How that mob has trashed our reputation in the name of “our” Schapelle, the big-eyed formerbar hostess at the mercy of those brown foreigners.

Yet the case against Corby was damning from the moment 10 years ago that customs officials in Bali opened the bag carrying her boogie board and found 4.1kg of high-quality marijuana. (“No!” she’d gasped, reaching out to stop them.)

Already one of Corby’s half-brothers — among her mother’s six children by three men — had been convicted of drug possession and jailed for other crimes.

Later the half-brother travelling with her was also jailed over a drug-related home invasion, and last year fined for possessing cocaine. Even her father had a minor conviction for possessing marijuana.

No, a woman isn’t guilty just because her brothers are rotten. But Indonesia had arrested a representative of Australia’s bogan culture, and her tribe reacted in fury at their impertinence.

Newspapers attacked Indonesia’s courts as corrupt and their jails as temples of “gloating sadism” where there was “little sympathy for foreigners, for which you may perhaps read Christians”.

Radio hosts insisted then prime minister John Howard make Indonesia’s president fix the court decision, and one even raged the judges were “straight out of the trees”.

Indonesian diplomats here were sent death threats, white powder in the mail and two bullets with a warning: “Go home you animals”.

The Salvation Army, out collecting for its Red Shield Appeal, even had to promise not to send Indonesia any of the donations, while actor Russell Crowe warned Indonesia to remember we gave money for its tsunami victims, as if we’d only given so our drug smugglers could walk free.

Crowe also demanded Howard “deal with it”, asking: “What if it was your daughter?”

Speak for your own family, Russell. Howard’s, like mine, would never dream of smuggling a sack of weed. This isn’t “our” Schapelle.

If only this sanctification of the bogan criminal stopped with Corby. But we made a national hero of a thieving murderer called Kelly, and we’ve only got worse.

Killer Mark “Chopper” Read had leading journalists make him so famous with books of his alleged exploits that a movie was made of his life.

The natural moral order was inverted so completely that Read, a killer of four men, was used as a spokesman in TV commercials against domestic violence.

Then came the Underbelly books and television series that made cheap crooks and their molls household names, dusting even the dead ones with the bright dust of fast money and faster women that so impresses losers and fools.

The notoriety proved useful for underworld figure Mick Gatto, whose work includes persuading people in the construction industry to do what they’d much rather not, or else ... seen Underbelly?

And how often was this convicted criminal presented as a role model? A giver of charity?

Even the state-funded Melbourne University Press pitched in, idiotically commissioning Gatto to write his autobiography, and telling a restaurant full of men with black shirts and gold teeth how “proud and delighted” it was to launch these whitewashing memoirs.

How much has all this corrupted us? Is this why bikie gangs burst with recruits? Why police report a lack of respect for their authority?

And now Corby is coming out of her cell. What feral spirit is freed with her?

Gang Rape, Child Marriage,Paedophilia,Labor Green Loons VOTE People gifts to Australia


Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Labor Green Loon's Publicity Department:THEIR ABC Admits it had no evidence to back it's Aslyum Seekers story of torture by the Royal Australian Navy.


ABC TV in burns backdown: managing director Mark Scott admits no evidence Australian navy tortured asylum seekers

Tim Blair
The Daily Telegraph
February 5, 2014




THE ABC has backed down in the controversy over its reporting of claims that navy personnel tortured asylum seekers, apologising "if our reporting led anyone to mistakenly assume that the ABC supported the asylum seekers' claims".

A statement issued yesterday by ABC managing director Mark Scott and his news director Kate Torney admitted that video shown by the ABC of burned asylum seekers' hands did not establish how their hands had been injured.

MEDIA WATCH HOST: YES, I VOTED LIBERAL

MORRISON SAYS ABC SHOULD APOLOGISE

WHY DOES THE ABC HATE OUR NAVY?

ABBOTT BRANDS THE ABC UN-AUSTRALIAN


"The ABC's initial reports on the video said that the vision appeared to support the asylum seekers' claims," the statement reads. "That's because it was the first concrete evidence that the injuries had occurred. What the video did not do was establish how those injuries occurred."

The statement, published online by the ABC, indicated regret over how the asylum seekers' claims were presented.

"The wording around the ABC's initial reporting needed to be more precise on that point," it continued.

"We regret if our reporting led anyone to mistakenly assume that the ABC supported the asylum seekers' claims.

"The ABC has always presented the allegations as just that - claims worthy of further investigation."

The backdown follows criticism directed at the ABC from The Daily Telegraph, other media outlets, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

"A lot of people feel at the moment that the ABC instinctively takes everyone's side but Australia's," Mr Abbott said last week.

The ABC's own Media Watch program joined in the criticism on Monday night.

"The ABC overreached, by essentially endorsing the allegations of navy mistreatment on radio, TV and online throughout the day," Media Watch host Paul Barry said.

"Because even if the (Indonesian) police did back the asylum seekers' claims, there was no way of knowing they were true ... We believe the ABC should have been far more cautious, given the evidence it had, and given it was making such a big call against the navy."



On the same program, Barry caused a Twitter storm by admitting to voting Liberal in last year's federal election.

"Paul Barry broke my heart admitting he voted Liberal," sobbed one Twitter user.

"Paul Barry is god dang dead to me," wrote another.

Yet another shattered fan pleaded with the presenter: "You were joking when you said you voted Liberal, weren't you?"

Barry later confirmed he had voted Liberal.


Mick's Back Wolf Creek 2



Wolf Creek was pretty good,not too impressed with the preview of WC2 .......

Sydney's Embedded Enemy Combatants : Ahmed Elomar Sydney Muslim Insurgency Rioter needs Brain Scan.. but he is a Muslim WTF?

Hyde Park rioter Ahmed Elomar needs a brain check, court hears

Amy Dale
The Daily Telegraph
February 4, 2014

THE man at the centre of the Hyde Park riots won't be sentenced until a brain scan can be performed on him, a court heard yesterday.

Ahmed Elomar, a former champion boxer, pleaded guilty to attacking a police officer with a pole during the September 2012 riots that were sparked by the controversial YouTube clip The Innocence of Muslims.

He is still waiting to be sentenced as his defence team, led by Greg James QC, have applied to have the case put off until a MRI scan can be done to reveal the extent of his brain injuries.

Mr James told the District Court he has been waiting for more than a year for the procedure, and that on the eve he was due to have it done he was moved between jails and not provided with the security to take him to the hospital.



"The day before a scheduled appointment (we were told) he had been moved to Parklea (prison) and for security reasons they weren't prepared to provide the escorts," Mr James said. "There's nothing to suggest he won't be moved (locations) again."

The court has been told the 30-year-old has an IQ between 58 and 60, (That's pretty high for a Muslim so I guess he is probably a Scientist, Doctor,Imam or 747 Captain ?) and suffered numerous head injuries during his boxing career.

The charge of recklessly wounding a police officer can carry a maximum sentence of 14 years but Elomar, the last of the rioters before the courts, will receive a discount for pleading guilty before trial.

The attack left Senior Constable Jason Blanchard bleeding from the head and Elomar's makeshift weapon bent out of shape.

Elomar has been the only one of the group to be held in custody since the riot despite numerous bids for bail. In one, made to the Supreme Court last year, his lawyers said he was suffering from early-onset dementia as a result of boxing injuries and this made him "susceptible to outside influence" but the prosecution blasted Elomar's claims he believed the protest would be "peaceful", arguing he had armed himself with the 2m pole and a full-face balaclava, which he was later seen wearing on television footage.

All of the other men charged after the riot have all been dealt with by the courts, with two jailed.

Mr James told the court his client has needed the MRI for months, and was prepared to privately cover the cost of the procedure, but had been knocked back on at least one occasion by Corrective Services. The scan will take one day, and is expected to be used by Elomar's counsel in preparing submissions for what sentence he should receive.

The court was also told during a hearing last year that Elomar suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after an incident in which he was kidnapped in Lebanon, but prosecutors said the evidence before the court did not support the claim.

Judge Donna Woodburne formally vacated the date for his sentencing hearing, with the case to be rescheduled once the scan is done.

Sydney's Muslim Insurgency Riots Aftermath: Spin Doctors and apologists still performing CPR on Multiculturalism.









































Monday, February 03, 2014

Muslims outraged as Pious Muslim brother, Blake Ferguson, gets two year good behaviour bond for squeezing 26 year old woman's vagina inside the 2230 bar.

So far we have not been subjected to the famous "Cat meat on the table" defence but we have had the its "insert name here" fault except his.





 The NRL made me do it
Lets hope this Pious Muslim Sexual Deviant gets a Jail sentence from the appeal court.

Blake Ferguson gets bond for sex assault after magistrate finds appropriate case for conviction

Leigh Van Den Broeke 
The Daily Telegraph
February 3,2014





FORMER Canberra Raider and NSW Blue, Blake Ferguson, has been sentenced to a good behaviour bond for two years following an indecent assault charge.

Ferguson was smiling with boxing champion Anthony Mundine and his father, Tony, who were also in court after the sentence, which he is now appealing.

Ferguson was out partying with State of Origin teammate, Josh Dugan, when he squeezed a 24-year-old woman's vagina while she was sitting near a wall of the 2230 bar about 10.30pm on June 16.

The woman, who cannot be named, had previously told the court "he laughed at me" when she yelled at him. CCTV shows the woman pushing Ferguson after the incident.




During the sentencing hearing, Ferguson's lawyer highlighted his client's loss of income as an NRL footballer, his present unemployed status, the ridicule he has received on social media and his troubled childhood filled with domestic violence as an argument for leniency.

Previously, Ferguson had told Magistrate Jacqueline Trad that the incident was a case of mistaken identity after he mistook the woman as some had been kissing at another bar earlier in the night. This defence was found to have no evidence to back it by Magistrate Jacqueline Trad.

This morning, Magistrate Trad said, "It is my view that it is an appropriate case where a conviction should be recorded.

She highlighted the "the problematic use of alcohol" as the main reason for placing Ferguson on a good behaviour bond.


But Wait he's back on the piss

What's the Buzz: 'Reformed' former NRL star Blake Ferguson back on the booze

Phil Heads and Carly Adno
The Sunday Telegraph
January 12,2014

TROUBLED footy star Blake Ferguson is back on the grog again less than two months after converting to Islam.

He spent much of last weekend at the renowned footballer's haunt, the Clovelly Hotel, openly drinking beer and wine in front of other patrons.

While there were no complaints or issues with his behaviour, his decision to drink alcohol is in contradiction to the Islam faith where booze is banned.

Friends say he has been struggling to cope after being found guilty last month of an indecent assault on a 24-year-old woman.

He faces sentencing on February 3 and a maximum two years in jail.

The problem is the boxer has his own career to concentrate on and simply can't keep an eye on Ferguson 24/7.

Sources say he is losing patience with the former Origin centre, for whom he has been caring since his sacking from the Canberra Raiders.

"He's thought about it and it's a commitment he wants to make," Mundine recently said of Ferguson converting to Islam.

"He's just looking forward to changing his direction in life.

"At the moment he's in good space - no drinking, no drugs,
no parties."

We checked in with Mundine last week to see if he was still supporting Ferguson.

"He's family - of course I am," Mundine said. "You've got to stick by your brothers."

At the time of his conversion, Ferguson told The Sunday Telegraph he was determined to abide by the Muslim 'rules'.

"Alcohol is completely forbidden in Islam," he said, "and that's been my problem for the last five years. It's brought me down to where I am now. I enjoyed a drink but it just creates problems. I've had enough. I really have."


Brother and mentor Anthony Mundine is aware of this latest drinking episode.

Woody Allen and Dylan Farrow scandal might risk Oscar for Cate Blanchett.....boo hoo

Cate Blanchett drawn into controversy after Dylan Farrow pens allegations she was molested by Woody Allen

Daily Telegraph
February 3,2014



Cate Blanchett (c) seen here with former PM Lu Kewen aka.Kevin 07 (l) and and Hugh Jackman seen here mulling over Australia's future during the esteemed persons "2020 
Festival of bright ideas"  
Summit of the Smug Self Righteous

OSCAR nominee Cate Blanchett has been dragged into the growing storm circling Woody Allen following claims from Allen's adopted daughter Dylan that he molested her at the age of seven.

In an open letter, Dylan Farrow has called on Hollywood to address the claim and issued a
challenge to a number of the actors who have worked in Allen's films.

"What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? Louis CK? Alec Baldwin?" she said.

Blanchett, who stars in Allen's Blue Jasmine, last night said, "It's obviously been a long and painful situation for the family and I hope they find some resolution and peace."

Allen's lawyer has since released a statement responding to the claims of sexual abuse.

"It is tragic that after 20 years a story engineered by a vengeful lover resurfaces after it was fully vetted and rejected by independent authorities. The one to blame for Dylan's distress is neither Dylan nor Woody Allen", the filmmaker's attorney Elkan Abramowitz told Mother Jones.





Allen's publicist also released a statement: "Mr. Allen has read the article and found it untrue and disgraceful. He will be responding very soon ... At the time, a thorough investigation was conducted by court appointed independent experts. The experts concluded there was no credible evidence of molestation; that Dylan Farrow had an inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality; and that Dylan Farrow had likely been coached by her mother Mia Farrow. No charges were ever filed."


Blanchett's co-star Alec Baldwin took to Twitter to blast users for asking if the actor owed Dylan an apology.

"What the f&@% is wrong w u that u think we all need to b commenting on this family's personal struggle?" he wrote to one commenter.

In response to another, he wrote: "So you know who's guilty? Who's lying? You, personally, know that?"

He also tweeted: "You are mistaken if you think there is a place for me, or any outsider, in this family's issue."

Also overnight, the Connecticut prosecutor who investigated Woody Allen on child molestation claims said it was too late for the film director to be prosecuted.

Former Litchfield County state attorney Frank Maco said in a phone interview that the statute of limitations on adopted daughter Dylan Farrow's accusations ran out at least 15 years ago.

Maco had said in 1993 that he lacked evidence to prosecute Allen but suspected the abuse did occur. He retired in 2003.

READ DYLAN FARROW'S OPEN LETTER IN FULL





The open letter, written by Dylan Farrow and published in The New York Times, claims Allen assaulted her as a child.

"[W]hen I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house," Farrow wrote. "He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother's electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me."

"He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we'd go to Paris and I'd be a star in his movies. I remember staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to look at toy trains."

In a note at the top of the blog post, Kristof justified running Farrow's letter, as it was "the first time that Dylan Farrow herself has written about it in public".

Speculation is growing that Cate Blanchett's best actress Oscar nomination for her performance in Blue Jasmine could be jeopardised as a result of the spotlight being focused on Allen.

The film was nominated for three Oscars - best actress (Cate Blanchett), best supporting actress (Sally Hawkins) and best original screenplay (Allen).

The final round of Oscar voting will take place from February 14-25.




"Woody Allen was never convicted of any crime. That he got away with what he did to me haunted me as I grew up," Dylan Farrow wrote, adding: "That torment was made worse by Hollywood. All but a precious few (my heroes) turned a blind eye. Most found it easier to accept the ambiguity, to say, 'who can say what happened,' to pretend that nothing was wrong. Actors praised him at awards shows. Networks put him on TV. Critics put him in magazines."

Farrow also wrote: "Woody Allen is a living testament to the way our society fails the survivors of sexual assault and abuse."

The director married Soon-Yi Previn, also an adopted daughter of Farrow, in 1997.




“If there is a yardstick to measure cultural decay, the child pornography epidemic must register.”


Blanchett responds to Woody Allen claims

Cate Blanchett backs photographer Bill Henson

Michelle Cazzulino and Neil Keene
The Daily Telegraph
May 28,2008

OSCAR-winning actress Cate Blanchett yesterday mounted an impassioned defence of Bill Henson, urging Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and NSW Premier Morris Iemma to reconsider their comments on the controversial artist's work.

The mother-of-three was among more than 40 signatories, including writer Peter Goldsworthy and economist Saul Eslake, to an open letter by the Creative Australia 2020 Summit representatives.

The missive was released just hours after a third NSW gallery removed a number of Henson's works from display.                        
                                                                Mr Bill Henson below, I am unable to post the photographs that are the subject of the Cate Blanchett open letter of support for Bill Henson,due to child pornography / Paedophilia laws.

Why I photograph children: Henson on video  

Police last week raided the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Paddington, closing down an exhibition of the artist's works just before it was due to open.

In depth: The Arts

On Friday, officers seized 20 of Henson's images, some featuring a naked girl, said to be aged just 13.

The artworks were criticised by a number of politicians, with Mr Rudd describing them as "revolting".

But the letter signed by Blanchett said the Prime Minister, along with Mr Iemma, should "rethink their public comments".

It also warned that pursuing criminal charges against Henson could harm the children depicted in the seized images.

"The potential prosecution of one of our most respected artists . . . does untold damage to our culture reputation," the letter said.

"We suggest that the. . . criminalisation of laying charges against Mr Henson, his gallery and the parents of the young people depicted in his work would be far more traumatic for the young people concerned than anything Mr Henson has done."

A spokesman for Mr Rudd last night said the Prime Minister did not resile from his remarks. "He was asked to express a personal opinion and he did that," the spokesman said.

Mr Iemma was also unrepentant: "My opinion is clear - these photographs crossed the line and they were inappropriate. I'm all for free speech but never at the expense of a child's safety and innocence."

NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione yesterday told The Daily Telegraph the force's legal division was still considering whether criminal charges should be laid against Henson or the owners of the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.

He said he found the images objectionable.

"I've got my own personal view and it's one that's not inconsistent with those police who have been out and taken those pictures into their possession," he said.

" . . . I support the police in what they've done."

In Victoria, Adrian Maiolla, the acting president of the Life Models Society, said he, too, had found Henson's images distasteful. His organisation did not allow models aged under 18 to become members and would not supply them to artists, he added.

At the Newcastle Regional Art Gallery, staff yesterday removed a giant print by Henson, featuring a naked and seemingly unconscious female being carried by two other naked subjects. Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, from Newcastle police, said the images were regarded as suspicious.

 TUESDAY, MAY 27, 2008
Open Letter of Support for Bill Henson
http://billhensonletterofsupport.blogspot.com.au/
PRESS RELEASE: MAY 27, 2008

Open Letter in support of Bill Henson
From Creative Australia 2020 Summit representatives

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

As members of the Creative Stream of the Australia 2020 Summit, we wish to express our dismay at the police raid on Bill Henson’s recent Sydney exhibition, the allegations that he is a child pornographer, and the subsequent reports that he and others may be charged with obscenity.

The potential prosecution of one of our most respected artists is no way to build a Creative Australia, and does untold damage to our cultural reputation.

The public debate prompted by the Henson exhibition is welcome and important. We need to discuss the ethics of art and the issues that it raises. That is one of the things art is for: it is valuable because it gives rise to such debate and difference, because it raises difficult, sometimes unanswerable, questions about who we are, as individuals and as members of society. However, this on-going discussion, which is crucial to the healthy functioning of our democracy, cannot take place in a court of law.

We invite the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, and the NSW Premier, Mr Iemma, to rethink their public comments about Mr Henson’s work. We understand that they were made in the context of deep community concern about the sexual exploitation of children. We understand and respect also that they have every right to their personal opinions. However, as political leaders they are influential in forming public opinion, and we believe their words should be well considered.

We also call on the Minister for Environment Heritage and the Arts, Mr Garrett, to stand up for artists against a trend of encroaching censorship which has recently resulted in the closure of this and other exhibitions.

We wish to make absolutely clear that none of us endorses, in any way, the abuse of children.

Mr Henson’s work has nothing to do with child pornography and, according to the judgment of some of the most respected curators and critics in the world, it is certainly art. We ask for the following points to be fairly considered:

1. Mr Henson is a highly distinguished artist. His work is held in all major Australian collections including the Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery of SA, Art Gallery of WA, National Gallery of Victoria and the National Gallery of Australia.

Among international collections, his work is held in the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Denver Art Museum; the Houston Museum of Fine Art; 21C Museum, Louisville; the Montreal Museum of Fine Art; Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; the DG Bank Collection in Frankfurt and the Sammlung Volpinum and the Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna.

Major retrospectives of Mr Henson’s work at the Art Galleries of NSW and Victoria attracted more than 115,000 people, and produced not one complaint of obscenity. His work has also been studied widely in schools for many years.

2. Mr Henson has been photographing young models for more than 15 years. Until now, there has been no suggestion by any of his subjects or their families of any abusive practices. On the contrary, his models have strongly defended his practice and the feeling of safety generated in his process, and have expressed pride in his work.

We suggest that the media sensationalism and the criminalisation of laying charges against Mr Henson, his gallery and the parents of the young people depicted in his work, would be far more traumatic for the young people concerned than anything Mr Henson has done.

3. The work itself is not pornographic, even though it includes depictions of naked human beings. It is more justly seen in a tradition of the nude in art that stretches back to the ancient Greeks, and which includes painters such as Caravaggio and Michelangelo. Many of Henson’s controversial images are not in fact sexual at all. Others depict the sexuality of young people, but in ways that are fundamentally different from how naked bodies are depicted in pornography. The intention of the art is not to titillate or to gratify perverse sexual desires, but rather to make the viewer consider the fragility, beauty, mystery and inviolabilty of the human body.

In contrast, the defining essence of pornography is that it endorses, condones or encourages abusive sexual practice. We respectfully suggest that Henson’s work, even when it is disturbing, does nothing of the sort. I would personally argue that, in its respect for the autonomy of its subjects, the work is a counter-argument to the exploitation and commodification of young people in both commercial media and in pornographic images.

Many of us have children of our own. The sexual abuse and exploitation of children fills us all with abhorrence. But it is equally damaging to deny the obvious fact that adolescents are sexual beings. This very denial contributes to abusive behaviour, because it is part of the denial of the personhood of the young. In my opinion, Mr Henson’s work shows the delicacy of the transition from childhood to adulthood, its troubledness and its beauty, in ways which do not violate the essential innocence of his subjects. It can be confronting, but that does not mean that it is pornography.

Legal opinion is that if charges were laid against Mr Henson, he would be unlikely to be found guilty. The seizure of the photographs, and the possible prosecution of Mr Henson, the Rosyln Oxley9 Gallery or the parents of Henson’s subjects, takes up valuable police and court time that would be much better spent pursuing those who actually do abuse children.

4. Perhaps the most distressing aspect of the trial-by-media to which Mr Henson and his work has been subject over the past few days, is how his art has been diminished and corrupted. The allegations that he is making child pornography have done more to promote his work to possible paedophiles than any art gallery, where the work is seen in its proper, contemplative context. It is notable that the attacks on Mr Henson’s work have, almost without exception, come from those who are unfamiliar with the photographs, or who have seen them in mutilated or reduced images on the internet.

If an example is made of Bill Henson, one of Australia’s most prominent artists, it is hard to believe that those who have sought to bring these charges will stop with him. Rather, this action will encourage a repressive climate of hysterical condemnation, backed by the threat of prosecution.

We are already seeing troubling signs in the pre-emptive self-censorship of some galleries. This is not the hallmark of an open democracy nor of a decent and civilised society. We should remember that an important index of social freedom, in earlier times or in repressive regimes elsewhere in the world, is how artists and art are treated by the state.

We urge our political leaders to follow the example of Neville Wran, when in 1982 a similar outcry greeted paintings by Juan Davila. At that time, Mr Wran said: “I do not believe that art has anything to do with the vice squad”. With Mr Wran, we believe the proper place for debate is outside the courts of law.

Alison Croggon
Writer


Signatories:

Louise Adler, CEO & Publisher-in-Chief, Melbourne University Publishing
Geoffery Atherden, Writer
Neil Armfield, Artistic director, Belvoir St Theatre
Stephen Armstrong, Executive Producer, Malthouse Theatre
James Baker, Tax advisor and accountant
Geraldine Barlow, Curator
Larissa Behrendt, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney
Cate Blanchett, Actor
Daryl Buckley, Musician
Leticia Cacares, Theatre Director
Karen Casey, Visual Artist
Kate Champion, Choreographer, Artistic Director Force Majeure
Rachel Dixon, New media developer
Phoebe Dunn, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Commercial Galleries Association
Jo Dyer, Executive Producer, Sydney Theatre Company
Kristy Edmunds, Artistic Director, Melbourne International Festival of the Arts
Saul Eslake, Economist
Richard Gill, Artistic Director, Victorian Opera
Peter Goldsworthy, Writer
Marieke Hardy, Writer and broadcaster
Sam Haren, Artistic Director, The Border Project
Frank Howarth
Cathy Hunt, Creative consultant
Nicholas Jose, Writer
Andrew Kay, Producer
Ana Kokkinos, Film maker
Sandra Levy
Matthew Lutton, Theatre director
Nick Marchand, Artistic Director, Griffin Theatre
Sue Maslin, Producer, Film Art Doco Pty Ltd
Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art
Callum Morton, Visual Artist
Rosemary Myers, Artistic Director, Windmill Performing Arts
Rachel Healy, Director Performing Arts, Sydney Opera House
Liza Lim, Composer
Jan Minchin, Director, Tolarno Galleries
Helen O’Neil, Executive producer
Charles Parkinson, Artistic Director, Tasmanian Theatre Company
David Pledger, Theatre director
Marion Potts, Theatre Director
Katrina Sedgwick, Festival Director, Adelaide Film Festival
David Throsby, Academic
Mary Vallentine, Arts manager

Additional signatories:

The following support the appeal contained in this letter without necessarily endorsing the detailed argument:

John Coetzee, Novelist
Anna Haebich, Writer
Ramona Koval, Writer and broadcaster
Julianne Schultz, Writer
Marcus Westbury, writer and broadcaster

Monday June 2: Those who would also like to sign this letter are invited to do so below. Please put your name, and location (but NOT your full private address) and position, if applicable. All comments on this page are moderated.

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