Troppo bullied by corporate thugs

Christopher Pearson writes in the Weekend Australian about a current situation involving Club Troppo and other prominent oz political blogs:

GRAHAM Young is the founding editor of a well-regarded e-journal called On Line Opinion, and is a regular contributor to The Australian. I’d describe him as belonging in the centre of the political spectrum, perhaps tending to mild conservatism.

In December he published a piece arguing the case against gay marriage by the pro-family campaigner, Bill Muehlenberg, and then a series of spirited exchanges on the merits of the argument. It was not the first article he’d run on the subject ; that honour had gone to Rodney Croome, a gay activist. Nor were most of the essays run opposed to gay marriage.

Young commented on the blog in mid-December. “The On Line Opinion approach is one that many find difficult to accept, and we are currently under attack from a number of gay activists because we dared to publish 1 which is mostly a pastiche of comments by gay activists, even though the majority of articles I can find on the site support gay marriage. And by attack I mean attempting to intimidate me, sponsors or advertisers. How ironic . . . when we are sponsoring the Human Rights Awards.” …

On account of the Muehlenberg piece, Young told me two major advertisers had just pulled out: the ANZ Bank and IBM. Comparing this year’s January gross ad sales with last year’s, he calculated that revenue from his main category of advertising had fallen by 96 per cent. Young is worried that these bizarre decisions will adversely affect other websites as well as his own and could even lead to some of them closing down.

Courts might construe that as the result of an indiscriminate secondary boycott, in contravention of the Trade Practices Act.

That’s because Young and a group of other political sites have formed a network called The Domain, to bundle up their readers as a more attractive package for advertisers. The sites are very diverse in terms of ideology, from the ultra-leftist John Passant, to the more mainstream centre-Left Larvatus Prodeo, Club Troppo, Andrew Bartlett, skepticlawyer and the likes of Henry Thornton and Jennifer Marohasy. …

I’m not that fussed about the loss of income flowing from the actions of these corporate thugs.  I don’t even know how much it is except that in broad terms it’s piddling money at least for us: Troppo has never chased a mass audience.  It’s the issue of principle than concerns me deeply.

I should make clear that I also find Muehlenberg’s article offensive.  Not because it opposes gay marriage; plenty of gay and lesbian people do too, or at least don’t regard it as an objective that should be pushed aggressively.  Erstwhile Troppo contributor Geoff Honnor is an example.  It’s Muehlenberg’s assumption that gay people generally are by nature promiscuous, and that they collectively harbour a hidden agenda to redefine marriage as not involving sexual fidelity that I and no doubt many gay people will rightly find deeply offensive.  It seems to have escaped Muehlenberg’s attention that promiscuity is hardly confined to homosexuals, or that lots of prominent heterosexuals have advocated and practised open marriage and no doubt still do.  It’s a classic example of the sort of discrimination community abhorrence for which underpins federal and state equal opportunity legislation.  It is no more fair or accurate to assert that gays generally are promiscuous than to suggest that gypsies are habitual thieves, all men potential rapists or that New Zealanders harbour carnal desires for sheep.

However the actions of IBM and ANZ are much more offensive than those of Muehlenberg as far as I’m concerned.  Muehlenberg is merely expressing an opinion, albeit a false, ignorant and hurtful one.  He isn’t attempting to force anyone to share it or coerce them to act in accordance with it.  The same can’t be said for IBM or ANZ.  Voltaire apparently never said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”  but it’s a fair summary of his beliefs and I share them.  It’s both easy and meaningless to defend the free speech rights only of those with whom you agree; it only becomes meaningful in liberal democratic terms if the speech being suppressed offends influential elites and even oneself.

What can be done?  As a  lawyer my first thought was for legal remedies. But that’s a bit tricky.  Australia’s Constitution contains an implied freedom of political communication, and this is indisputably political subject matter. However the freedom only constrains the actions of governments, it doesn’t meaningfully restrict the actions of private persons or corporations.

Then I considered equal opportunity legislation.  The various State and Territory laws certainly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexuality or political opinion, both of which arguably fit the bill here.((Most equal opportunity legislation prohibits discrimination based on imputed as well as actual opinion. It seems clear from the statements of IBM and ANZ spokesmen that we are being punished for imputed opinions about homosexuality even though we neither hold them, published them nor assisted their publication. ~ KP))  However those laws generally only apply to businesses supplying goods or services, accommodation, education, club membership and the like.  Here it’s Troppo that’s supplying the service (advertising space) and IBM and ANZ who are (or rather were) purchasing it.

Then there’s the secondary boycott provisions of section 45D of the Trade Practices Act, recently renamed the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).  My first thought was that maybe this was a primary boycott which wouldn’t be covered.  But on second thought, these corporate bullies are boycotting Troppo and the other blogs not for anything we’ve done or said but for the actions of a third party namely Online Opinion which merely assists us to source and place advertising on our blogs.  It certainly looks a lot like a secondary boycott.  Moreover, according to Pearson’s article, spokesmen for both corporations have made admissions about their actions and motivations which might well prove legally fatal.

Nevertheless I’m not at all sure that I can be bothered suing these corporations even though I suspect it’s a clearcut case.  IBM and ANZ both have very “long pockets” and I’m not at all sure that my principles extend as far as to expend the time, energy and money that would be required to fight them through the courts.  However I’ll certainly be joining the others in sending an appropriate letter of demand and taking whatever other actions we reasonably can to hold IBM and ANZ to account for their unconscionable conduct.  I’ve already instituted my own personal primary boycott against them.  Of course I’m not urging Troppo readers to do likewise, partly because I don’t especially want to be sued myself.  Nevertheless I have always acted on the belief that one of the few real powers we as individuals possess is to refuse to patronise businesses that provide poor service or otherwise act unconscionably.    On just about any approach to liberal democratic freedoms, IBM and ANZ are acting in a grossly unconscionable fashion.

Elsewhere on this topicSkepticlawyer; John Passant; Graham Young (editor of Online Opinion); Jennifer Wilson; Kim at Larvatus Prodeo

Update and apology – This post and Don’s on the same topic have generated considerable debate and resulted in disclosure of information not originally known when I wrote this post several days ago.   Mel(aleuca) has suggested in the comment box to this post that an apology to original OLO complainant Gregory Storer is warranted.  Given what we all now know, I agree.

I wrote the primary post on information that a mysterious but identified small group of “gay activists” within ad agencies had effectively ambushed OLO (and by extension Troppo and the other Domain blogs) by orchestrating a campaign for an advertiser boycott of OLO because it had published an article on gay marriage by Bill Muehlenberg which they found offensive (as do I).  Had that been the situation, the activists’ actions would have been highly objectionable in my view, despite the offensive nature of the original article, for the sorts of reasons discussed in the primary post.  The events would also have raised secondary boycott issues (albeit with significant legal, evidentiary and practical uncertainties as discussed earlier in the thread).

It has subsequently emerged from discussions here and at LP that the actual dispute was about the extremely toxic/offensive comment threads to the Muehlenberg post rather than the article itself,  and that there had been extensive dealings between OLO and the complainants (most prominently Gregory Storer) where they sought unsuccessfully to have the problem addressed. It appears they would see themselves as having approached advertisers as a last resort.  Personally I would have preferred to see them take less drastic expedients such as anti-discrimination/equal opportunity complaints, because the result of approaching advertisers might well be the closure of a valuable and longstanding independent opinion journal (whatever one may think of its moderation policies).

In those circumstances I certainly agree that I should apologise to Gregory Storer unreservedly, and I do so.  I feel both angry and stupid, but hopefully most of us learn from our mistakes.

I also want to record that, although this apology is obviously implicitly critical of Graham Young, I’m very unhappy about the impact all these events seem likely to have both on him and OLO.  Online Opinion is an extraordinarily valuable publication for Australian political discourse and culture in my view.  Many readers may not know that its existence and development are overwhelmingly due to Graham’s efforts, determination and personal financial backing over many years.  I can only hope that all of us in the blogosphere will find a way to draw a line under these unfortunate events and do what we reasonably can to help Online Opinion to survive and prosper.

  1. Muehlenberg’s essay[]

About Ken Parish

Ken Parish is a legal academic, with research areas in public law (constitutional and administrative law), civil procedure and teaching & learning theory and practice. He has been a legal academic for almost 20 years. Before that he ran a legal practice in Darwin for 15 years and was a Member of the NT Legislative Assembly for almost 4 years in the early 1990s.
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Patrickb
Patrickb
13 years ago

Nope not a secondary boycott, this has all been discussed elsewhere. You’re right, it’s a fools errand and a waste of time and money.

ringil
ringil
13 years ago

A bit of fact checking wouldn’t have gone astray here.

Graham Young has repeatedly claimed that the objections of the “gay activists” were were to his publication of Muehlenberg’s article, when in fact the objections were to the moderation of comments on the article. This response to Graham’s December blog post on the issue makes the distinction quite plainly.

While all “The Domain” blogs moderate their comments, only at OLO does there appear to be a backlog of unheeded recommendations for deletion. If John Passant, Jennifer Marohasy, SkepticLawyer, Larvatus Prodeo and Club Troppo want to align themselves financially with OLO, then it would seem a simple matter of due diligence to ensure that OLO’s moderation values also line up.

Tim Lambert
13 years ago

So the best way for advertisers to avoid being boycotted is never to advertise here in the first place?

paul walter
paul walter
13 years ago

What is this nonsense about sponsors withdrawing advertising?
This because the article is “touchy”, there has been actually a bit of debate in the wake, which one thinks is the point of current affairs blogs?
As a member of the public irked by the inconsistencies of blog moderation at some sites, would like to think that this is not going to be about people shutting down conversation on an issue because contrary views to someone or others own cherished shibboleths are put under scrutiny.
I loath some of the bunkum produced, particularly populist rightist contributors posters at Online Opinion, but please Graham, if your position is to allow free (as opposed to circumscribed on the one hand, or hate speech on the other), don’t let others deter you- we only get a complete picture when flow is two way and not influenced by moderator prejudice ( perish the thought!), or worse still coercion from corporate interests.
Muehlenberg’s piece Ive not read, it sounds like crap, as is Pearson’s, trying to pour oil on troubled waters.
Hence posters with half a brain ought to be able to shoot down the worst conceptions like fish in a barrel.
I must admit, this is revealing to me, the story here. It shows proves me right in my hunch that blogs are under pressure to censor out issues not popular with vested interests, such as with criticism of Israel, for example.
Was the advertising problem to do with the removal of Susan Prior?
This is a story that brings to head some issues troubling not just for blog managers but posters who have seen other media dumbed down and don’t want to see the process extended to blogging.

paul walter
paul walter
13 years ago

Re the issue itself, it looked interesting in parts, the knack is sorting wheat from chaff (bulk), but it seems to boil down to two sets of activists again doing battle upon the altar of the gay marriage/lifestyle stuff that gets chewed over for the psychic health of society, when overt intense action, such as in Egypt currently, hasn’t caught the public’s attention.
It begins to include the situational politics identity politics overlap, which complicates an already subjective atmosphere suggestive of turbulent emotions and consequent clouded judgement(s) again turning acrid.
All stuff of life.

paul walter
paul walter
13 years ago

One lives and learns.

JC
JC
13 years ago

Ken;

I can’t see what the two firms have done wrong other than withdraw their business, which they are entitled to do. They may have keejerked, not understood the nature of the website and are concerned with their brands being associated with people that could damage them, however they should have the right to be cowards without the law going after them.

Taking sides is unnecessary and IMO intellectually dishonest or at the very least an example of ill-considered kneejerk ideological partisanship.

If this refers to the two advertisers I can’t see how they show any ideology . spineless perhaps but not ideological.

JC
JC
13 years ago

Come to think of it a little further the firms possibly use the same advertising firm that pulled them out at the same time without each firm knowing the other’s actions.

Graham Young
13 years ago

Ken, as one of the principals for one of the blogs on the Domain I’d be happy to let you see all of the comments, and correspondence for that matter, with respect to deletions on the OLO forum. Whoever Ringit is they have no regard for the truth, and are probably not in any position to know what the truth is in any event, so you can add reckless to the charge as well. It is a malicious comment and typical of the sort of nonsense we are up against.

In my article for OLO this morning I have isolated the one comment that has been instanced by the known activist involved in this – Gregory Storer. You can read the article at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11583.

I know that it was the article and not the comments because IBM requested that their ad not appear on that article. The comments thread, which occurs on the forum, was not mentioned.

I also set out my reasons for publishing Muehlenberg, which commenters here might find interesting.

Graham

Tim Lambert
13 years ago

Ken, might I suggest a slogan for your campaign: “If you don’t advertise on Troppo you are a thug who hates free speech!”

paul walter
paul walter
13 years ago

That last comment really illustrates just how touchy these issues can get.

paul walter
paul walter
13 years ago

Whoops, Tim snuck in underneath, the comment am referring to is 13. Am wary of the idea that gays should follow the zionist lobby example and use lobbying clout to suppress oposition, even irrational opposition, against a need for free speech and the fairest rather than most partisan result.
It all devolves down the evolutionary tree back to barnyard behaviour in the end, with humans beings. Strip away superficialities and it’s not more intelligent than the living process modernism despises, of the middle ages village.

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gt
gt
13 years ago

Paul,

This topic appears to have nothing whatsoever to do with Israel and yet twice now you have snuck in attacks on Israel. You appear to be a mite wee bit obsessed.

Paul Foord
Paul Foord
13 years ago

It is to be regretted that the hosting of blogs in Australia is so narrow. I had not realised that Domain and Crikey were so dominant in the environment.

Mel
Mel
13 years ago

I can’t for the life of me see what what the problem is here, Ken. A couple of corporations, the ANZ and IBM, have acted on a matter of principle and risked a campaign of vilification such as that currently being waged by yourself, Skeptic Lawyer and Graham Young. They have also bravely risked legal action. ANZ and IBM have exercised their free speech in the finest manner possible, and at significant risk to themselves.

Graham Young chose of his own volition to publish a piece that was designed to inflame prejudice and hatred. It is precisely the type of opinions expressed by Muehlenberg that licence anti-gay hate crime- NSW alone has had close to 100 anti-gay hate crime murders since 1980 according to the Australian Institute of Criminology. Look at the type of supporters Muehlenberg attracts, as per various supportive comments on various websites, and you can almost touch and breathe in the hate. If Muehlenberg is David Irving, his supporters are the skinheads with the knuckledusters.

And Young has encouraged Muehlenberg to stir up hate over many years, as this list of his articles dating back to 2004 attests: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/author.asp?id=3123

Club Troppo and the other so-called “Domain” blogs have either failed to take the issue seriously, or as an above commenter suggests, failed to do due diligence. As a result you’ve entwined your own fortunes with Graham Young’s and this has had certain consequences. While I’m sorry about those consequences, I think it proves the old adage-

“If you lie down with dogs, don’t be surprised if you get up with fleas”.

conrad
conrad
13 years ago

This sort of things happen all the time — often for things not nearly as bad as publishing spiteful articles, and whilst I don’t think it’s fair to punish the group for the actions of Online Opinion, I’m not surprised it’s happened.

Drugs in sport are a good example. In the sport of cycling, for example, probably one of the cleanest sports now due to massive amount of massively invasive testing that is done (cf., football, rugby etc. — all the other sports where it is swept under the carpet), sponsors have dropped their funding entirely when a single individual in a team has been caught cheating, and German TV won’t even show the Tour de France this year because someone _might_ get caught cheating. I think what this shows is that many sponsors are extremely finicking about with whom they associate, which I think is entirely unsuprising, and so it doesn’t surprise me at all that ANZ and others offloading themselves. I also think that there’s a huge difference between publishing something that could get in the hate-crime register, and comments by morons which you can read everyday in most of the online papers that allow it.

Yobbo
13 years ago

I don’t see why you are having a go at the advertisers.

They have been on the receiving end of leftist revenge hate so many times that it’s no wonder they get skittish about this sort of thing. The only real surprising thing is that they sponsor political blogs in the first place. I would have thought that most companies would avoid them for precisely this reason.

Anyway, the title of this article is retarded.

You aren’t being bullied by “corporate thugs”. Removing their advertising is not bullying.

The corporates are the ones being bullied here. And due to that bullying they have had to remove their advertisements because they don’t want to be involved in some HREOC case or media frenzy over a gay lobby boycott of their business.

ringil
ringil
13 years ago

Ken, Gregory Storer’s response to Graham Young is relevant here.

Not relevant is how civilised you personally find the comments. OLO claims to value diverse views and publishes site rules prohibiting language that is “vulgar, obscene, profane or which may harass or cause distress or inconvenience to, or incite hatred of, any person.” Yet many believe that these policies are selectively enforced, to the disadvantage of sexual minorities. After exhausting the remedies available to him on the OLO site, Mr Storer has simply exercised his right to ask OLO’s sponsors if their corporate values are consistent with what is appearing on the site, regardless of the rules.

Nor is the fact that there are worse cases relevant. We don’t lose our right to complain about assaults in Adelaide because there are murders in Melbourne. I doubt that you really want to suggest that because vilification happens elsewhere, we should be required to put up with abuse on OLO.

JC
JC
13 years ago

Yobs says:

The only real surprising thing is that they sponsor political blogs in the first place. I would have thought that most companies would avoid them for precisely this reason.

Dude, I’d reconsider if I were you. Look at the deal just announced some hours ago.

AOL to buy The Huffington Post for $315 million

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/07/us-aol-thehuffingtonpost-idUSTRE7160RR20110207

This is an amazing deal. According to Dealbook, Huff post had $60 million in revs last year putting the valuation of this website up in the stratosphere and possibly an indication of the beginning of a stock boom in the US for all social media and the rest.

This is a huge deal. No wonder Graham is pissed :-) ad revenue is being sold at 5.25 times as a freaking multiple for an opinion website.

Mark Bahnisch
13 years ago

Kim’s take:

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2011/02/07/on-line-opinion-and-the-advertising-and-free-speech-controversy/

That’s her own view, not a collective LP position, but I think it appears clear that LP authors have a different approach to this question than most of the other bloggers affected.

I’d add that, irrespective of the chain of events leading up to this kerfuffle, I haven’t been sanguine for some time that mainstream advertising would continue to provide a reliable source of revenue for niche political and public affairs sites. The potential risk for them probably appears greater than the benefit. I said on LP that I think that if we decided we needed the money (and that would probably be for expansion, otherwise we can muddle on through) I wouldn’t think it impossible to sell space to ideological soulmates, as is done by some US liberal blogs. Such a strategy wouldn’t work for OLO, and I wonder also if advertisers decide to vacate the field of political sites, whether or not there might be some pretty dire implications for publications such as Crikey and New Matilda.

I would also think that the MSM publications would have a lot to lose if advertisers become more wary of association with virulent comments threads, particularly some of the News Limited “blogs”.

Mark Bahnisch
13 years ago

@28 – JC, HuffPo is massive in terms of page views and there’s a different context in the US, I’d have thought, for most of these issues. Australia is a bit of a backwater both in terms of the actual size of the population, and the market for political and public affairs writing, which Sally Young at Melbourne Uni has demonstrated really is very small:

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/12/14/political-tragics-a-tiny-audience-media-researcher-finds/

Having said that, it’s interesting to read speculation about Fairfax wanting to acquire Crikey today…

JC
JC
13 years ago

Mark,

Didn’t know it’s that big until you mentioned it. But FFS they are valuing this stuff at 5.25 times ad revenue. Forget profits, the new metric seems to be ad revenue!!!! Ad rev at 5.25 times!!!

Tim Lambert
13 years ago

You guys OTOH seem to believe that someone who wants to express ideas that you subjectively regard as being beyond the pale according to your own value system ought to be censored, and anyone who refuses to do so and allows or facilitates their words being published is fair game for retribution.

I don’t believe anything of the sort.

ANZ and IBM are or were your customers, buying ads from you. When they stopped, you responded by vilifying them and calling for them to be boycotted. That seems more than a little counter-productive — it seems that you are more likely to make them want to have nothing to do with advertising on blogs ever again. And also to make other companies, who have never advertised on blogs, less likely to start.

My own personal interest in this is that I have advertising on my blog and I would like it to continue and your campaign is likely to make advertisers think twice about getting involved with blogs.

Kim
Kim
13 years ago

I agree with Tim.

There don’t seem to me to be any cogent arguments for regarding the actions of ANZ and IBM as an attack on “free speech”. They’re not under any obligation to advertise where they don’t want to. I also very much doubt that bluster about their supposed sins and intimations about legal action, columns in The Australian and blog posts by Andrew Bolt decrying “political correctness”, etc, are going to do anything other than make them want to run a mile from the whole idea of placing ads on blogs.

Had I been Graham Young, as I said on LP, I might well have thought that approaching them in a conciliatory way to try to resolve the issue would have been a better way of proceeding. But I’m not. I doubt many of these blog posts are anything other than counter-productive in achieving the aims their authors claim to be seeking to advance.

I also think all this should make some people think again about moderation practices.

But Mark and Tim are probably right that this does not bode well for the cause of attracting advertising revenue for political blogs.

Kim
Kim
13 years ago

@34 – Ken, we crossed.

Obviously, we are not going to agree on the fundamentals of “free speech” and the rightness or otherwise of the conduct of the various players in all this.

But I would point out that Gregory Storer is not the sole yardstick of what is offensive. Unfortunately, I read the whole thread, and the endless recitation of a set of interlinked slurs which have been retailed as a package by notorious hater in the US Religious Right (“rimming”, false claims about health risks, etc, ad nauseam) are to me much more offensive, and as factually wrong and argumentatively worthless as Bill Muehlenberg’s original piece of tripe.

Mel
Mel
13 years ago

Ken: “You guys OTOH seem to believe that someone who wants to express ideas that you subjectively regard as being beyond the pale according to your own value system ought to be censored …”

Let me be clear, I certainly don’t think Muehlenberg’s strays into territory that should be illegal. Censorship is therefore not part of the equation. Let’s not verbal each other.

I also do not accept that ANZ and IBM have simply responded to bullying or made a simple economic calculation. Muehlenberg and his right-wing Christian lobby mates would, I think, have a vastly larger and more active base than that available to the gay lobby. Muehlenberg’s troops are already calling for a boycott against the ANZ and IBM. ANZ and IBM have much to lose and I suspect they new this from the outset.

I agree that ANZ and IBM have a “wider public duty” because of their size and power, but unlike you I think they have exercised it correctly. As I noted previously, about 100 gays have died as a result of hate crimes in NSW alone since 1980. What other Australian minority is murdered in such numbers on account of their minority status? None, I would think. Muehlenberg, and those like Young who provide him with a cloak of respectability, contribute to the atmosphere that causes such violence. ANZ and IBM have decided to disassociate themselves from this particular conservative death dance. They have rated the principles of life and the pursuit of happiness a little above the liberty of free speech in this particular instance. It sounds like a fair and reasonable judgment call to me. And in a free and open society, it is their call to make.

Kim
Kim
13 years ago

@38 – Me too re: HuffPo, Ken!

It is a bit of an ask to read that comments thread, though for anyone who might wish to, it’s easier to do so when you click “All”:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11268&page=0

You may also be right that there are some issues raised by bundling together ideologically disparate blogs we might have to think about!

I don’t think, FWIW, that any of the people complaining realised that there would be an impact to anyone other than OLO.

Fyodor
13 years ago

What others said: this isn’t about free speech, but a flawed business model.

Voltaire apparently never said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”

Yah. He also never said,

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will fund to the death your right to say it.”

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[…] Pearson’s Weekend Australian piece. I don’t want to rehash the arguments here, here, here or here. Rather I want to focus on something different. In the Pearson article we see this. […]

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paul walter
paul walter
13 years ago

gt, what a hero you are, hiding behind you initials.
Its EXACTLY the same thing as the zionist lobby trying to wipe out the likes of Mearsheimer and Walts on Palestine.
Apart from being a silly season filler and vehicle for fund raising, there is not much can be said about this cowardly boycotting, EXCEPT AS, an attack on free speech.
The pitiful Muehlenberg thing was put up, made whatever point it wanted to make and was shot down by posters for it.
THAT’S the way to do it, not avoid discussion by shutting out contrary views on the basis of a personal and subjective unverified feeling as to what constitutes some sort of “hate speech”.
Get over yourselves!

Yobbo
13 years ago

3 posts now from Paul Walter saying it’s all the joos fault.

Adam
Adam
13 years ago

Are Club Troppo doing the annual Crikey group sub thing again this year?

paul walter
paul walter
13 years ago

Three posts now from righties saying its all paul walter’s fault.
No.
Liar.
That’s not what I said, go back and read my post, then write fifty times on the white board ,”I must not misrepresent what others say at a serious blog site”.

jtfsoon
jtfsoon
13 years ago

I agreee with what Fyodor and Yobbo have said here. The corporates aren’t the thugs not do they have an obligation to support anyone but they are cowards. The thugs are the gay lobby.

However Mel’s stuff about how more gays will kill themselves because of something on OLO is just ridiculous. And if Muehlenberg is so beyond the pale that Kim claims she would not have published him, why the heck did Croome basically agree to be published in the same book as him?

http://www.readings.com.au/news/why-vs-why-bill-muehlenberg-and-rodney-croome-debate-gay-marriage

The gay lobby haa become so strident and oversensitive nowadays. I used to be sympathetic to their cause but this and their ridiculous lawsuits and use of tribunals have put me off. Keep going like this, fellas.

Mel
Mel
13 years ago

jtfsoon:

“However Mel’s stuff about how more gays will kill themselves because of something on OLO is just ridiculous.”

Actually that isn’t what I said.