Page 372 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 21 February 1990
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invariably about what X-rated movies are. The idea is to ensure that the community does not understand what they are about. One of the most recent examples has come from the Reverend the Honourable Fred Nile, a member of the Legislative Council in New South Wales. On 16 November 1989 he distributed a media release to the press gallery urging the New South Wales Government to introduce a boycott of the ACT to stop X-rated videos. In the media release he made what he calls "a rhetorical reference to John Lark". He says:
... the Federal Government must stand up to the John Larks of this world and say "No, enough is enough!".
In fact, I have in my hand an agreement by the Reverend Fred Nile to apologise because he went on to say:
... this X-rated hard core pornographic video industry has close links with the Mafia in the USA.
He later makes this apology:
In case my media release dated 16th November 1989 was misinterpreted, I wish to apologise to Mr John Lark for any hurt he may have suffered because of the above media release.
He knew what he was doing, he was aware of it, but he wanted to misrepresent the argument. That was not necessary. If you have a good enough argument, present the argument as it is, present the truth, then you can sway people. The Reverend Fred Nile goes on to say:
I also give an unqualified retraction concerning any possible imputations that Mr John Lark himself has any personal links with the Mafia in the USA, or that the objectionable violent videos I referred to were distributed by him as he only specialises in "non-violent erotica" videos.
But he has already had the opportunity to present non-violent erotica as violent pornography, which it simply is not.
It makes me wonder how people like that can call themselves Christian, because the Reverend Fred Nile is clearly not a Christian. When Christ was asked, "What is the greatest of the commandments?" He said, "Love one another", and went on to say a few other things. The sort of thing that we get from Fred Nile, the sort of thing that we get here, is very far from Christianity. If he really perceives himself as a Christian, then in fact he is a hypocrite. He relies on the fact that other people are Christians and therefore cannot make the sort of statement that I have just made. As most members are aware, I am agnostic. I am not a Christian so I can make such statements without being hypocritical.
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