“The Manhattan Declaration is an over 4,000-word statement of beliefs signed by over 400,000 people described as ‘a call to Christian conscience’ crafted in 2009. The app version, which includes a four-question poll on same sex marriage and abortion, launched in mid-October,” Martinelli reports. “A spokesperson for the Christian organization told the Daily Caller that the group is appealing Apple’s decision. ‘We’re making the argument that if [Jobs] would take a look at the Manhattan Declaration himself, he’d see it’s not written with any rancor. It’s written on a very even keel..] It’s just appealing to things that people want to come together on, that millions of Americans agree on.'”
Full article here.
Billy Atwell blogs for The Manhattan Declartation, “There are moments in non-profit work, if your goal is to spark social change, when you feel comfortable knowing that your methods are effective. One of those moments is when your radicalized opponents lambast you as homophobic, anti-choice, anti-woman, or something similar. I do not find comfort in these words, or find them in any way accurate, but appreciate that the message of truth is at least reaching their ears.”
“The Manhattan Declaration iPhone application was released October 14, 2010 as a resource to our loyal supporters,” Atwell writes. “But to a radicalized blog dedicated to promoting abortion, denigrating the dignity of women and the unborn, and supporting unnatural unions, this application is the scourge of human existence. What does that tell me? It tells me that we’re doing something right.”
Full article here.
The Manhattan declaration can be read in full here.
Halibut: said that Liberals are all for free speech as long as it’s exactly what they want to hear. Otherwise, they’re not.
exactly
I want to repeat some things that have already been said very well, but are still disregarded by some who post. That may be futile but I’ll give it a spin.
1. Apple is a company in business, they are not a form of government and therefore any ideas of “Free Speech” applying here are wrong. It’s reasonable to expect that any company should have the right to choose the product and promotion mix in their own stores. That’s it. Free markets. Free merchants. Free consumers.
Any free consumer is able to respond as they wish.
Sounds kind of conservative doesn’t it?
Now I’ll say something that is currently ascribed to liberalism, but I feel is actually very conservative in the classical sense…
2. The basic problem with using religion in any discussion about public policy or government is that religions have that nuclear option of all argument stoppers – their particular <bold>God says so.</bold>
The same goes for claiming to “love the person and hate the sin,” even though you can be as gentle as possible in your words, the same kind of ultimate nuclear option is played by condemning actions not just because you don’t like them, but because (your) <bold>God Doesn’t Like Them. </bold> And of course these awful activities HAVE to be free will, so that they can be counted as sins. For which sinner/people will suffer for eternity and therefor deserve whatever restrictions & condemnations that can be put on them before they get to hell.
And that implies lots of things within your theology, that you want acted out in our shared reality.
Well how could any sane person argue against the will of the Creator of Everything??? Probably because they can honestly not believe the same or at all.
Feel free to worship as you please, but your Zeus is not my God.
Apple legally can do as they want, the consumer can respond with both their stock & product decisions.
Business law applies, not God or the Constitution.
“Even if fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” – Anatole France
I’m an athiest and I’ve never read the new testament, but I’m pretty sure Jesus Christ wanted people to quit being dicks.
So the dicks that wrote the Manhatten Declaration = fake Christians.
Ak2000 et all.
Your hatred And ignorance is disgusting. Love and peace. Most people posting are obviously filled with resentment and hate.
Religions are the worlds ever nightmare. Get rid of them all and there will be wisdom on earth.
I know there are a lot of sane people in the US but when it comes to crazies and just plain nutters you guys just seem to take the cake. Why do you put up with these extremists and why the hell do you elect them in such numbers to your parliaments? It’s just plain weird.
Judge lest not ye be judged.
Christians would do well to remember that.
http://www.transcentr.com.ua – аренда автомобиля в Киеве
Why jailbreak? Control your own content!
@Tom
Non-Christians never understand that the whole “judgement thing”. Christians are to apply God’s Word (or judgements), not their own. If they were allowed to apply their own judgements, they could choose to simply ignore Leviticus 18:22 (along with everything else).
Maybe one day, Christianity will enjoy the same protected/favored status that Islam enjoys and no one will question their “radical” beliefs.
I must say I do enjoy reading faux-“open-minded” people argue FOR censorship. They must be tormented by their intolerance and close-mindedness.
Mike, you are noy ‘gay’, you are a homosexual. Or, homo for short.
Gay means happy.
What you don’t understand is that non-Christians don’t accept the word of your Zeus as anything more than a book written by men thousands of years ago.
So when you apply “God’s Judgment” We don’t buy it. It’s just a convenient way to condemn people without having to personally own up to the judgment.
I’m perfectly happy, not filled with hate and my morals & ethics are intact. I’m also open minded enough to notice when people use disapproval from their God to imagine all sorts of evil on the part of those who disagree with them.
I’ll be having a wonderful day, you do so to.
“… and that government of the people, by the people, for the people…”
Except female, gay, black….
Just as the homosexual community has the right to not be discriminated against, so does the Christian community–regardless of their viewpoint.
I find it amazing that the liberal community–who champions those of minority (be it homosexuality, drug use, abortion laws, and the like) and use Freedom of Speech to hold rallies, protests, and inundate the media with their viewpoints–are so opposed to other doing the same, just because the opposing viewpoints are not their own. If one group has the right to speak, then so does the other group.
As much as I love Apple products, my suggestion would be that Apple tread lightly in this arena. Just as the homosexual community would lash out on anyone that might ban/bar their app, so will this group. It won’t be pretty.
Wow. The homo’s and their ilk demand tolerance yet when someone says something they think is “against” them they become the most INTOLERANT ranting haters.
We all have the same rights already. (California)
I can marry a person of the opposite sex, so can you.
I can not marry a person of the same sex, neither can you.
Marriage is between one man and one woman.
Marriage will NEVER be between two men or two women.
It just won’t. It can’t.
And for another thing….ALL people are born heterosexual. You must choose to be homosexual. So don’t bother with the “when did you choose to be straight” bullcrap. It doesn’t work that way Mr. Strawman.
And why do you chickenshit defenders of “abortion” call it “A Women’s Right to Choose” instead of just being honest and saying you support killing babies?
And Apple should put the app back because they should let us have this “choice”, you people are for choice right??????
And I challenge any of you commie homo liberal cry baby whiners to produce one sentence from the Manhattan Declaration that is hateful. Just ONE!?!?
Let me get this straight…
The right wing christians here are complaining that people want to take away their right to take away the rights of others?
They feel they are being discriminated against because people are telling them they can’t discriminate against others?
Lastly:
@Josiah
“If they were allowed to apply their own judgements, they could choose to simply ignore Leviticus 18:22 (along with everything else).”
So what of the parts of Leviticus they do ignore? Shellfish, for example?
“Maybe one day, Christianity will enjoy the same protected/favored status that Islam enjoys and no one will question their “radical” beliefs.”
There was a time when Christianity did enjoy that right. We tend to refer to it as the dark ages.
Again I find it fascinating that some of the right leaning people posting on here do not think that a conservative can be gay…its always you homo liberals…
Denial perhaps?
@FSM
There is, actually! I just downloaded it. 😀
This whole issue is a complicated one. When Apple decided that it would regulate the App store it through itself into the inevitable conundrum. Where does one draw the line?
On this one, some of the supporters of the app are calling “free speech” but I doubt they would say the same for a child pornography app. (This IS totally hypocritical since it is mostly fundamentalist christians who call for the banning of various literary texts from libraries around the country – but posters here seem to ignore this.) So the issue is not whether to draw the line, but where to do so.
I think that the fundamentalist “christians” are silly, hypocritical, and their right-wing political ideology is dangerous, also hypocritical, and in many cases un-american. (Note- not all evangelicals are what I am calling fundamentalists, or right-wing.)
However, I DO believe in free speech. And Apple has provided a platform via which people communicate. Much as I may despise the content of Manhattan Declaration, I believe that it is inherent in our deepest held political philosophy that we allow groups to speak even if we disagree. Apple now has control of a marketplace. I think it either must live up to ideals of our political system and allow whatever is legal, or stop all political and religious apps all together.
If it does not do this – then it will remain in the position of arbiter of what is acceptable or not, and this is a position for which it is ill suited and at which it will always lose.
@ Disgusted
Can’t handle the truth? You any smarter than the people with these quotes? I’m sure you are not.
Love and peace, you say? More people have been killed in the name of Jesus than any other name in history. We’re talking millions and millions of people killed by the Crusades, the Inquisition, all the wars between the Catholics and Protestants after the Reformation, and countless other killings and atrocities committed by Christians that exist to this very day.
BTW, my wife is a devout Christian and I have no problem with that because she keeps her beliefs to herself. I have no problems with Christians if they’d just stop trying to force their beliefs down other people’s throats. But that just isn’t the nature of Christianity, is it? It’s always this arrogant and delusional “You’re with us or against us” mentality.
@ YES ON 8
You are aware that Apple’s *OFFICIAL* status on Prop 8 was “NO,” right? Are you now going to sell all your Apple stuff and buy Dell, HP, or Samsung, etc.?
Let’s remember that women finally got the right to vote in this country (yes, USA, the freest and most equal rights country in the world) only in the 1920’s.
Let’s remember we had slavery here until only around 145 years ago. BTW, the Bible and this Christian god in that ancient text sure doesn’t seem to have any problems with slavery.
Let’s remember we had segregation here until only around 40 years ago.
At least we’re making progress, however slow it is. Deal with it.
@ Harvey
“There was a time when Christianity did enjoy that right. We tend to refer to it as the dark ages.”
Yes, if you look at Western history, the Pope and the Catholic Church ruling most of Europe for over a millennia as a theocracy was indeed the dark ages. It’s when progress just stopped all of a sudden. It set humanity back a thousand years. It took the Renaissance, the Reformation (which then set off countless wars between the Catholics and Protestants that killed millions), and the Enlightenment (AKA the Age of Reason) to start moving forward again. And we still have these extremist right-wingnuts who want to return to the dark ages…
@ Buster
Yes, how about the daughter of that bastion of conservatism – Dick Cheney? What about all these priests and pastors who molest little boys? The Catholic church has already paid out over $1 billion to settle with all the victims. How about Ted Haggard? It goes on and on and on…
Free speech is not extended to hate speech. Religion has its place and needs to stay there. Using religion to promote this level of ugliness is unacceptable.
For those of us who have spent a lifetime coming to the same conclusion as His Shadow, thanks Apple.