Alive! Magazine on "Homosexual Agenda" in Africa

Killer Pigeon

Hello All!

First of all, let me apologies for the length of this OP, but please bare with me.

TylerIE has created a thread on this topic in the LGBT forum already.

I know there has been a lot of threads on the Alive! Magazine here on AH before, but I have to bring it's latest issue to the wider attention of the boards.ie community (mods, bare with me). It is indeed quite worrying and wrong on so many levels.

Personally, I found Alive! Magazine's October 2011 issue to be the most offensive edition yet, particularly an article on Page 2 of the issue entitled "West exploits poor to impose leftwing agenda".

I normally just ignore what they have to say but this article just takes the cake; it's the most callous article I've read in any newspaper for a long time. The article went so far as to implicitly condone the imprisonment of gay people in Malawi.

We can debate for hours as to whether removing funds from Malawi was right but my issue here is their particular argument against it.

I have reached boiling point!

I believe strongly in freedom of speech and expression but not when it maliciously puts the rights of other into question.

The article in question is here below:

West exploits poor to impose leftwing agenda


WESTERN governments are using much needed aid in order to impose their own leftwing “values” on vulnerable peoples in the third world.

In dealing with Malawi, Western officials have revealed their callous indifference to the suffering of the world’s poorest people,
as they seek to advance a secularist ideology.

This year, for example, the Obama administration cancelled $350 million dollars
of aid to Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries, in a bid to force it to accept the homosexual agenda.

The country’s people, many of them threatened by cholera, desperately need food, clean water and basic health care, while only 7% of Malawians have regular access to electricity, a major obstacle to economic growth.

Given such corrupt pressure and the needs of its people, the African government buckled and repealed the law against homosexual behaviour.

‘Absurd’
“We cannot run away from the fact that we need their aid, but it is absurd for those countries to be forcing the country to embrace immoral cultures,” complained Dr. H.M. Ntaba, a top advisor to Malawi’s president.

“We are a sovereign state and we deserve to be treated as
such, aid or no aid.”

Recently Germany decided to withhold half of the $33 million in foreign aid promised to Malawi because, yet again, of the homosexuality agenda and restrictions on press freedom.
Media reports indicate that the Global Fund has also rejected Malawi’s application for $560 million, again due to its laws regarding homosexual acts.
These policies deny impoverished men, women and children their most fundamental human rights, while pushing a Western leftwing agenda.

Yet no international rights treaty mentions sexual attraction or covers sexual behaviour.

http://www.alive.ie/uploads/6/5/1/1/6511516/alive_oct_2011.pdf (page 2)

I have sent a letter of complaint to the editor. I would encourage anyone else offended by this article to copy & paste the letter below and send it to editor@alive.ie (insert you name where mentioned, if you wish). It will only take two minute of your time.

Dear Editor,

I'd like to draw attention to an article in the last publication of Alive! Magazine (No. 171 - October 2011). The article in question is on page 2 of the paper, entitled "West exploits poor to impose leftwing agenda".

I found the article deeply offensive and in breech of modern journalistic standards.

In the article, the author (who is not mentioned) criticises the withdrawal of funds, by certain Western governments, to Malawi for its laws on homosexuality.

It perfectly legitimate to question whether or not the withdrawal of funds was an appropriate action but the arguments in the article are completely beyond reasoning.

In Malawi, and other African states such as Uganda, homosexuality is illegal and it is severely punished. In Uganda, one may even be sentenced to death for engaging in homosexual acts. This is a clear violation of human rights.

Beyond what Alive! Magazine believes is moral or immoral, an individual should have the legal right to love whoever they want, either man or woman, as long as they don't hinder the rights of other. People shouldn't have to live under the fear of being imprisoned or executed because of their sexual orientation. Wishfully promoting such a fate on an individual is beyond Christian standards.

Alive! Magazine refers to a "Homosexual Agenda", when they clearly don't understand that members of the LGBT community only want to live their lives in peace and without fear. Legislation shouldn't be brought forward to regulate what LGBT people do in their private lives, as long as it doesn't effect other. The LGBT community aren't hindering the rights of others, in fact it's to the contrary.

I would question, however, if there is a "religious agenda" against the LGBT community that wishes to hinder their rights. Certainly this is what I, personally, felt when reading that article.

I felt as though Alive! Magazine was defending and promoting Malawi's laws on homosexuality and that, by doing so, encouraged such laws elsewhere. To this effect, I felt that Alive! Magazine was promoting the infringement of LGBT rights.

I would like the editor of Alive! Magazine to apologise for allowing such an attack on the LGBT community to be published in it's newspaper, a newspaper that is distributed nationwide. I believe that Alive! Magazine needs to make clear it's opinions on laws against homosexuality, including the punishment of life imprisonment or the death penalty for individuals who have engaged in homosexual acts. Does Alive! Magazine really promote such laws?

If Alive! Magazine believes that it represents the Catholic community in Ireland, it should make these opinions known.


Regards,


<Insert Name>

I for one, would not like to see Alive! get away with this. This is the last straw for me.

Regards,

Killer Pigeon.

tbh

If the catholic church are so worried, let them sell their gold to feed the poor. Otherwise, they can stfu.

Sofaspud

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

Alive! . . . . . . newspaper

That right there is your first problem.

pragmatic1

Jasus does there have to be a new gay thread in AH every week. Is it not time for some knacker threads.

kowloon

Rumour has it they eat da poo poo.

Mike 1972

Seeing as how Alive reckon countries like Germany and the US should give money to the government Malawi regardless of how much they disapprove of their policies perhaps you should have asked them how much money the proprietors of Alive donate to Planned Parenthood or Marie Stopes International ?

bronte

Waste of trees.

flyaway.

Sometimes I can laugh at how ridiculous this magazine is but other times it just makes me so angry. :mad:

randylonghorn

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

If Alive! Magazine believes that it represents the Catholic community in Ireland ...

Alive! may believe it, but that don't make it so.

LighterGuy

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

I have sent a letter of complaint to the editor. I would encourage anyone else offended by this article to copy & paste the letter below and send it to editor@alive.ie (insert you name where mentioned, if you wish). It will only take two minute of your time.

Sending a complaint wont change a thing mate.

hatrickpatrick

Alive! Magazine on

Stopped reading there.
It's literally like the official Westboro Baptist Church publication for Ireland or something like that.

southsiderosie

Nobody is forcing these countries to accept aid money. If they want to go it alone, and pass whatever ridiculous laws they want to pass, then more power to them.

Plus, at the rate the West is going right now, there won't be much aid available in upcoming years anyway, so this will be a moot issue.

hatrickpatrick

LighterGuy wrote: »

Sending a complaint wont change a thing mate.

Agreed. Don't send sincere complaints - trolling them is so much more fun, they take the bait amazingly frequently

Killer Pigeon

LighterGuy wrote: »

Sending a complaint wont change a thing mate.

Depends on how many complaints they receive.

admiralofthefleet

the catholic cult is run by homosexuals so i dont know what they are trying to say

Killer Pigeon

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Agreed. Don't send sincere complaints - trolling them is so much more fun, they take the bait amazingly frequently

I wouldn't recommend trolling, the whole idea here is to force an apology out of them.

4leto

There is always a price tag with aid, its not blindly given, be it influence, be it the implementation of a certain agenda, but aid is never free.

Look at us with our low interest Aid/loan from the IMF/ECB we know that will cost us some of our sovereignty, but that is the nature of aid.

Now if western governments deny a country aid because of the receiving countries abuse on human rights then so be it and that country changes that policy the aid is doing good work, in the long term that country will benefit.

Killer Pigeon

4leto wrote: »

There is always a price tag with aid, its not blindly given, be it influence, be it the implementation of a certain agenda, but aid is never free.

Look at us with our low interest Aid/loan from the IMF/ECB we know that will cost us some of our sovereignty, but that is the nature of aid.

Now if western governments deny a country aid because of the receiving countries abuse on human rights then so be it and that country changes that policy the aid is doing good work, in the long term that country will benefit.

I totally agree.

Helix

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

Depends on how many complaints they receive.

no it doesnt

complaining will change nothing, they'll just read it and think "here's a gay giving out" before deleting it

wonderfulname

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

I wouldn't recommend trolling, the whole idea here is to force an apology out of them.

You're so sweet, if you want to force them out on their record of discrimination contact a real media outlet or the Press Ombudsman.

hatrickpatrick

Could I add just one more thing:
I'm a Christian. Born Catholic, although I'm seriously considering "going it alone" with my belief in God as the institution itself is fast disintegrating in my view. But I am a Christian and I have an extremely strong belief in God and in God's direct action in our world.

Do other Christians here agree that publications like these are what gives our religion a bad name?
Thinking about it honestly, most of the major complaints I've heard against the church (serious complaints rather than "God don't exist f00" trolling) revolve around the extreme right wing social agenda (so-called family values, anti sexuality, anti gender equality, anti separation of church and state).

In my own experience of debating with atheists, this type of thing is the single most damaging aspect of religion. And as a Christian in my view that's completely justified.

Would any other Christians join me in saying that this kind of thing runs directly contrary to the word of Jesus himself? Read through the Gospels, at NO point does he advocate hatred, blackmail or discrimination. At no point, indeed, does he explicitly mention homosexuality - in fact he speaks fairly little about sex in general except in the context of cheating.
Wherever these so-called "Christian values" come from, in my view it's not from God.

I genuinely don't mean to sound arrogant or dismissive of other people's beliefs here, but I would say that if you're going to call something a "Christian value", you should at least be able to cite a quotation of Christ actually being in agreement with it, and in this case I can't think of a single one.

Giselle

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

the catholic cult is run by homosexuals so i dont know what they are trying to say

Its run by a combination of good people, pedophiles, and pederasts.

If it was run by 'mere' homosexuals there wouldn't be any scandals.

wonderfulname

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Do other Christians here agree that publications like these are what gives our religion a bad name?

You should ask this in the Christianity forum, I'm sure you'll find a lot of fans of the publication there... Seriously though, anybody who makes character assumptions of over 2 billion people worldwide based on one pathetic little magazine needs to cop on a little.

Killer Pigeon

wonderfulname wrote: »

You're so sweet, if you want to force them out on their record of discrimination contact a real media outlet or the Press Ombudsman.

Unfortunately the Press Ombudsman (as far as I gather) does not accept complaints from newspapers/magazines that are not members of the Press Council of Ireland. Alive! Magazine does not appear do be a member.
http://www.pressombudsman.ie/making-a-complaint.24.html
http://www.pressombudsman.ie/member-publications/national-newspapers.168.html

Mike 1972

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I'm a Christian. Born Catholic,

No you werent.

Killer Pigeon

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I genuinely don't mean to sound arrogant or dismissive of other people's beliefs here, but I would say that if you're going to call something a "Christian value", you should at least be able to cite a quotation of Christ actually being in agreement with it, and in this case I can't think of a single one.

Arresting, imprisoning or executing people because of the way that they were born does not strike me as a traditional Christian value. Believe me, I was raised in a Catholic household, as well as many others here.

whubee

rabble rabble religion, crusades, no god rabble rabble

Killer Pigeon

wonderfulname wrote: »

You should ask this in the Christianity forum, I'm sure you'll find a lot of fans of the publication there... Seriously though, anybody who makes character assumptions of over 2 billion people worldwide based on one pathetic little magazine needs to cop on a little.

Let it be clear, this thread wasn't intended to criticize people by virtue of their religious beliefs. This thread is about Alive! Magazine and that article they published.

randylonghorn

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Do other Christians here agree that publications like these are what gives our religion a bad name?

...

Would any other Christians join me in saying that this kind of thing runs directly contrary to the word of Jesus himself? Read through the Gospels, at NO point does he advocate hatred, blackmail or discrimination. At no point, indeed, does he explicitly mention homosexuality - in fact he speaks fairly little about sex in general except in the context of cheating.
Wherever these so-called "Christian values" come from, in my view it's not from God.

I have no idea what I am these days, but I still have much respect for the core Christian message in the gospels themselves, as opposed to what 2,000 years of interpretation, hierarchy and politics have added to them.

And yes, I would agree with you completely, this kind of crap is *not* the message which Christ preached.

Whether people believe him to be the son of god or just a social reformer way ahead of his time who became extremely famous isn't really the relevant bit to this question.

To me, much of the "Christian truth" taught over the centuries does not actually match up at all with the original Christian message.

randylonghorn

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

Arresting, imprisoning or executing people because of the way that they were born does not strike me as a traditional Christian value.

KP, if you re-read patrick's post, I don't think that's what he's saying at all.

Rather he's arguing that what the zealot's over the centuries have promulgated as Christian values, and in the example you've given continue to do so to-day, has strayed miles from what Christ actually preached in some areas.

Wompa1

I'm not sure I get what you are trying to say. What's so wrong with the article. People who read it can agree or disagree...at it's face value, yes the west is using money to pressure the countrys government into ensuring gay people get improved human rights there. That's true, it is exploiting them for the fact they desperately need the money. Are you upset because they are highlighting that? I wouldn't be too worried about it in fairness. I'd be suprised if many people reading it would think people there aren't entitled to basic human rights