The ads mocking Christianity were banned as well, but it is extremely unlikely that APN Outdoor was concerned about discriminating against and vilifying Christians. Clearly, what they were concerned about violent reprisals from Muslims enraged at the prospect of flushing the Qur’an. The organizers are quite correct when they say, “To reject these posters is to censor free speech – pure and simple.” It is not allowed in the West, except on the Internet and in certain courageous fora, to speak critically about Islamic supremacism and jihad terror today.
This is the battle that Pamela Geller and I have been fighting for years; now the same thing is being done to Sam Harris: the false branding of his ads, the mischaracterization of his work, the charges of “bigotry,” “Islamophobia,” etc. He has the advantage of having been known and loved on the Left before it began, so he has a following and a reservoir of good will — or else he would be notorious today as a “right-wing extremist,” just like those he shuns.
“Controversial ads for atheist author who was in famous TV row with Ben Affleck over Islam are BANNED for ‘discrimination’ – because they said it should be OK to flush the Koran down the toilet,” by Daniel Piotrowski, Daily Mail Australia, October 29, 2015 (thanks to Marc):
A series of billboards mocking communion biscuits and arguing it should be fine to flush to Koran down the toilet without fear of violence have been banned because they ‘discriminate or vilify’.
Prominent atheist thinker Sam Harris, who famously argued with Ben Affleck about Islam on American television earlier this year, will visit Australia on a speaking tour next year.
But organisers are furious APN Outdoor won’t them run the advertisements which feature quotes from Mr Harris. They argue: ‘To reject these posters is to censor free speech – pure and simple’.
One advertisement said people should be able to flush all books including the Islamic holy text down the toilet without fear of violent reprisals.
Another jokes Jesus Christ who was ‘born of a virgin, cheated death, and rose bodily into the heavens – can now be eaten in the form of a cracker’.
‘As an atheist, I am angry that we live in a society in which the plain truth cannot be spoken without offending 90% of the population,’ a third said.
Desh Amila, from organisers Think Inc, said their repeated arguments with APN to allow the posters fell on deaf ears.
The company referred Think Inc. to a section of the Australian Association of National Advertisers code of ethics.
The paragraph says advertisements must not ‘discriminate against or vilify’ based on race, ethnicity or religion.
When the ads were refused, Mr Amila said: ‘This is specifically saying about vilification about a person or a group of people – we’re not vilifying anyone.’
‘We are spruiking intellectual discussion about a very important subject matter.’
He said religion is a ‘reason for many of the conflicts in the world… If you think these quotes are offensive, just open the Old Testament..’
‘There are many things one can be offended that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t speak about it.’
Mr Harris, who will visit in January has been described as a fierce critic of organised religions, with titles of his books including The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation.
He tweeted: ‘It seems that the billboards proposed by my sponsor in Australia have been rejected on the grounds that they offend religious sensibilities. Interesting…’
Janine Wood, a spokeswoman for APN Outdoor, told Daily Mail Australia they would not run the advertisements because they breached the OMA code of ethics….

pdxnag says
On the topic of Free Speech, here is a follow up from a couple days ago. This is a big win, one that I thought would have made it onto Drudge. It relates to the viral video of Muslim kids in Dearbornistan stoning (with water bottles and trash and the like) the Evangelicals.
Sixth Circuit rejects ‘heckler’s veto’ as to anti-Islam speech by ‘Bible Believers’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/28/sixth-circuit-rejects-hecklers-veto-as-to-anti-islam-speech-by-bible-believers/
“Heckler’s Veto”: Sixth Circuit Rules Against Wayne County In Silencing Christians At Arab Festival
http://jonathanturley.org/2015/10/30/hecklers-veto-sixth-circuit-rules-against-wayne-county-in-silencing-christians-at-arab-festival/
Muslim violence is not enough reason to remove non-Muslim speakers that are the target of Muslim violence.
Christopher H says
Thank you so much for this link, indeed a VERY important case and the legal reasoning behind it!
ballotcode says
Although I personally do not approve of their methods, this is in response to a semi famous case won by another evangelical group that was set up and arrested or detained/harassed/expelled in previous years.
As Mohamedism is bereft of anything substantive or good ideas and cannot stand on its’ merits, it frequently regresses to these sort of crybaby tactics [throwing rocks, threats of violence, coercion…].
Sh. N. says
And if you don’t bend convert-ibly, your neck will be bent to correct the wrongdoing of God in creating you by sword. Or you will be burned as their forefathers have done to our forefathers in the Middle East 1400 years ago. Islam as it is today, is a cult which its believers, believe in killing or enslaving others.
Fetch your torches, the Dark Ages is coming.
Angemon says
Indeed, and freedom of speech is the requirement for all other freedoms.
I bet he’s thinking “when and why did I went from being “part of the solution” to being “part of the problem?”
762x5FMJ says
Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be. seen by anyone who examines his law.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles (13th cent). Book 1, Ch. 6.4
dsinc says
Cowards
ballotcode says
But the Koran really should be flushed.
mccode says
Sam Harris is cool, a great speaker, and a clear thinker.
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
‘We are spruiking intellectual discussion about a very important subject matter.’
Without a spruiking permit?
http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/enterprisemelbourne/promote/Pages/Spruiking.aspx
762x51FMJ says
Freshly quickened by the divine correction, you must apply the strength of your righteousness to another matter which concerns you as well as God. For your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of your help, and you must hasten to give them aid. For, as the most of you have heard, ISIS [Muslims] have attacked them and have conquered the territory as far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Banyas (Syria ), To Mosul (Iraq )which is called the {New} Arm of St. George. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them.
They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impurity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them.
On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ’s heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile ISIS from our homeland.
Pope URBAN 2 ( 1093 AD )
762x51FMJ says
The preceding message was brought to you by the : “WHAT A REAL POPE SHOULD SAY SOCIETY”
WAR PSSS. Ssssh quiet!
No Fear says
Thanks for alerting me to the visit by Sam Harris.
I will be attending.
Salome says
Mr Harris shows himself to be pretty ignorant of the depth of Christian doctrine and sacramental theology. One of those boring people who can’t tell that Islam is different. Someone blows people up shouting Allahu akhbar, ergo all religion is bad. Yawn.
Not I said the sparrow says
See reply below, out of sequence. (btw Are you a belly-dancer?)
gravenimage says
A series of billboards mocking communion biscuits and arguing it should be fine to flush to Koran down the toilet without fear of violence have been banned
………………………..
Of course, no Christian is going to harm anyone over the mocking of communion wafers.
Would that it were the same with Muslims and the Qur’an…
No Fear says
All this talk of communion wafers is making me hungry.
Demsci says
This refusal to publish the ads infuriates me too. Why can’t people reason rationally about “rules” for followers of Islam and (lack of) rules for followers of other religions, lifestyle or carefree others?
The Muslims are also free to flush all books they desire to flush! And yes, if they have a rule to treat the Quran respectfully, then MUSLIMS should be disciplined when THEY would flush the Quran.
But why are the other humans prohibited to flush their own copies down the toilet??? Why can’t the Muslims shrug their shoulders and reason that they too (may) have a lot of contempt for others and (may) do a lot of disrespectful things to others, hurting their FEELINGS, if not their bodies? But that that is only fair.
annabellee beidersee says
Waste not want not – use it for toilet paper first!
mach37 says
A complete koran will not flush, at least not in modern toilets in the US; but a page or two at a time should not clog the plumbing.
mortimer says
Sam Harris does not seem to understand that VIGILANTISM is the main problem with Sharia law.
Any private Muslim is authorized to enforce Sharia and becomes a hero of other Muslims when he does so.
Violence and lies are the main weapons for enforcing Sharia. These facts make Islam conspiratorial, lawless and violent by nature. Muslim vigilantes fight national laws by stealth and violence in order to impose the laws of ‘KHAIR UL MAKAREEN’ … the BEST OF DECEIVERS (an epithet of the Islamic pseudodeity).
How is one to trust ‘the BEST of deceivers’ under any circumstances’? Isn’t the Koran ‘garbage’ or ‘offal’ if it teaches such absurd amorality?
mortimer says
APN thinks “advertisements must not ‘discriminate against or vilify’ based on … religion”
Response: Islam calls for the death by vigilantes of verbal opponents of Islam. That is discrimination of the worst kind. It should be taken into account that Islam is actually more a ‘system of governance’ that includes a state religion within it, than a religion that influences politics.
APN’s rules would ban the criticism of ALL political supremacists…Nazis, Stalinists, Maoists. The result of this policy is no controversy of any kind would be printed.
Without demanding better performance from a group, club, political party or religion, there is no motivation for improvement.
Islamopandering will not encourage Muslims to leave the 7th century.
Baucent says
Bit of a storm in a tea cup really. The proposed billboards were deliberately provocative so the APN would ban them and so generate some news copy and debate and draw attention to Sam Harris visit. So because we are even discussing it, it has been successful.End of story.
Eddy says
It just goes to show how out of touch they really are, part of being Australian is singing the Australian anthem, its not forced upon them its just flat out respect for the country that grants them close to absolute freedom in what ever they do.
like fair enough allow them to do their thing during Ramadan, and what not, it just goes to show how it all starts, and it starts with public schools and that where they spread their “message of the truth” around the Special Education Classes and “BAM!” or “”BANG” you have another Jake Bilardi on your hands fighting a war in some war torn part of the world.
I’m not saying boot them out of our schools because of that, but impressing that they have a nearly free education system and almost endless support in the long term, its really disrespectful when and we all sacrificed something for those systems and to have it frowned upon by the politically correct and making them all feel welcome is just shear lunacy.
Our sacrifices were our tax dollars.
Why we remain always and ever willing open to new cultures and we tend to do more for them but in return they remain tight lipped about problems in their own communities in Australia and i imagine its a global problem.
See its this state sponsored bewilderment that bothers me and most Australians, that fund the houses they live in for free, their education in the public schools, their medical expenses, their CentreLink payments, and the families claim they know nothing about so and so going nuts at a cafe in Martin Place or murdering a innocent man as he walked home from work on a Friday afternoon in Parramatta, always saying “hes a good, smart and clever boy” or “he helps his Grandmother all the time,he is so helpful”
Clearly the “Cheese has slipped off the Halal certified Jat®” here.
And in the younger circles (20’s to mid 30’s) they do shout its a conspiracy first despite a significant amount of evidence supporting the contrary.
They ALWAYS demand our immediate respect and our acceptance to their religious beliefs, but they afford no accommodation to our way of life.
Contrary to popular belief they are not poor, they are loaded with money from their own countries, and when something happens to them they are the first ones to go on benefits and next thing you see in a few years is a boat and a massive HiLux parked outside their house and no-one is watching this.
This is the “modern Australia” that we are all paying for, them, they are the largest groups of sponges in Australia since the influx of the “asylum seekers” (mainly Muslim men) since 2003, 98% failed to find a job, astounding isn’t it?
And its ‘generational” their kids will learn from them and do the same thing almost but there is the Disability Insurance Scheme to rip off to, I wonder how many of them are on DIS because of Anxiety Issues (commonly sited) and you see them behaving normally in their long white gowns in the middle of the day at a shopping centre, its like that for me when I take a day off work, you see them around Auburn and Bankstown, you cant say get a job because they don’t know how to work.
I don’t think this is the “Australia” our former serving military soldiers and current serving soldiers have fought for, nope, and the thing is, is that they (the Muslim community) receive a wider and broader of benefits funded by us then our armed services receive towards the end of their careers and after that tough luck “jog-on” why do we have a system where it punishes the people who put their lives on the line for our everyday freedoms and they have the hard road and it’s totally not right.
And these are the “dickheads” that are shooting at us and decapitating people along the way.
Its just a religion that thrives upon continuous victimization, cultural abuse, historical destruction and taking advantage of the vulnerable and their families.
Islam and Australia is a complicated and messy arrangement that needs to be rectified.
duh_swami says
As an atheist, I am angry that we live in a society in which the plain truth cannot be spoken without offending 90% of the population,’ a third said.
Free speech has become an oxymoron. You can’t own it but you can rent it, if you are willing to pay the price.
Flushing the Quran is unfair to the janitor. The resulting clog and overflow will creates a janitorial nightmare.All janitors know what a janitorial nightmare is…
Ot would be better to shred a quran and send he remains to the landfill where it can compost. Fom the dirt it came and to the dirt it shall return,,,or something like that…
Tony Gibson says
The covers would make it a difficult procedure, but if the whole thing was in toilet roll form I think we’d have an an all-time best seller in our WCs & at our fingertips.
Francis Merde says
Sam Harris is a useful idiot. By weakening the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of his own society, he only makes it simpler for Islamic fundamentalists to do their work. Remember, Islam has fear to keep people in line. The death penalty for apostasy is still enforced with frightening regularity.
In Christianity, there is no compulsion to be there. If you want to go, then you can leave whenever you want. It is a choice. At worst, people might pray for your soul. OH NO, THE HORROR!
All he’s doing is ensuring that future generations will grow up less free than he did.
Not I said the sparrow says
In all of those two rambling testaments of Bible there is no use of the words “democracy” or “republic”. They are words literally foreign to that book.
What feudalistic society do you live in that you have never heard of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, read Thomas Paine, or had your pulse quickened by the sound of the Marseillaise?
Francis Merde says
Christianity has a mainstream interpretation that encourages co-operation with the law. The classic “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s due and render unto God what is God’s due” is one of the verses which arguably encourages the religious tradition of Christianity to exist harmoniously in a secular society. As for democracy, see the concept of “free will.” Democracy is derived from it.
Another interpretation is that “God is good, and because he’s good the universe has an underlying order that can be discovered through observation.” Pretty much the basis of Christian science. And don’t try to pull the classic, “but the Romans and the Greeks.” Yes, once their work was rediscovered helped kick off the renaissance, but would such work have even been valued in another culture. As I recall, when the library of Alexandria was burned Muslims just threw the scrolls into the river. And in Mosul in 2015 they burned both rare books and science texts for being Haram.
You might be able to argue the Voltaire didn’t believe in God, but Paine was deist, and Locke was a Baptist (I think). So two out of those three examples believed in something else beyond the physical.
Could secular society even have arisen in another climate in the first place? Hindus lived under the yoke of the caste system pre-colonization, China had Confucius, Japan was under Imperial rule until 1945. I could go on and on, but the crux of the matter is that secular society didn’t evolve in the West as an accident. Frankly it’s the only place that it could have evolved.
Kepha says
Sam Harris gives us the tired old saw that “religion is the source of so many balahblahblah….”
Sam, have you ever considered the possibility that people, in and of themselves, regardless of what they believe about Jesus Christ, Muhammad, or anyone, are pretty nasty and conflict-prone? And, I suppose, dear Sam, that after people of your kidney crowed about “science has routed religious obscurantism!” back in the 1920’s, that the Western world suddenly became pious again in time to push eugenics and stage the holocaust? And I suppose that roughly 150,000,000 victims of Communism reflect the young Iosip Dzhugashvilli’s education as an Eastern Orthodox seminarian rather than the mature beliefs of Iosip Stalin? Sam, you are Exhibit A in the case that modern scientism, libertinism, and naturalism (there’s no such thing as real atheism: your little idols are revealed as you speak) are morally irresponsible.
And I, as a Christian, am soooooooooooooooooooooo flattered that the wise, lofty, and unassailable Mr. Harris regards me as a bit less nasty than my Muslim neighbor. Well, I as a Christian, reciprocate by seeing him , supposedly a Western SD, as slightly less repulsive than an unreconstructed disciple of Mao Zedong or Pol Pot.
@Francis Merde, you nailed it about Sam Harris being a useful idiot for the Islamicization of our world–just as he would have been a useful idiot for the Communists had he been a generation or so older.
As for flushing books down the toilet, it just isn’t my style. While I might be able to unclog the old cra%%er, I really don’t like getting my hands dirty in that part of the plumbing.
Let the books rest as warnings of where the sinful nature of man (or woman–to nod to my feminist despisers) might lead.
No Fear says
Why do religious people often regard those who do NOT believe in a monotheistic god as homicidal monsters with no socially acceptable behaviours?
I am atheist. But I am not a Marxist or Communist. I would not behead someone. I would not kill someone because they are not atheist. I would not want to get rid of all those who disagree with me. I respect life and avoid contaminating other’s DNA. I don’t believe in a “glorious leader” who wrote an “infallible text” who guides the “glorious followers” to their “ultimate destiny”, pure in their DNA, unsullied by other groups ideologies.
Let’s all grow up a bit, learn some scientific facts and share those facts with our families.
Sam says
You can not save a person and/or a nation who REALLY wants to commit suicide. This idiotic habit of protecting the evil, Islam, to this level has never happened in the history of the human race, at least at this large scale despite the wide availability of information about truth all over internet.
I would have never thought when I was young that the cult of Islam would have any impact in the western world any more. Was I wrong. I still find it very hard to believe the willing blindness of people about Islam. Very strange!
Demsci says
Yes, strange it is, this suicidal attitude by the majority.
It seems to be the “laissez-faire” of a society of (care)free consumers, or people occupied by 1001 other concerns, to busy to see the danger.
Perhaps there is among the majority of Westerners some LACK. Of appreciation for their own countries, culture, people.
In this context Positive Psychology (Posipsy) (in existence since 1998) may be of help. This advocates to focus on what (still) goes well, and is to be appreciated, and trying to promote, expand that.
It is important to note that Posipsy is meant to be augmentative, and not meant to hinder, replace all kinds of other strategies, especially safety-measures.
In this context; many Westerners could consider to become, under pressure from Muslims, more patriottic and conscious of the beauty and excellence of Western Democratic Societies, so leading in all kinds of competition between countries, and especially excelling in so many ways above Islamic societies. Witness the direction of migration.
Knowing and appreciating the good aspects of Democr.societies then many of us, from our heart, can bombard resident Muslims, refugees, even Muslims in Islamic countries (to begin with the Kurds, then the oppressed Iranians etc) with all sorts of elements of better lifestyles and government systems THAN Islamic ones. In order to persuade smart Muslims into possible alternative lifestyles, religions to Islam.
Come on, we can say to them; what good is Islam any way? When there are so many better alternatieves? Even if your parents disapprove, was it not the case that at one point an ancestor of them also broke with the religion of his/ her parents in order to become Muslim?!
Not I said the sparrow says
From what is reported above Sam Harris understands the doctrines of
Parthenogenesis,
The Resurrection,
Transubstantiation.
A non-theological argument might be about whether the communion wafer of unleavened bread could be called a cracker.
But that’s all you are getting from me unless you can show me the deep parts of these doctrines.
As it is,
Parthenogenesis,
The Resurrection,
and
Transubstantiation
are not difficult to concepts to understand. They are just difficult to believe -in fact they are just incredible.
Yes, incredible.
Francis Merde says
It seems to me that the concepts you listed are all Christian concepts. I’d be interested to know just how much he understands about Islam. Robert Spencer wrote an entire book comparing and contrasting the two.
UNCLE VLADDI says
See if they can run one asserting the same thing about MEIN KAMPF.
If they succeed, then simply re-write the Qur’an by substituting “muslim” for “unbeliever,” “Science” for “allah,” and “The Voice of Reason” for “gebril” and “logic:”for “Muhammad” etc.
(So it would say “Logic says you must kill all muslims in the way of Science” etc)!
😉
If it gets banned as “hate-speech” in a court of law, BINGO – we’ve got them!
Hypocrisy must have its limits!
No Fear says
Very good idea.
Michael Jacobs says
“advertisements must not discriminate against or vilify based on race, ethnicity or religion.” Have these people been following the news at all? Surely, the doctrine of Islam can not be considered as a race or an ethnicity, but neither as a religion, because it carries the death penalty for apostasy and criticism.
Jeff Lardizabal says
The Bible says that the old heaven and earth will pass away but The Word, the Bible, the living testament of Jesus Christ will not pass away – so go ahead Sam Harris, make Jesus’ day – he is stronger than Clint Eastwood.
And I will continue to pray that people like you will, instead of thinking you can destroy ideologies by burning or flushi g books, might be convicted by the HolycSpirit to seek the truth in the Bible, capable of shedding your fears of lexical and logical discourse and replace them with the wisdom found in fear and reverence for the Lord – he who saves this world from sin and death, even those deceived to think that nature’s God trumps God, as if science and everything good it is capable of producing were not created by God.
Just because science cannot raise Lazarus or Jesus from the dead does not mean that God cannot.
Absence of scientific evidence does not mean evidence of absence.
Jeff Lardizabal says
I would love to debate Sam Harris in person, lovingly with the smile of Jesus in my heart and nothing but the words of the Bible and the common sense derived from them.
No Fear says
Your response is typical of the religious response.
For a person with a scientific mind I find some immediate problems with it.
You say that the “smile of Jesus” is in your “heart”.
Then you talk about “common sense”.
How, exactly, is the smile of Jesus in your heart?
Is it in the left ventricle?
Is it your cardiac vagus nerve vibrating at some higher frequency than a normal persons vagus?
How can the smile of a 2000 year old dead Jew be in your heart?
Oh, you say, but Jesus lives.
OK then how can his smile be in your heart?
You see why I think religious people speak in strange silly riddles.
If you are referring to some sort of selfless love vibration in your heart then why not say that?
Freaking weird.