[First Filed Oct 17, 2009]
Mount Ainslie was a glorious place to be this afternoon for a proud Canberran.
Victoria’s banjo country bused in to vilify our pagan community and Canberra turned up to shout them down, and laugh at them.
It was done with a laugh and a smile, resounding choruses of “We are Australian”, people dancing in their underpants, and men kissing to cries of “Heathen, Heathen” from the fundamentalists. (rejoined with proud shouts of “homo, homo” from the members of the crowd not wearing funny red tags).
Oddly, despite much advance media the police were not in attendance, so it was lucky the “Catch The Fire:” mob were not only outnumbered but also in general much older and frailer.
The anti-fundies had managed to gather in numbers around the Mt Ainslie beacon and after ten or so minutes of confrontation the fundamentalists, ringed by a looser crowd of Canberrans decided to retreat away, led by a man with a megaphone “speaking in tongues”.
I left just before three to update you all, hopefully it has stayed calm up there.
The Danes are understandably proud because when the Nazis came for the Danish Jews the Danes managed to evacuate the endangered members of their community to neutral Sweden.
In a smaller way I’m equally proud that Canberra turned out in good numbers to laugh at the forces of intolerance come to vilify members of our community.
Here’s some video and audio, not shot with a purpose built video camera sadly, but it gets across the spirit of the thing:
UPDATED: qednet has posted a more complete video account on the day on YouTube. It looks like I wasn’t the only one to wander off too early and the fundies got their moment on the beacon (not a comms tower).
ANOTHER UPDATE: The Age has picked up the yarn.
(Stills slideshow below)
yay canberra. take it religious nutbars.
Superb.
WOW! Good onya for sticking to this bloke.
If I’d know this was going down today, I would have been out there in support!
Ha Ha – I got my arse out.
Yay!
Another fun part of it all was the bemused tourists wondering what the hell was going on and if we do this regularly.
Protesters in underpants always add a certain je ne sais quoi to a gathering.
johnboy said :
You should have told the tourists that this is normal every day life in Canberra.
What did you mean by “it was lucky the “Catch The Fire:” mob were not only outnumbered but also in general much older and frailer”?
I thought one or two of the elderly Christian women looked frightened.
Go Heathens! Go Heathens. Oh, oh, Go Heathens!
awww such a tiny, inadequate loudspeaker.
Did Danny boy even show up?
It certainly was a fantastic afternoon with an extremly eclectic group of people – heaps of luverly & very vocal folks from the gay community, plenty of pagans, assorted adult industry people (who put on a very nice BBQ and unveiled a fabulous new work of art by that well known artist Prickasso)the occasional burlesque dancer – and even a contingent from the ANU’s atheist society.
The mad pastor certainly managed to annoy a wide array of people and in doing so, unwittingly brought us all together for an afternoon of singing, dancing, kissing, laughter & general frivolity!
Well done!
The lack of a visible police presence was disturbing, it wouldn’t have taken much for it to have gotten out of hand.
Kudos to all who showed up. The sight of a conga line of homos, witches and assorted liberty lovers scything through the Catch the Fire mob was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in years.
Underpants man also put on a fine show.
And the nutjobs really do speak in tongues!
I’d like to complain to the proprietors of this website about a serious inaccuracy in the above story, that draws attention to the lax reporting standards shown here. Specifically in the sentence beginning: “Victoria’s banjo country bused in…”
The word is bussed.
Also I believe that the sentence is factually incorrect as well, as many of the protesters travelled here not by mechanical means such as busses, but were instead propelled interstate by a series of violent knee-jerk reactions. Sadly I have no film of this.
This looks like a great day with goods spirits.
It’s great that you have covered this Johnboy.
It seems like the rest of Canberra’s media have missed a fun story.
I thought one or two of the elderly Christian women looked frightened.
That doesn’t make sense. The christians came by their own admission to conduct Spiritual Warfare on the others and ‘target their arrorws’ at them. Only one party came with conflict in mind, everyone else was doing their own thing. If anyone should have been frightened it should have been the targets of the vengeful minions of the avenging diety (who that didn’t seem to be inclined to do much smiting, probably has his hands busy with the Greens when he gets to Canberra)
Oh dear Canberra…how very embarrassing…
ahappychappy
Yes lol,the short guy with the little horn at the emd LMAO
Well done!
Today Im proud to be a Canberran
have to say that i think the fundies did out number us, especially towards the end.
witches hats are a nice touch.
LOL! Score +1 Canberra lifestyle!!
Ari said :
at points some individuals (from both sides) did get a little too worked up, in each case i saw their mates (again on both sides) pulled them back and tell them to calm down.
even with the passion everyone brought, it was pretty civil. no pushing or the like. i did get a bit sick of the fundies trying to cast spells/bless on me.
the police did come by in unmarked cars every now and then, I suppose they just kept an eye on things in case it did get out of hand. i’m glad there was no visible presence, from past experience I think that just tends to antagonise the situation.
and wtf was up with the american guy reading from the gospel with a jewish prayer shawl?
these guys read too much old testament.
I was late to the party…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eRgwR_u1LI
Oops a better version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQH_pyMtDD0
pity I missed the early action
I hope your brief moment of pagan fun was worth it, because
You’re
all
going
to
burn
in
hell
for
eternity
.
What a great day, and what a great stand we made!
Danny Nalliah tried to exorcise me, and failed. For more info, see today’s Canberra Times!
I’ll post up some links to YouTube videos when I get around to uploading them.
And so much for the blood on the “altar”. I’ve seen more realistic blood in Wes Craven movies!
C’mon Bloodnut! If you can’t beat them, join them!
Will meet you at the hooker & tattoo parlour at 3pm.
BYO crack pipe and gimp suit
The whole thing was a bad call on a couple of fronts.
Mt Ainslie is a peaceful place – as I said in another post, I don’t think it’s good for the vibe or the wildlife to introduce raucous protest vibes, regardless of who started it … a divisive attack on the fundies is not in the spirit of community.
I’d never defend a right-wing Christian – Clearly they’re pathetic, misguided – but this is the utterly powerless end of the religious spectrum. I can’t believe the backslapping going on here, about a “victory” over a handful of sad marginalised Christians. Metaphorically beating up the “old and frail” is nothing to crow about.
It could even be seen as highlighting just how few inroads have been made with the mainstream churches. Why isn’t this protest crowd targeting influential people? Protesting where it might make a modicum of difference?
Hell? Is that your only threat?
Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven!
You have no better sales pitch than to tell us that if we don’t worship Jesus we’re going to Hell. I, for one, am not afraid of Hell if it exists (I don’t believe it does). All my favourite musicians are there, and I’ll get to smoke more weed than I could possibly imagine!
These marginalised crack-pot religious nut-bags need to be slapped down. They need to know that their weird ideas and intollerance places them at the bottom with the other filter-feeders. If there’st things in thi world that I simpy cant stand, it’s religious nut-bags and intollerant ar$eholes …
Sounds a hoot, wish I could have been there.
Congrats to all.
I would assume that ignoring them completely and not giving them a bunch of free advertising would have been a bit better way to go about it.
I will pray for your collective souls tonight.
Insert Jesus emoticon here.
Readers unfamiliar with bloodnut should realise he’s just engaging in some light hearted trolling.
Indeed, good call bloodnut
But I digress… Morality can exist totally seperate from religion.
People can have a code by which they live by, and to better the world, without praise and worship and faith.
Faith is defined by a trusting belief in a transcendent reality..
What I see, and hear, everyday, the way I live, as a good person, a valuable member of society and what I do, spending my time to make other lives better (For no personal gain Ill add) – its all good – and guess what, – no blind faith there – its all real.
I can see touch taste breathe and live as a good person without dealing with religion, and wasting my time worshipping something that in my opinion may not even exist.
I love slayer, obituary, sepultura, impaled nazarine, deicide, darkthrone and lots of other black metal as well as great 80’s synthpop hits… Does that make someone evil ? Do I need to be saved ?
Evil is not defined by what music someone listens to, what sub genre someone belongs to, what someone wears, eats, drinks, how many tattoos someone has etc…
At the end of the day, this is how I see religion… religion is just an instrument to control the masses. It is basically living your life for dying and making sure you get your greencard into heaven..
See I live like this… I do good everyday, i am a kind gentle person who loves this shady little backwater home, I would do anything within my reason to improve it and the lives of those living here.
I have a wife and a kid on the way, I do charity work to further the lives of others, I have no doubt in the world that what I do puts smiles on dials – I live to make people laugh, I am the class clown (Even now at 31).
According to these galahs on the hill yesterday, I am a heathen and should be saved..But from what ? Why do I need saving…What have I done wrong? No one needs religion to do good and be a good person…
If I die and there is a heaven and hell, good luck to me, whoop de doo daah, but I am living and thats what I live for, not dying. Carpe diem.
Besides, how many deaths have been accountable to religion….
Until you harm someone else, live and let live…Its easy, non politcal, and not religious.
I-filed said :
I agree. Very sad that people are getting off on bagging some old, misguided religious nuts.
I’ll bear in mind that it’s acceptable in Canberra to hassle misguided fruit loops next time some homeless weirdo bothers me.
i wonder what a jesus emoticon would be. perhaps a smilie wearing a crown of thorns with a bit of token blood dribble? *:`(
There is a very interesting, balanced Christian view of the proceedings by Tim Malone on his blog here.
I particularly like his photo and caption of ‘Katie’
He has also included some links to other media coverage of the event. Well worth a read.
And for those with facebook access have a look here for a excellent personal piece from the GLBT point of veiw
Well i had a great time. I met a bunch of great folk and hope that something like this happens again.
toriness said :
#:-(>
At least these ferals are not representative of Canberra.
I heard about this on Triple J. Hilarious. Bloody religious nutters.
I glad it’s over can I do a couple of human sacrifices up there tonight? I have a couple of victims that won’t be missed and I have looking for somewhere appropriate!
So which ones are meant to be the nutters again?
Please, please, why besmirch the good name of Victorian banjo players. We had nothing to do with it!