Media Release

3 July 2008

“The degree of public support for the sectarian and deceptively entitled ‘World Youth Day’ is totally unacceptable in a secular society” the President of the Rationalist Society of Australia said today.

“The event is not about the World, it’s about the minority of Catholics who live in it; it’s not about Youth, it’s about religious observance; it’s not a Day, it’s the best part of a week”, he said. He challenged people to check out the World Youth Day website where they will clearly see that every event in the program is either religious itself or a blatant promotion of religion.

“It should be called Catholic Advertisement Week (CAW),” he said.

The Rationalist Society does not object to Catholics getting together to celebrate their delusional beliefs, but strongly believes that such private actions should not attract public subsidy. Religions already get huge de facto public support through the fact that they do not pay taxes, even on their commercial activities. “Now they are getting a further $100 million or more of taxpayers’ money for blowing their own trumpets,” Mr Robinson said.

The final insult is the introduction of draconian infringements of free speech and civil liberties with regulations proscribing causing annoyance and inconvenience to World Youth Day participants. World Youth Day itself is very annoying to most non-Catholics in Australia and extremely inconvenient for those living in Sydney

The Rationalist Society of Australia supports peaceful protests against World Youth Day. The President, Ian Robinson, will be speaking in a protest rally on Melbourne at 1:30 pm on Sunday 13 July at Parliament House.

For further information and comment contact Ian Robinson on 0407 24 00 24.