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Joined April 2019
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League and Rugby fan from way back. All Blacks, Roosters, Tigers, Manly, and Wallabies supporter.
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The Church said otherwise today.
Folau knocks back RA's $1 million settlement offer: reports
Qantas will support a legal battle protecting an organization that they have invested money in. It is the fundamental function of the corporate institution.
Folau knocks back RA's $1 million settlement offer: reports
There is no way his church is bankrolling IF’s legal costs. There would be a congregation revolt.
Folau knocks back RA's $1 million settlement offer: reports
I like how if IF refuses the $1 mill payout, he’s a money-grubber, but if he does take the payout…then he’s also a money grubber, just not as much of one. This is the mindset of someone who will always find fault. Poor old Izzy can never win in your eyes can he?
Folau knocks back RA's $1 million settlement offer: reports
I would not be surprised if Qantas is bankrolling RA’s legal costs. It is in their interest and RA are connected to a particularly wealthy and large sponsor.
Folau knocks back RA's $1 million settlement offer: reports
The problem with your statement is that you are very much conflating the issue.
LGBT suicide stats are high? I agree, that is terrible. Is Folau responsible/culpable for those stats? Hell no.
It is taking all my dexterity to not pre-judge the sort of mind-set you have.
Nowhere in Folau’s statement did it reference gay people’s value in society; they were simply bundled together with other descriptors as examples of those who, in Folau’s religious views, are destined for hell, unless they repent.
If you want to draw that conclusion, that’s on you, no one else HAS to accept that. It is a (relatively) free country after all.
Folau knocks back RA's $1 million settlement offer: reports
Tom, I’ll take “Grasping for Straws” for $200 please.
I can understand Roberts wanting to make a statement, being both openly gay and a former rugby (league) player, but his words were nonsensical. I suppose its possible that kids are, in fact dying in the suburbs. What that has to do with IF I can’t say. It’s not like Izzy was a role model for gay people interested in rugby prior to his latest statement, so I can’t quite see why that has mysteriously changed from out of nowhere.
It’s very two-faced to insist that someone who explicitly does not perceive the gay community in a positive light to be inclusive of them.
Folau knocks back RA's $1 million settlement offer: reports
I can see why you’d come to such a conclusion, but again, this is a reactionary fallacy.
For the argument that ‘if X happens to Xx, would they change?’, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, it swamped the city, causing a genuine humanitarian disaster in a first-world country. Despite this, the Miami Hurricanes have yet to change their name.
Ask yourself this, in spite of the minor connotations that link the word ‘crusader’ to the crusades of the middle ages, have the Cantebury Crusaders ever engaged in or encouraged behaviour that you could link to the crusaders of the past and justify the name change? The only connection is in the imagery, and in half their name. With such a slim relation to the original concept of ‘crusaders’, why bother to make such an out-of proportion fuss about it.
The thing is, there’s really only two ways you can go about this; you can lean towards exclusion – where you objectively deny and defame any connection related to the attack, no matter how slight to ensure that such a tragedy never happens again. Or inclusion, where yes, the attack was terrible, yes changes should be made, but not wholesale, because large-scale changes that blanket and encompass entire populations validate the attacker through fear-mongering, and push people apart.
Stop crusading against the Crusaders
It’s funny, I don’t remember saying “There is no community backlash”, in fact, I don’t think I even touched on it, bar saying that it’s perfectly fine if the Crusaders community decides if a name change is necessary.
What I did say boiled down to; “don’t fearmonger – don’t use the justification of a current event to tarnish and scrap a name that is tangentially related to a terrible event.”
Perhaps you are correct, it is likely that the name ‘crusader’ has offended someone, and not just someone that took offense randomly for a perceived slight. But lets look at the connotations of involving the word ‘crusaders’ with rugby union.
Is rugby related to religion? Well, we do often say it’s the game played in heaven, but that’s about it. I suppose you could infer it’s New Zealand’s national religion, if you felt like a chuckle. Are a group of men marching onto a field in mostly red with a rugby ball analogous to plate-armored knights on horses charging into battle? Only in the esprit de corps of the camaraderie that the crusaders have (successfully) promoted. So, tangentially related to, not reminiscent of, actual crusaders.
Here’s the thing – where do you draw the line? It’s going to be different for each person, but where do you say, okay, if this was such a problem, why did it need such a traumatic event to take place for it to be pushed forward now? And even more concernedly, where do you stop?
Another example that differs from my previous statement. There is an organisation called Beyond Blue in Australia. They deal specifically with depression. Blue is in their title, and ‘feeling blue’ is associated with the meaning of depression. If a depressed person kills themself, or is killed in a traumatic enough fashion for it to garner media attention, should then the Auckland Blues change their name? Should the NSW Waratahs change the colour of their uniform?
It’s as you said; the name of a rugby club is irrelevant to the suffering that the victims of Christchurch. So if this is the case, why should people be offended by the name of a rugby club that has no connection to the vile act, and the only ‘crusade’ the players and fans are likely to go on will be at the nearest pub, where they will raise a glass in remembrance and support of the victims.
Stop crusading against the Crusaders
Having browsed the comments and read the article, its a pretty damning picture that’s being drawn. You have to ask yourself – why is this happening?
Yes, there was a recent, and tragic loss of life amongst the Muslim population of Christchurch. But this nonsense of arbitrarily changing the name of the Crusaders is just that, nonsense. If the club and its supporters vote for a replacement, that’s on them, that’s their choice and that’s fine. But all this fluff about ‘crusaders are offensive to followers of Islam’ need to take a chill pill.
If it was offensive, why are you only addressing it now? Why not when the crusaders made their first appearance on the rugby pitch; I can guarantee that whether crusaders were in the right or wrong 600 years ago didn’t change the concept of offending people through naming a rugby club after them in 1996, so again, why is it an issue now?
It’s sad that this article made me remember a moment in our not so recent past, after the September 11 attacks in the US. At a press conference, (think it was either Rumsfeld or a press release secretary), the speaker was announcing that due to France’s commitment to not supporting any invasion of Iraq, french fries would be renamed freedom fries.
That? That’s the level that we’re approaching should we listen to the media braying in outrage over a rugby club having a name that is offensive to a religious group that’s only connection to the sport is through geography.
Stop crusading against the Crusaders
Not necessarily, if the Lions AND Sharks lose, Lions get knocked out, and both Highlanders and Chiefs make the finals.
Super Rugby road to the finals: The playoff equations and predicted final ladder