Pope cartoon violated Folau's freedom

It violates Folau's right to freely express his religion.

It misrepresents his words and actions. It portrays him as a venal money lender in the court of the temple when, in fact, he is exercising his right to protest to the Fair Work Commission against unfair dismissal.

The cartoon is deeply offensive to Christians because it misrepresents scriptural truth and portrays Jesus as a foul mouthed figure of hatred and vengeance.

How un-Christian of Israel Folau and the Australian Christian Lobby.

On the one hand, a multimillionaire asks us, poor Christians, to fund his defence before the courts, of yet one more of his arrogant and uncharitable mistakes.

On the other hand, an organisation purporting to represent Christian values in Australia financially backs up the multimillionaire and asks us to contribute to the campaign.

As a Christian, a pensioner and a concerned citizen, I disapprove of Israel Folau's and the ACL's conduct. They are discrediting the beliefs they claim to have.

I pray that they see the error of their ways. I am sure that Jesus and Pope Francisco have already forgiven them.

I, for one, will not contribute a cent to Israel's campaign and will no longer donate to ACL's fundraisers.

Any charity I can afford will be better directed toward other really needy causes such as support for homeless children.

It's possible to see a time when the good time being had by Rugby Australia and GoFundMe ends, writes Vasily Martin (Letters, June 25).

I fear that these "good times" will never end, and soon the AFP will be raiding our homes to confiscate Holy Bibles containing the passage quoted by Folau (1st Corinthians 6:9-10) for which Rugby Australia and GoFundMe are persecuting him.

Confiscations of the Koran and Hadith, Torah and Talmud will follow. There will be nobody left who will speak out when they come for me.

Allow me to be the first to disabuse former Australian War Memorial Director, Brendon Kelson, of his quaint notion that no-one, besides current AWM Director Dr Brendan Nelson, supports the major upgrade in Campbell.

I am but a humble parent of two primary school age children and do not share Mr Kelson's apparent omniscience in relation to the broader population (who are still caught up in the emotion of the ANZAC Centenary).

Our kids love visiting the memorial, in part to appreciate the military hardware that has played an essential role in the defence of our great nation and also to learn more about our military history and the service and sacrifice of the men and women who have played a role in keeping us free and safe.

The expansion will allow more people, especially young people, to visit the memorial more often. This is a good thing. From what I understand the Mitchell campus is only open sporadically and is much harder to access.

I congratulate Dr Nelson and the AWM management on their success in promoting it as a national attraction, memorial and vibrant history centre of which all Australians can be proud.

Those who want to know why the crowds at the Brumbies have been down this year, despite the wonderful football they have been playing, need to look no further than last Saturday's quarter final.

The game day experience sank to new lows. It would be hard to beat the ineptness of the half-time "entertainment" but the post-match "tribute" to the departing players must come close.

Why not tell the crowd that the players would be honoured shortly after the conclusion of the match? We hung around for 10 minutes and then left, only to hear the roll call as we reached the car park.

Lift the level of the off-field work Brumbies. You will lose even more season ticket holders if you don't.

ACT government research indicates that, based on a sample of 600 people in 2017, 39 percent had engaged with their local community council, and a further 21 percent were aware of it.

Community councils and residents groups are in touch with community views on many issues.

A key example is concern about poor building quality in new developments, the subject of a current Legislative Assembly inquiry and many submissions and other advocacy.

A randomly selected citizens' jury on housing choices last year made recommendations on several issues that residents groups and community councils had also advocated on for a long time.

This included recommendations the building certification process be completely independent, that new developments provide enough green space for shade trees and gardens, and that Precinct Plans guide planning in and around suburbs and village centres.

When the Inner South Canberra Community Council, residents groups and local businesses expressed concern about a proposed Fyshwick waste facility, hundreds of people attended public meetings and more than 400 lodged submissions on the Environmental Impact Statement.

Community Councils and residents groups also build the community through fetes and festivals and other events in cooperation with local shops, creative activities, heritage and environmental projects.

Volunteers put countless hours into these endeavours.

It would be great to see more people become involved in their local residents group or community council.

I'm a regular early morning commuter and I seem to have somehow got mixed up in a meet-up of the Canberra Rev Head Drivers Club on a recent Monday morning.

I watched a ute run the red light at Bindubi Drive, tailgate through Glenloch Interchange, weave through traffic at 20 km/h over the speed limit, and use the emergency stopping lane past Sullivan's Creek to overtake a bus, all to then get off at Edinburgh Avenue.

If the police could get out of bed earlier and brave the cold weather I'm sure they'd be able to have a nice, profitable chat with some of those more enthusiastic drivers.

It's the winter solstice but, in our garden in Canberra, there are sunflowers flowering and tomatoes for picking. Something is amiss with our seasons.

It happens that Australia is part of an international effort to address global climate change; the Deep Decarbonisation Pathways Project which began in 2013.

The 16 nations cooperating with the DDPP are responsible for 74 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. (Our nation's fossil fuel exports must be included).

Allowing for regime changes, the overall target of the current pathways set by the DDPP is for the 16 nations to reach net zero emissions by 2050; a guide to the rest of the world as to how to hold global warming to two degrees. The collaborative pathways will soon become more ambitious, following a review of the Paris Agreement in 2020 when new benchmarks are likely to be set to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees.

With the adoption of new benchmarks Australia will have a great deal more to achieve.

Sadly, with our current confrontational style of parliamentary discussion, the great south land is unlikely to keep Australia abreast of the other 15 cooperating nations.

To provide for swift action on parliamentary bills associated with the DDPP pathways, ex chamber meetings of the major parties may become necessary, to gain cross party agreement to act on the evidence provided by science and industry.

Evidence trumps ideology. Cross party cooperation will be required to keep Australia abreast whatever methods are adopted; failure is not an option.

Failure is likely to mean that more than our Pacific island neighbours will be in extreme danger from catastrophic climate change.

I'm writing in support of Glen Fowler, secretary of the Australian Education Union (Letters, June 22) who demonstrated the absurdity of the Canberra Times's June 14 headline "Something is wrong: Inquiry hears harrowing school violence stories".

Of the 78,000 students in Canberra's schools, there were 13 individual submissions to the inquiry into violence in schools.

Many would see a success story in this data. Your fear mongering reveals nothing about the excellent work happening in public schools daily.

I love Pope's cartoon "Help a millionaire bag gay kids". If Christianity is mainly about opposing homosexuality why would you want to be a Christian?

Michael McCarthy, Deakin

Pope's cartoon on June 25 shows Jesus chasing Israel Folau out of the temple, but he will never catch him.

How dare you have a cartoon of Jesus Christ swearing. Shame on you.

The decision to remove Israel Folau's crowdfunding page is making me think there really may be a God after all.

I would like to congratulate Senator Seselja on his re-election. He must be thrilled that 31 per cent of Canberrans wanted him as their representative. That means 69 per cent didn't. The upside is I can continue writing to the Canberra Times about what an appalling representative he is.

Brendan Nelson should heed his predecessor, Brendon Kelson, who spoke for me when he said further expansion of the AWM is not needed and that the funds should be reserved for more deserving causes.

Yes Craig McGill (Letters, June 8) it is ridiculous to suggest the government would order the recent AFP raids. A word dropped by a political staffer would do the trick.

Does anyone besides me read their horoscopes? For weeks now they have been forecasting doom and gloom for me. How about replacing the horoscopes with a few more comics to cheer your readers up until the stars and planets or what ever realign.

I commend the comments of Brendan Kelson [on the AWM expansion] whose own experience [as a former director] makes him very qualified to comment. A fascination with military hardware and the money it spins seems to be underlying this project.

In the ACT we have the Mickey Mouse government. Federally, we've put an ad-man at the helm. In the USA it's a madman. The UK will soon have a clown at the top. If these are the best democracy can provide thank God we didn't get the runners-up.

There's no money to save historic films at the National Archives, but millions to tear down the Hall of Remembrance. Shame.

"Canberra light rail: By the numbers" (canberratimes.com.au, April 19) stated "442 CCTV cameras will keep an eye on the network's 13 stops. Canberrans must be an unruly mob for each stop to require 34 cameras.

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