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Completely stark raving it would seem.
Agreed. In a world of science, logic and (almost) equality, the amount of time people spend attempting to decider the stories and opinions of those who lived over 2000 years ago is a complete mystery to me. :p
Just be kind to one another and you will be fine.
 
Nobody is saying he cannot have his religous beliefs.

The ARU are saying that he breached his employment contract in expressing his beliefs in the manner he did.

If he posted something about his religion that did not persecute and condemn other people, nobody would have an issue with it.

But he did. After they put a clause in his contract telling him specifically not to. When you are paid $4 million to represent an organisation, you have a responsibilty to uphold their image and values.

Telling people their sexual orientation is wrong and condemning them is not a great look for any organisation....so...he is sacked.

Jumping on Twitter and saying God is great and my church rocks is a different kettle of fish.

Not arguing the contractual issue .... just the bigger picture .....

The ARU are effectively saying that the expression of the teachings of a major religion are inappropriate and offensive .....and that you are prohibited from expressing those religious beliefs on your own personal media ..... and if you do express those beliefs you will have your contract cancelled ....

That starts to go beyond just curbing freedom of speech and starts to play around with religious persecution .....
 
I hate to think what this place is going to be like when the fornicators, drunkards, liars, adulterers, murderers, idolaters and the blasphemers decide they are outraged as well and start up screaming from the rooftops.
 
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Agreed. In a world of science, logic and (almost) equality, the amount of time people spend attempting to decider the stories and opinions of those who lived over 2000 years ago is a complete mystery to me. :p
Just be kind to one another and you will be fine.
Loving others is a beautiful thing, even more so when it is done/expressed outside of the limelight, and the love is extended to the broken and downtrodden, when there is nobody around to pat you on the back and tell you what a wonderful person you are.
 
Not arguing the contractual issue .... just the bigger picture .....

The ARU are effectively saying that the expression of the teachings of a major religion are inappropriate and offensive .....and that you are prohibited from expressing those religious beliefs on your own personal media ..... and if you do express those beliefs you will have your contract cancelled ....

That starts to go beyond just curbing freedom of speech and starts to play around with religious persecution .....

Not sure it matters what ideology it is.

When you represent an organisation you have to represent their values. So persecuting a group...be it sexual orientation, race, whatever is in contravention of the contract he signed.

The people who turn up to watch the game from his religion...or any religion or ideology are not paid by the ARU, so they have no right to ban them.

If they bring a sign with what Folou put on his Twitter, then the ground and sport have every right to ban them. Or if I walk into Suncorp Stadium with a sign saying something that denigrates a race or religion or sexual orientation...I would expect to be banned.

I can't just say "its my belief system so I can say as I please".

If I say what I believe in my lounge room its fair play. If I put it out to the world in a public forum then I expect fallout from my employer and the community.

Like I said, whack up some inspiring quote about God or religion or whatever. Say God is awesome and if you don't believe that you're crazy etc etc

But don't expect to be paid millions of dollars to represent an organisation by persecuting his list of "off to hell" people.

Believe in whatever you like. But when you are in a prominent position of influence like he is, you have to be responsible in what you say. He wasn't.
 
Not arguing the contractual issue .... just the bigger picture .....

The ARU are effectively saying that the expression of the teachings of a major religion are inappropriate and offensive .....and that you are prohibited from expressing those religious beliefs on your own personal media ..... and if you do express those beliefs you will have your contract cancelled ....

That starts to go beyond just curbing freedom of speech and starts to play around with religious persecution .....
So much about this is about free speech and persecution and how to manage these things in the modern world, especially with the rise of social media.
Even on here I am unable to criticize specific religions and religion in general. To do so would evoke the response from others that I am persecuting their beliefs and culture. If someone was to tell me I deserved to be punished for being in an unmarried relationship or not believing in Jebus then don't I deserve a right of reply? Of course when this happens the result is usually a shouting match consisting of facts and logic vs belief which gets shut down due to the fear of religious and cultural persecution again.
I have no idea what the answer is to this but, from the ARU's perspective it makes perfect sense to say to it's employees please do not post anything on your social media or during media interviews that could be inflammatory as we don't want to deal with any potential s**tstorm you may create.
 
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Not arguing the contractual issue .... just the bigger picture .....

The ARU are effectively saying that the expression of the teachings of a major religion are inappropriate and offensive .....and that you are prohibited from expressing those religious beliefs on your own personal media ..... and if you do express those beliefs you will have your contract cancelled ....

That starts to go beyond just curbing freedom of speech and starts to play around with religious persecution .....
So you are justifying his hate speech as part of freedom of speech, that sort of bigoted and homophobic behaviour from him is bad!!
 
Not arguing the contractual issue .... just the bigger picture .....

The ARU are effectively saying that the expression of the teachings of a major religion are inappropriate and offensive .....and that you are prohibited from expressing those religious beliefs on your own personal media ..... and if you do express those beliefs you will have your contract cancelled ....

That starts to go beyond just curbing freedom of speech and starts to play around with religious persecution .....
Wonder what the Christian schools who feed the rugby system think of all this..?
 
But mate, he is an international footballer with around 125k followers...how would it ever NOT be picked up by the media.

Like I have said, what he says in his church (or loungeroom or the weekend BBQ etc) is his business.

What he (or anyone) puts out on social media to his 125k followers) and then indirectly millions of other people, is his responsibility and he wears the consequences.

Anyway....over it haha...bring on the Knights tomorrow!!
125,000 idolaters who are all going to burn in hell
 
Not arguing the contractual issue .... just the bigger picture .....

The ARU are effectively saying that the expression of the teachings of a major religion are inappropriate and offensive .....and that you are prohibited from expressing those religious beliefs on your own personal media ..... and if you do express those beliefs you will have your contract cancelled ....

That starts to go beyond just curbing freedom of speech and starts to play around with religious persecution .....

Thing is though, it’s not exactly his ‘personal’ media. I’d be willing to bet that, like most sportspeople and assorted ‘celebrity’ types, he has separate social media accounts that are only accessible to his family and friends. I know numerous Manly players do, for starters.

The more public accounts are where they spruik stuff for their sponsors, show snippets of what goes on at training etc - for the fans and followers to check out. The problem here is Folau hasn’t used his ‘inner circle’ social media, he’s used his ‘public profile’ social media. After he had directly been told not to post this type of stuff on those public profiles by his employer. Different story if he shared it with a closed group and someone leaked it, I’d maybe have some sympathy for him then, and there would be a grey area about whether the ARU should rip up his contract. No grey area here though.
 
Saying someone has a right to speech is not in anyway a justification of the content of that speech .... ....

Exactly.
We can say what we like but we need to be accountable for what we say, he stands by what he says/tweets/writes but he'll lose him employment over it and probably a good deal more.
There are societal norms that the general population live by but there is always some that believe they don't apply to them and we can't help that, but society brings them to account in one way or another, it's kind of the way it works - some will think it's okay, some/most won't.

His comments are irrelevant to me even though I've been drunk on occasion, I fornicate, I idolise other Gods ( Cliffy, Snake, Beaver etc ), tell the odd lie and have a gay child (true ).

If he is so inclined and wound up and feels so strongly about these things then good for him, he can go and preach to and indoctrinate other like minded people and they can all live happily ever after
in their hypocritical world,

To hide behind any religious group and have that as an excuse to espouse hatred and vilification is ridiculous to me.
 
Team P W L PD Pts
6 5 1 59 12
6 5 1 20 12
6 4 2 53 10
6 4 2 30 10
7 4 2 25 9
7 4 3 40 8
7 4 3 24 8
7 4 3 -8 8
7 4 3 -18 8
7 3 3 20 7
7 3 4 31 6
7 3 4 17 6
6 2 4 -31 6
7 3 4 -41 6
7 2 5 -29 4
6 1 5 -102 4
6 0 6 -90 2
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