HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong’s media regulator has rejected calls to reclassify the Bible as an indecent publication following more than 2,000 complaints about its sexual and violent content, including rape and incest.
“The Bible is a religious text which is part of civilization. It has been passed from generation to generation,” Hong Kong’s Television and Licensing Authority (TELA) said in a statement issued late Thursday.
It said it would not submit the Bible to the Obscene Articles Tribunal for classification.
The regulator received 2,041 complaints against the Bible this week, following an uproar over a sex column in a student magazine that was classified as “indecent” by authorities for asking if readers had ever fantasized about incest or bestiality.
A Web site launched soon afterwards campaigned to have the Bible similarly classified, citing passages with sexual and violent content it claimed went beyond that of the sex column.
But TELA said in its statement the Bible “had not violated standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable members of the community.”
Publications classified as indecent in Hong Kong can only be bought by people aged over 18 and must be sealed in a wrapper with a statutory warning notice.
Reuters, Friday, May 18, 2007
Analysis:
This is a typical attempt made by the ungodly to justify their lasciviousness and sin. The Bible has been called pornographic, violent and offensive. It is not. However, it records the lives and sins of those who are sometimes pornographic, violent and offensive.
The interesting thing to note is that while the Bible is plain in speech, it is never provocative, nor does it make prurient appeals and stoop to lurid speech or descriptions.
When sin is committed, sin is reported. When the sin is especially egregious and offensive, these things are noted while a righteous and appropriate tone is always present.
The “sex column” in the student magazine was intended to shock, and to appeal to the prurient nature of the young people who read it. Whether you agree with the censorship being practiced by the Hong Kong governmental agency, to claim the two are comparable is ridiculous, as rightly determined by the TELA statement.
Understand, the students did not really have an objection toward the Bible. They just wanted their truly objectionable material to be tolerated. This is the way of sinners. When they make objections, saying, “Well if this is so, then this is too…” (and doesn’t that sound familiar), their claims in no way justify their own actions. Put it this way, if indeed the Bible is pornographic… that doesn’t make their material acceptable! This is the logic of the devil and his minions.
