"The Manhattan Declaration is an ecumenical document promoting traditional marriage, the sanctity of human life and religious liberty. It’s been signed by almost 500,000 people and is extremely civil and respectful in language."<p>"Traditional marriage" is nothing but a euphemism disguising a belief about what other people should or shouldn't do. "The sanctity of human life" is nothing but a euphemism disguising a belief about what other people should or shouldn't do. Neither has much to do with liberty. Using euphemisms may make your language respectful but it doesn't change your intent. Use four-letter words if you want and I won't blink an eye, but try to tell people who they can or cannot marry (and thus receive unequal protection of the law) and we will have a problem no matter how you couch your words.
I'm a follower of Jesus and take God pretty seriously and I can't find the energy to care about something like this. This sort of thing always strike me as a way to say "We're the good religious people and we believe X and we know we're the good people because we believe X." That's a bunch of crap.<p>If you read Paul's letter to the Romans his main argument seems to be that thinking being an insider is what makes you better is a path you don't want to be on. He goes to great lengths to show that just knowing what's right is meaningless because it's going to lead to judging people and feeling superior. To put it another way you could say the Christian point of view on this sort of thing is that "If you consider yourself superior to one person God considers you worse than they are." Paraphrasing Thomas a' Kempis a bit there.<p>If Apple banned an app that showed the Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed I'd be more concerned. Those statements sum up with Christianity has meant to people for a very long period of time. This sort of thing shouldn't probably have been written let alone had an app produced for.
This may get the 2010 award for most sensational headline. In no way does the article make the case that Apple finds Christianity offensive.<p>Sensational blogging at its finest.
I'm a staunch atheist, but when I read this article, my first reaction was that apple overstepped their bounds here.<p>Then I read the text of the Manhattan Declaration. Sure enough, there is decidedly very anti-gay marriage and anti-choice language in it.<p>"...the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies..."<p>"...by which the lives of countless children are snuffed out prior to birth."<p>This is pretty extreme language, and I don't think the app store should be a political soapbox for it.
Seems reasonable to me. It's pretty clear that inasmuch as the Manhattan Declaration is openly anti-gay (or, at least, widely perceived as such by the gay community no matter how much its purveyors would protest otherwise), it's just as much a violation as openly racist material would be.
Why are some young talented people so eager to be on the losing side in this "culture war" (his words)? It's sad to see a guy like this who is ignorant of his own religion's history.<p>The Christianity of today is not the Christianity of 1000 years ago.<p>The Christianity of 100 years from today will not be the Christianity of today.<p>Christianity redefined marriage over the last two millennia, so clearly redefining marriage is Christian.
I don't think that Apple should have pulled this. Certainly there are pro-gay apps on the store that some people find just as offensive as the gay community might find this app. However, Apple doesn't have to feature either of these apps on the front page or any other page and they can easily be made available only by looking explicitly for them. Wouldn't those measures debunk the idea of the app store being a "political soapbox"?
At first I was very wary of this. These people believe this, what's wrong with that?<p>Then I had a closer look, and I guess it's easily codified for me. Something is offensive if a group of people want to remove rights from another group, when the first group have those rights and don't benefit from the second losing them, except in an abstract, "It devalues us as beings worth of those rights!" kinda way.<p>Which, if you look at it, is also saying "We want to be better by having X, if you let them have X, we won't be better!" OR, in even simpler terms, "They're not as good as us. Fuck'em."