TWO Christian politicians are in the midst of a firestorm following remarks they made about Islam.
Australian Liberal Party candidate, David Barker, got himself dumped as the candidate for the safe Labor seat of Chifley after branding Prime Minister Julia Gillard an “atheist”, and accusing the Labor government of moving Australia closer to becoming a Muslim country.
Praise the Lard, it's David Barker, pictured as he is now, and as Humpty Dumpty in this earlier shot taken when larking about with mates
And Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Minorities, was accused at the weekend of “blasphemy” by a leading cleric after he blamed his country’s blasphemy laws for the recent death of two young Christians.
Barker – a “man of strong Christian faith” – got himself disendorsed after saying:
When I get in I will give my votes, all of them, to God who is on the side of the Liberal Right.
In a letter to local Christian leaders seeking their support in the August 21 General Election, he said Gillard was an “atheist”, and that his Labor opponent in Chifley, Ed Husic, was a Muslim.
A defiant Barker told the ABC no Muslim should be allowed in parliament.
I’m not anti-Muslim. I believe every one should have their own beliefs. But I don’t know if we want at this stage in Australian politics a Muslim in the parliament and an atheist running the government.
Barker said he does not understand why he been disendorsed:
I made a comment that I believe God is the only way to heaven and we shouldn’t have a Muslim candidate running in that area … I’m not attacking them [Muslims] on the basis of their faith, I’m attacking them on the basis of their ideology.
According to this blog, the lard-assed nutter also stated:
Someone get me into parliament…and watch me go. They will see my talent as the voice of…God himself.
Bhatti infuriated cleric Allama Ahmed Mian Hammadi when he spoke out about the murder of Rashid Emmanuel, 30, and his brother Sajid, 27, by unidentified masked gunmen inside a courthouse in Faisalabad.
Shahbaz Bhatti
The brothers had been accused of blaspheming the Prophet Mohammad earlier this month, a charge they had both denied
In a statement, published in the Daily Jasarat, a Pakistani Urdu daily newspaper, the Muslim cleric said that Muslims cannot tolerate blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed.
It is not a cruelty to kill blasphemers, rather blasphemy itself is such an enormous brutality that the one who commits it neither has got a right to live in this world nor is there any pardon for the blasphemer.
Muslims won’t tolerate even a slightest blasphemy against Prophet Mohammed. If Shahbaz Bhatti committed blasphemy he would be beheaded.
He added:
A Muslim loves the Prophet Muhammad more than anyone else … the Christian brothers were killed after Muslims became angry.
Hat tip: Nicholas B (for the Barker report)
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
July 26th, 2010 at 10:30 am
David Barker in his other career:
http://tinyurl.com/y985nj5
July 26th, 2010 at 11:00 am
David Barker is seriously avoirdupois challenged. I assume he does not embrace the ascetic approach to god much favoured by past saints. Simeon Stylites, a total nutter until his death in 459, stood on a pillar near Antioch for 30 years starving himself. (Much admired by Christians.) Starving for spirituality “purified” the body according to St Anthony. For a thousand years being a lard ass for a Christian was bad news. Where have these values gone. Papa isn’t slim and Popes are often like porkers. Time to return to the old ways. Barker’s fat arse can scarcely be contained in his trousers.
July 26th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Grab your popcorn folks – knowing our Aussie cousins’ sense of humour, this grotesque sea mammal has set himself up for an utter shit storm of ridicule.
July 26th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Hurling insults at overweight people is not the way to go about promoting atheism but brings it into disrepute. Barker’s silly comments and beliefs should be sufficient to work with without resorting to gratuitous insults and offending overweight people in general.
Because of this and other articles on this blog that have been noticeably juvenile and even racist of late, I have removed the link to Freethinker on my blog.
July 26th, 2010 at 11:32 am
WOW! You have identified THUMB MAN!
http://web.me.com/thumbman/THUMBMAN/Welcome.html
He’s been an internet meme for years – Hmmm Maybe its not him – he’s just a thumbman impersonator..
July 26th, 2010 at 11:34 am
@Broga
Interesting observation – think Eric Pickles.
July 26th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
“It is not a cruelty to kill blasphemers, rather blasphemy itself is such an enormous brutality that the one who commits it neither has got a right to live in this world nor is there any pardon for the blasphemer”
Yeah, we don’t need no trial; we don’t need no stinkin’ evidence….we don’t need no rationality
Personally I think it is blasphemy to insist that mohammed was a prophet of god. anybody who says he was should be lynched…
“the Christian brothers were killed after Muslims became angry.” Seems like their normal state. Can’t something be put in their water supply to calm them down a bit?
July 26th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
@Brian Jordan
“……think Eric Pickles”
I did. And now can’t get this out of my mind:
http://tinyurl.com/29fw7vz
July 26th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
David Barker wonders why he has been “disendorsed”. It’s because you are an intolerant bigot you fool! I dislike islam but I’m not going to be as stupid as to say that no muslims should be in parliament. What a dumb ass idea.
As for blaspheming against mohamed (mysoginist, homophobe, peadophile, warmonger), screw them!
July 26th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
OT. Channel 4 20:00Hrs a TV programme that will have us shouting at the TV: Britain’s Witch Children.
July 26th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Woah! That article has everything I can’t stand all neatly rolled into one stomach-churning report – namely, arrogant, fuckwit xtians who think they have an absolute right to tell everybody else how the world should be run, and lunatic muslims who just seem to want to kill anybody and everybody who doesn’t think exactly as they do.
It’s all too much, I’m off for a little lie down.
PS I just can’t help wondering how on earth Barker managed to actually procreate with that woman given the ‘ampleness’ of his girth?
July 26th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
But hang on. I and others have upset Vanessa Dobbs. Indeed, she threatens not to return because we have “hurled insults at overweight people.” Juvenile and racist, says Tess. Not quite. Ascetism as long been a goal, indeed a requirement, of the serious Christian. An excellent example being the Desert Fathers who legged it to the desert to escape the seductions of the flesh: culinary and sexual. And these lads were lean.
But what is the reason for Tess’s sensitivity? Barker isn’t just tubby, even fat – he is grotesque. And out of the tub of lard that passes as his body he pontificates to the world. In a starving Third World we can’t afford to feed lard asses like Barker. You could keep twenty Ethiopians going for a month on what he is putting away over the same period.
@Brian Jordan. Indeed, Eric packs away some weight.
July 26th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Marcus. If he rolls over on her then it is curtains because she just is not going to come out from under. Further, I hope they sleep in a downstairs bedroom because if Barker, in a excess of passion, falls out of bed then the next stop will be ground floor. From a height of a couple of feet no floor is Aussie Land is going to stop him. He is going straight through.
I make these comments in the interests of Health and Safety: not to be racist and juvenile.
July 26th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
“It is not a cruelty to kill blasphemers, rather blasphemy itself is such an enormous brutality that the one who commits it neither has got a right to live in this world nor is there any pardon for the blasphemer.”
Basically, take “sticks and stones” and rotate through 180 maniacal degrees.
July 26th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Since The Freethinker is a UK publication, I’d like to put in a plea for British spelling (and pronunciation). The word is ‘arse’ – enough already with the Yankee euphemisms!
_____
July 26th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Broga It would have to be a downstairs bedroom. I can’t imaging how he’d get himself past the second step up without having a coronary. (Doesn’t bode well for his trip up to the pearly gates, me thinks.)
July 26th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Slightly off topic, but still entirely pertinent to the subject of religious nutjobs, a friend of mine brought the following to my attention. It is a fantastic response to Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who on her radio show claimed that homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance.
http://www.humanistsofutah.org.....10-02.html
July 26th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
@Angela_K
That programme clashes with Hitler’s Muslim Legions on Radio 4 at 8pm. Two to record, I think.
July 26th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
You should be able to catch either of those shows on i player or 4 on demand, I’m going to watch the witch children programme and then after that I’m going to cheer myself up by watching district 13 on film 4 which should partially lift my despair at human stupidity.
July 26th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Can I just say that I think that the anti fatgit comments about Barker are beneath us, slagging him off for being an imbecile is OK though. He wants to be elected as a representative in a modern western democracy. He makes the most bigoted remarks against atheists and Muslims, groups of people that he is aspiring to represent and who have a right to expect to be represented fairly. When he is deselected he can’t actually work out why.
July 26th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
@Brian Jordan. Point taken. Eric ‘Wilfred’ Pickles is no stranger to the trough. But back to more technical religious matters in carnal relations with the devout. And here I adress a serious issue raised by Marcus. As David Barker has let his devout Christianity be known, then I assume he is required to adopt the “Missionary Position” during conjugal relations. This will require some ingenuity. How will he be able to raise his bulk on his arms as, I understand, will be required? I have no wish to be indelicate but how can the lady under pressure, as it were, be able to open her legs sufficiently wide? Might there be some kind of equivalent to a Papal Dispensation to permit another approach?
Someone, with an imagination to provide more inventive similies than myself, described sex with some bulked up man as, “Like a large wardrobe falling on you with the key in the door.” However, there are many romantic gestures that the more svelte among us avoid. Take the early morning cup of tea. That, for poor David Barker, must cause problems unknown to most. The tea is given; David waddles round to his side of the bed and slides under the duvet. Next the little lady is slipping towards him at speed, hot tea projected ahead, as she is helpless to arrest her descent down the slope.
What about the romantic car trip to a weekend in a country hotel? How does David get his vast gut behind the wheel? Should he manage this, does he have to extra inflate the tyres on his side? And so much else, so many other problems because he abandoned the strictures of the early saints and because a lard arse.
July 26th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
I agree with Vanessa Dobbs. The fake photo (thumbman) and comments such as “praise the lard” are bigotted and unnecessary.
July 26th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
I am amazed at the comments on this page – everyone seems to be obsessed with a hatred for Christianity. Baker’s statements are foolish and hyperbole, but the Muslim Cleric is defending the shooting of two men in handcuffs and calling for the beheading of of the Minister for Minorities. 99% of the comments condemn Baker and let Hammadi have a free pass. Honestly, which of the two poses a greater danger to the people in those respective communities?
July 27th, 2010 at 12:28 am
@Arnold and Stoneyground
Ok, maybe mocking his appearance seems a sort of gratuitous icing on the huge custard pie of abuse that he warrants (and would most likely swallow whole). But Broga made the point that this guy isn’t just tubby, but obscene. This isn’t the result of “glands” or a jolly lifestyle here, but a failure of personality and responsibility. It could well have had some bearing on the bloater’s religious idiocy, in the form of subsumed self-disgust projected on to others.
I’d be just as gratuitously snarky if I saw an atheist that gross who’d said something stupid.
July 27th, 2010 at 4:39 am
You know, it does seem a bit bigoted on our part to mock this obese man for what could possibly be a genetic disorder. Of course, seeing how religious belief is mostly due to upbringing, it could be argued that he is getting a taste of his own medicine by being ridiculed for something he has little or no control over. The brainwashing begins early and can last a lifetime. Maybe he would learn a lesson, though most likely he has become inured to insult about his weight.
I’d like to point not to the greatness of his girth, but to the obviously pea-sized intellect he has decided to display in public. That’s obscene enough for me to point and laugh. He may be a Paulian, in which case strictures on weight, diet, etc. wouldn’t matter as long as he accepts teh jebus and punishes those who don’t and all the sexual perverts, particularly teh gheys. Who cares what he looks like? He’s a sack of shit, and it doesn’t matter how much it takes to fill.
July 27th, 2010 at 10:14 am
When I was fat it wasn’t a genetic disorder, it was self-inflicted, the result of my own stupidity. I only shed it when shamed by people kind enough to be cruel enough to point this out. Religion is a similarly self-inflicted distortion – when corporeal fat and fat-headedness go together, there’s no sin in ridiculing both. The loathsome porker here made himself into a big, squidgy target through insufficient wisdom and a surfeit of pies. Anyone defending either indulgence is being unhelpfully precious and is welcome to take their ball and play elsewhere.
July 28th, 2010 at 1:03 am
Just because that was your case does not mean it is his. He could have a serious glandular problem. Or, he could be a lard-ass. I just don’t see that it make much difference to his stupidity.
July 28th, 2010 at 10:51 am
Mens sana in corpore sano. “Serious glandular problem,” my arse; rather, his. Were his evident self-abuse simply detrimental to his own health, no problem; but when the parallel mental abuse contributes to the rather bloated problem that is religious interference with the lives of others – target acquired. The easy get-out-of-jail card of “victim status,” that blight on enlightenment and progress, should not be handed out so freely. I don’t go in for gratuitous chubby-baiting myself; but it’s human nature to, shall we say, “lump these elements together” when they ooze out of the woodwork in so vile and amorphous a package as this one. I don’t think anyone on here would call a blameless cripple they disagreed with a “stupid gimp”; but I do think it’s fair game to hurl composite oaths such as “fat idiot” at imbeciles whose bodily grotesquery is rolled out alongside slobby thinking. The shock-horror recoil reaction of delinking Freethinker from a blog on the grounds of adipose intolerance strikes me as a bit (excuse me) out of proportion, given some of the evils perpetrated and discussed elsewhere on this site.
July 28th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Wow! The comments on this page are worse than the article. If he were a gay Christian would you be calling him a faggot?
How do you think it would sound if Bob Hughes “used to be guy until the people around him ridiculed him out of it”.
You people are shits
July 29th, 2010 at 9:46 am
No I’m still a guy you confused little turd.
July 29th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Bob Hughes, that degree of hate is what we would expect from religious zealots. What is your problem, dude? Go chill out with a pie or cake or something.
July 29th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Bob, can you be a little more clear? Tell us what you really think and don’t hold back this time.
August 31st, 2010 at 8:05 am
@Vanessa Dobbs & Arnold Lane:
The fat man is a politician. He is one of those that penalises smokers on the grounds that they ‘cost the health service’.
He is one of those who gets all upperty when cancer patients smoke marijuana AND he is one of those who will be costing the health service – for which we pay – after he has his first heart attack.
The fat man is a politician. We pay his wages AND his excessive health costs. We expect him to respect his constituents when he cannot even respect his own body!
His fatness is not only a severe character fault to be taken into consideration – it is a sign of addiction – the guy is a junky.
Note:
When flying I am expected to pay for every ounce of baggage, while people like him pay the same price for twice the weight of me and my baggage together.
August 31st, 2010 at 8:07 am
p.s.:
I add Deacon Titter to my address!