The Network 10 has beefed up its security after receiving threats and ahead of protests backed by an online religious group over an X-rated joke made on The Project.
Last month, comedian Reuben Kaye was speaking on the network’s flagship show about the hate he’s received from the Christian community when he joked “I love Jesus — I love any man who can get nailed for three days straight and come back for more.”
The Project aired an apology the following night but the joke had already inflamed groups who accused the show of disrespecting their religion. Charlie Bakhos’ Christian Lives Matter, which has repeatedly campaigned against LGBTQIA+ causes and individuals Bakhos has accused of “mocking God”, has promoted a protest outside of the Network 10’s offices on Saturday, along with calls for the show to be cancelled.
Multiple Ten staff members, who were not authorised to speak publicly, told Crikey of the fallout of the joke. The Project had received threats against its staff and had increased security around its Sydney office ahead of the protests.
Former Project host Dave “Hughesy” Hughes spoke publicly about being approached by two men on the beach asking if he was still part of the show earlier this week.
“You on The Project? You against Jesus? If you are, I’m going to bash you,” the man allegedly said, according to the comedian on 2DayFM earlier this week.
A Network 10 spokesperson didn’t directly answer questions about whether the station or employees had faced threats.
“The safety and wellbeing of staff is always the primary focus for Ten,” they said.
“As a media organisation we recognise the rights of people to respectfully and peacefully express their opinions.”
Bakhos hosted a Zoom call on Tuesday night with several hundred supporters including political figures such as One Nation MLC Mark Latham and Silvana Nile, NSW election candidate and wife of Reverend Fred Nile. Despite claiming that he’s “not organising it”, Bakhos set up the call, promoted the protest through Christian Lives Matter’s social media accounts and associated group chats, and led discussion about how to protest on the weekend.
Bakhos stressed the importance of having a peaceful protest and spoke worriedly about fears that “the media” would infiltrate the protest.
“They might even send people into the crowd to cause trouble, and blame us!” he said, later claiming that media agitators might throw rocks. In the Zoom chat, one commenter hinted at violence: “If someone comes into our group I’m ‘talking to them’ around the corner.”
Last weekend, Crikey reported that a Christian prayer march protest through Newtown during WorldPride that was called “peaceful” by Bakhos had turned violent when one participant allegedly grabbed the head of a bystander.
Bakhos also defended against claims that the group was anti-LGBTQIA+. “This isn’t us against the gays. The gays are saying ‘we’re not with those paedophiles’,” he said, referencing a common anti-LGBTQIA+ trope.
Later in the call, Latham spoke briefly to thank Bakhos and the group for defending “Western values”.
“We need more groups like Christian Lives Matter,” he said.
Love these so-called Christians. Like the Pentecostalists, these people are only concerned about Money, publicity and self-interest.
Non of theme remotely resemble any genuine Christians I knew . . .
Please let me be bold enough to suggest Drandy that the people who are the subject of this article are the “genuine Christians” while your friends are possibly the aberration.
Really? What happened to turning the other cheek? #notabottomjoke
What on earth… or should I write, what in heaven’s name? do you mean by that?
Cheezels was well-known for advocating going the biffo against anyone who disagreed with you……………
Haven’t got the faintest idea what you are talking about Thuc.
“You against Jesus? If you are, I’m going to bash you”………….
…………you reckon Cheezels would have agreed?
Cheesels needs protection, apparently. Shame his old man didn’t give that to him when he really needed it.
And on the joke itself, as a gay man I could feel equally offended; after all, it suggested we are all drug- or sex-addled. But I guess most gay people have a sense of humour, something severely lacking in most Christians, it seems. I reckon even Cheesels would have had a chuckle.
As far as I can see Christians are followers of Christ’s teachings.
They are not servants of mammon or the followers of the money changers cast out of the temple or really that connected to or desirous of worldly possessions.
There are groups such as the Pentecostals and other cults which are “Christianists” and not true followers of Christ’s teaching.
Threatening to bash people is hardly good Christian values, I’d wager.
And I’d also would call the march down Kings St, preaching Christian Lives Matter highly provocative.
Surely all of us have, at one time or another, wanted to deck Dave “Hughesy” Hughes. But we are put on earth to rise above such temptation.
A lot worse than receiving a “bashing” by Christians has occurred throughout history Gabby, (take the Catholic Inquisition as a specific example). I think that this sort of behavior reflects religious values in general and Christian values in particular.
Au contraire, there is very little that is more Christian than pummelling the hell out of anyone who has upset your delicate sensibilities. At the same time, similar can be said of any other religion that manages to obtain the power to get away with it.
Sounds like more Americanism to me
Christians? What bloody Christians. None of these clown deserve the term and the decent everyday Christian folk don’t deserve them either. I have seen a lot of previous Scummo ministers, Tudge, Brother Stuey, Porter and the like all spruiking Christianity and not one of them qualifies by the tenets I was raised with. I have no religion, but was raised on Presbyterian lines and educated at an Anglican school. Compassion and community service rated highly with them. There is none in these fakes.
I do not believe in belittling people’s religion, though I will take issue with extreme actions from one and all. Christians make fairly good terrorists at times..think the Crusaders who killed near as many Christians as Muslims. The Project was stupid and I find it hard to believe they did not check the script, but we straight away see the bosses of cancel culture in this land are from the right, not the left.
I am constantly commenting on various forums that there are Christians, and then there are “Christians”. The first are those who quietly use their beliefs as a tool to guide their own lives, do good works, don’t judge or condemned anybody and don’t shout ‘look at me doing nice things’. The latter group use their beliefs as a weapon (including threats of violence) against others whenever they feel butt-hurt due to their own human jealousies and hates. God, if they are real, is quite capable of defending themselves.
I believe the correct term for the latter is Christianists
Rentagospels
Christianist is a a neologism created by Andrew Sullivan a conservative, gay, Catholic author and blogger in 2003 concerning the then President, Dubya, The Faux Texan and his push concerning a “Faith Based Administration”, as attempted recently here in Australia with Smirko, The Happy Clapper and his Disciples.
“I have a new term for those on the fringes of the religious right who have used the Gospels to perpetuate their own aspirations for power, control and oppression: Christianists.
Interestingly Sullivan first used the word “Christianist” in 2003 to describe Eric Rudolph, a US religious terrorist, convicted for a series of anti-abortion and anti-gay-motivated bombings across the southern United States between 1996 and 1998, which killed three people and injured 150 others. Rudolph also planted the bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.
Sullivan extends the argument, with such being akin to Islamism viz. al Qua’eda, Taliban
“Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. …It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.”
“But any pretense of a religious foundation for Christianism breaks down on many of the issues Christianists now consider their highest priority — cutting social services, blocking access to health care, lowering taxes, undermining public education, repealing restrictions on the ownership and use of firearms, endorsing harsh law enforcement methods and restrictions on the right to vote in communities of color, defending the Mexican border, and closing the door to refugees, to name a few.”
According to Em Rusciano, it all would have gone entirely to script. The producers thought they needed to apologise only after complaints were received.
Note to Charlie & other peeved Christians: have you heard of the Sermon on the Mount? According to the Bible Jesus urged his followers to ‘turn the other cheek.’
yeah, funny that – 2000 years to go from “turn the other cheek” to “I’m going to bash you!” – ffs – WWJD?
I recall John Brunner, in The Stone That Never Came Down, pointing out that one of the things that made Christianity most dangerous was that it was the only religion to endorse holy war while simultaneously exhorting its believers to turn the other cheek.
The religion of Jesus nowhere endorses “holy war”. It is a foreign concept. That individuals and powerful leaders have claimed it does, and acted as if thus entitled, is to their damning shame.
Has Bakhos ever watched Family Guy? Or South Park? By comparison to some of the episodes of these shows, the ‘Nailed’ joke is low key and inoffensive. I look forward to the coming fatwa when this darling of the lunatic Right gets around to turning on the TV.