1 July 2008
Praise for Censor’s Ban on “Cradle of Filth” T-shirt
John Mills, President of the Society for Promotion of Community Standards Inc, (SPCS) has hailed as “bold, morally
courageous and legally sound”, the classification decision issued to him today by the Chief Censor’s Office, that
permanently bans a T-shirt he argued was “grossly objectionable due to its obscene content” and “completely vilifies the
central figure of Christianity”. The Censor’s Office agreed with Mr Mills, an elder at the Kapiti Christian Centre, that
the T-shirt, worn and flaunted in a large public gathering on the Kapiti Coast and a part-image (censored) of which was
published in the Kapiti Observer newspaper, should be classified “objectionable”.
The censor noted its sexually degrading image of a traditional Roman Catholic nun, and its grossly obscene and
blasphemous language directed at the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is worshipped, adored. praised and revered as
the central Person of Christianity. The use of vile Satanic imagery emblazoned on the T-shirt, including depictions of
dripping blood, linked to the heavy metal band “Cradle of Filth” and lewd and inflammatory content directed at
Christians, was also noted by the censors. (Mills praises the Kapiti-Observer for initially highlighting the nature of
the offensive apparel).
In the classification decision (No. 800513) on the apparel entitled “Vestal Mastur#ation (Cradle of Filth)” dated 26
June 2008, signed by Ms Nicola McCully, the Deputy Chief Censor, it states:
“The injury to the public good that is likely to be caused by the availability of this T-shirt originates from the
manner in which it associates an aggressive and misogynistic meaning of the “harsh, brutal and generally unacceptable”
word c### with Jesus Christ, and depicts an image of a chaste woman engaging in sexual activity. A fair interpretation
of the messages conveyed by this T-shirt is that Christians should be vilified for their religious beliefs, and that
women, including chaste and celibate women, cannot stop themselves engaging in sexual activity…” (OFLC No. 800513)
John Mills points out that the Society itself was founded by a nun – the late Patricia Bartlett (d. 2000) - who
regularly had to put up with anti-Christian vitriol from the Society’s detractors who promoted sexually offensive and
degrading images of women (hard core pornography) that regularly represent them an inherently inferior.
Mills says “I am shocked that censors, in particular female censors like McCully, can allow truckloads of hard core porn
to be classified for adult home entertainment use in New Zealand, ‘for sexual titillation purposes’, when they all know
that research shows that such images, repeatedly viewed, fuel a misogynistic and sexually depraved mindset that produces
the bad fruits of rape, incest, pedophilia and a host of other morally depraved vices.”
ENDS