The city of Montreal confirmed it plans to shut down a concert by a U.S.-based Christian musician who has been described as a “MAGA superstar,” saying the venue does not hold proper permits.
  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    132·
    3 days ago

    The city said police had been mobilized to enforce regulations and “violation notices will be issued if the concert goes ahead.”

    But Feucht posted on social media that “The church IS NOT BACKING DOWN!!!” and it’s “time to take a stand for the gospel in Canada!”

    We’re right and everyone else is wrong and therefore no laws apply to us.

    Feucht’s has been outspoken against “gender ideology,” abortion and the LGBTQ+ community and met with American President Donald Trump during his first term. His social media shows him posing with members of Trump’s administration and he has been described as a Christian nationalist.

    We hate the people Jesus told us to hate, even though he preached love and acceptance.

    Excuse me, sir. Could you please stfu and go away? This isn’t Rome in the second century. You aren’t persecuted. This is Rome in the fourth and fifth centuries. You are the persecutors.

    But Gawd tole me tah be a bigot!

    Sorry. God doesn’t talk to you. You’re just a narcissistic asshole.

  • josefo@leminal.space
    121·
    3 days ago

    Well, that was a deep rabbit hole. Started reading his Wikipedia page, this is basically the Taliban of Christianity.

    • stringere@sh.itjust.works
      23·
      3 days ago

      Not the Taliban of Christianity. This is Fundementalist Christian Nationalism.

      Try not to dilute it by equating it to something far away posing no immediate danger. They are a real and present threat to democracies everywhere.

  • MehBlah@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    4 days ago

    Do what they would want done to that drag concert. Rush in and arrest them in the middle of the concert. After all I’m pretty sure its do unto other as they would do unto you.

  • snowby@lemmy.caEnglish
    61·
    3 days ago

    A fine is only a price to get away with doing it, close it down.

  • KingPorkChop@lemmy.caOPEnglish
    93·
    5 days ago

    This douche just tried to play a public park in PEI and some local goofballs decided to have a counter protest in the form of a vuvuzela party. Same time. Same day. Same place.

    After that the city decided it might be best to pull the permit. He ended up playing in a backwoods church to a handful of regular church members.

    Then he tried to play in Moncton and the city pulled their permit. The only other place he could play on such short notice was a church in the woods 2 hours away. I think 20 people showed up.

    His entire tour is a hilarious failure.

  • J_M@lemmy.ca
    322·
    4 days ago

    Remove all church’s tax free status - that grift will probably never die but it’s time to stop letting them avoid taxes at least.

          • dastanktal@lemmy.ml
            61·
            3 days ago

            Sure and I’m glad that those organizations have worked well for you, but I’ve also seen these type of charities abuse the fact that they’re the only help in town and use it as an excuse to proselytize to people.

            And they’re not the only charities in towns. A lot of the time there are other organizations that are secular that they also help. I prefer these because to me there is less of a chance of abuse

            As far as church is being tax-exempt, I don’t want to get into it, but it’s extraordinarily abused. All you need to do is look at Scientology and Mormonism. On top of that, the Catholic Church also gets a huge amount of money from parishioners, and not all of it flows back into the community.

            If they operate cleanly as a 501 3c non-profit, then I think that’s fine.

            • DerisionConsulting@lemmy.caEnglish
              3·
              3 days ago

              501 3c non-profit

              Firstly, the world needs to go to rehab for the opium of the masses.

              Secondly, this is a story from a Canadian source about a Canadian city, so we would be likely talking about the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act, unless of course it was incorporated under the equivalent Quebec Act.
              The church likely is in complete compliance with the act, it’s very easy to be.

              The Faith-based defence clauses in s.224(2), s.251(3), and 253(2) of the act are a problem, and should be removed though.

              • dastanktal@lemmy.ml
                2·
                3 days ago

                Yeah, the religious defenses are specifically what I’m talking about. There should be no reason for any sort of religious defense at all in these type of charities. If they’re going to operate, they need to operate under a secular framework.

                I don’t care if they do it in the name of their god or for whatever reason they’re doing it, but it needs to be done in full compliance with secular raas with no religious exemptions.

                Edit:

                When Marx was talking about the opium of the masses, he didn’t mean it as a drug that we are addicted to, he meant it as a salve for humanity, so we can get through the absolute worst things. I don’t have a problem with people being religious as long as they use a material reasoning for their decisions, they cannot justify any decisions solely based off metaphysical religion.

                • dastanktal@lemmy.ml
                  4·
                  3 days ago

                  You need to do waaay more reading on morality because it is so clear you are just shooting off the top of your cuff using common Christian apologist arguments against atheism that are super easily debunked.

                  Atheism isn’t a belief in anything, it is a lack of belief in gods, specifically. A lack of belief is not the same thing as a belief.

                  “Morality”, as you define it here, is always based on opinion, even in religious texts, that’s why we have to interpret religious texts in order to figure out what is and isn’t moral. You know, or when a priest says they’re gonna go into deep prayer to figure something out, that is interpretation.

                  As well as, you will find atheists that believe in objective morality, the belief that we all are born with a certain set of morals, along with atheists that believe in moral relativity, which claims that morality is an evolutionary trait designed to enhance cooperation and survival. Personally, I think we do have a very, very, very small set of base morals, such as killing is wrong without a real, and then most of our morality is based on the specifics of each situation.

                  I don’t think, like a good number of atheists, that religion is the bane of all evil, but I do think that religion is a tool that is utilized and abused by many who seek power and that our governments do nothing to curb that abuse of power. See televangelists, see Scientology, see the Mormon Church, see Jehovah’s Witness, see gay conversion therapy camps. These are all modern problems caused by the way in which we allow modern religion institutions to exempt itself from the laws of the governing state.

              • dastanktal@lemmy.ml
                5·
                3 days ago

                I’m not saying that religious institutions don’t bring some good into their community, but I am saying that major religious institutions overall seem to be a net harm to humanity than they are a net benefit. As far as Catholicism comes to mind, there’s quite a few people that have quite a lot to say about how the priest treated them when they were minors that the church covered up and continues to cover up. In my opinion, you can’t have an organization go legitimate while it’s trying to cover up child abuse such as this.

                I also completely disagree with the proselytizing, and think that it’s not necessary there are plenty of homeless people that are homeless due to religious trauma and don’t need to be re-victimized every time they try to go eat because the place they want to go to insists on proselytizing every time they’re in there. I also may just have a personal bias against being proselytized too.

                Look, I’m not saying it’s all bad, I’m just saying that there is propensity for religious institutions to abuse their power, which is true of any large corporation that gets big enough, but religious institutions are made particularly heinous by the religious exemptions they get to utilize, which secular organizations don’t have.

                I’m sure it’s just because the community you’re in is really small, and in America, or Canada at least, people are not exactly friendly to the muslim community. I do hope that things are going well for you in that regard and that you are finding peace and safety.

      • vithigar@lemmy.ca
        2·
        2 days ago

        Have them apply for tax exemption as non-profit charities then. If what you say is true then they should have no trouble qualifying.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
      36·
      4 days ago

      I wouldn’t go that far.

      But audit them.and make sure they’re actually doing tax-exempt stuff, and be ruthless about removing the tax-exempt status of churches that violate the law.

      • KingPorkChop@lemmy.caOPEnglish
        111·
        4 days ago

        If they want to do charitable work, they can register as a regular charity and follow the same rules as everyone.

        Outside of that, churches are just a regular business.

  • MBech@feddit.dk
    36·
    5 days ago

    Was just about to say, the dude in the picture looks like literally every single douchy christian rock singer ever.

  • thermal_shock@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    5 days ago

    Guessing the fine wasn’t enough to stop the terrorist message from getting out. Cost of doing business I guess.

  • Etterra@discuss.onlineEnglish
    21·
    5 days ago

    You know the cult is dangerously close to completely replacing Christianity when they try to usurp Andrew Lloyd Webber.

    • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
      23·
      4 days ago

      While it wouldn’t be as notable if it was an LGBTQ thing it’d be just as stupid. Do you know why permits are often required for concerts nowadays? The reason is rather simple, indoor concert venues kept burning to the fucking ground and people kept dying. Usually the way it went is that a building rated for like 200 people would go over capacity to 300 or 400 then the fire started no one could get out and then folks died because building ratings often times reflect physical limitations in certain things like how fast a certain number of people can get out of the building.

      Outdoor venues have permit requirements because of dehydration and literal shit shows as latrine ditches overflowed. Outdoor venues tend to be less deadly more raw sewage.

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          3 days ago

          I can’t remember the terms exactly in relation to a population for events but a lot of it comes down to what I’ll call steady flow population IE those who go for weakly service or whatever vs flux population that being those who go for events or whatever. Just using a portion of my previous example if a building is rated for say 200 people and 300 people show up it’s a shit show waiting to happen, that’s not getting into the possibility of road blockage and outflow issues that could persist for an extended period of time and interfere with things like ambulances.

          Also pretty sure there are effectively standing permits that can be obtained for concerts and shit. Frankly speaking this type of shit varries city by city county by county, so some places will have far more stringent laws and bylaws for such things while others won’t give an iota of a fuck so long as they call ahead of time so a cop can be present in case of a shit show.

          Though I will state that I am thoughly biased against using churches in particular for such events because a lot of them are built in just the dumbest way possible. I got a good sample size when I was a kid in boy scouts where I got lost in the backrooms of a church on several occasions looking for the restroom. Also a lot of them are just in really weird areas with a questionable amount of parking I remember there was one where we were doing a charity dinner and the sheriff showed up because there were too many people and they were blocking the road.

            • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
              12·
              3 days ago

              Yeah the Catholics seem to have their shit together enough that they can generally pull off events and whatnot without too many issues. But a lot of churches especially older ones that predate things like standardized building codes probably need to be kept on a short leash on how many people are present in them, and assuming the building shown in the article is the church in question. Yeah I can see why the city may be iffy on having too many people at it, combine that with protesters outside and the general mess that comes with concerts I can see why they would deny a permit.

    • ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      51·
      3 days ago

      Some permits carry insurance. You need one to have a yard sale in my town, but if someone gets injured on your lawn, it covers you.