Read up on it then. Is not really in the same category as your example...

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If you are a prominent person in any professional field then you have to be a little more intelligent than to share s**t like this.

However...Folau's parents are Tongan. In my experience of Australian Polynesian community (which isn't much other than spending a month coaching a group which was 50% Polynesian in ethnicity as part of the Australian National Team of American Football in 2015 and keeping touch with them since), the main cultural differences which were immediately obvious were very tight family ties, huge respect for the elders within any group of Polynesians that they find themselves in (of any age), and extremely strong religion - what I would consider a relatively fundamental variant of Christianity. It is absolutely blind faith from what I saw. No questioning at all.

When we arrived in both towns (first for training camp, second for World Championship tournament), the first thing we had to do was find a suitable church for them within walking distance which had services at times where they were not meant to be at practice, in meetings or playing a game. I realised this when I held a meeting with the defensive line and discovered that all the Polynesian guys had instead gone to church. The guys would seriously have missed playing a World Championship tournament game for which they’d been preparing for over 4 years if there was no other way they could have attended church. Another coach and I had to ask them the denominations they would accept and then spent hours calling around churches in Canton, Ohio trying to find one which would take the guys at suitable times for our schedule. Thankfully we found one.

Now I am not saying this is the same with all Polynesians, but it is very common (I talked openly with the guys about it). 

In his defence (sort of) he shared a slogan on an image which is a classic way hate groups manage to slip in an extra line. In his text, he then quotes a passage from Galatians which does not mention anything about homosexuality. In fact homosexuality is one of two "sins" which appears in the image but not in the quote, suggesting that it has been quite consciously slipped in there. The other is atheism which is not specified in the Galatians passage (only heresy).

It’s horrendous sentiment. I get that. But there’s also an education piece here and if perhaps Australia was a little more inclusive of the “Polys” then perhaps more modern values might start to be adopted.

Posted By: Steve in Holland on April 13th 2019 at 11:26:00


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