Steve Jobs, The Manhattan Declaration, and "The Offensive Christ"

What famous businessman falls into the category of "the offended" when it comes to the idea of supporting life and marriage?

The National Organization for Marriage has the answer (text copied from nationformarriage.org):

“Steve Jobs built his reputation as an iconic marketer in the famous 1984 commercial for the MacIntosh computer in which Apple promises to take on ‘Big Brother’” said Brian Brown, president of NOM. “Jobs has made billions taking on ‘Big Brother’ yet the irony is that in refusing to allow citizens to support pro-life and traditional marriage positions he’s become the very ‘Big Brother’ he has decried.”

The Manhattan Declaration has been signed by nearly 500,000 Christians who pledge their support for pro-life, traditional marriage and religious liberty. Launched in Manhattan in November 2009, the Declaration - called “A Call of Christian Conscience” - enjoys the support of prominent Christian clergy, ministers and scholars. The app was developed to facilitate other Christians to sign the Declaration. The app was approved by Apple reviewers and rated 4 plus, certifying that it contains no offensive content. Despite this, Apple pulled the app from the iTunes store when gay marriage advocates mounted an online petition. An Apple spokesperson defended the action saying that the Christian app was “offensive to large groups of people.”

“Apple happily allows all kinds of apps for pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage groups, yet when Christians develop an app to support traditional marriage and life, it is called offensive and is pulled from the iTunes store,” Brown said. “What is offensive is that Steve Jobs has targeted Christians for discrimination and religious bigotry, censoring our basic right to speech. Steve Jobs has become Big Brother and we call on Christians across America to contact Jobs to express their outrage at his unfair, discriminatory decision. Apple should immediately restore the Manhattan Declaration app and apologize to all Christians for their actions.”

Steve Jobs: A Good Businessman?

Firstly, enough has been said already of the rise of Apple thanks to co-founder Steve Jobs. This blog entry is not a commentary on Apple’s business model, a summation of their financial successes, or a meditation on how Apple’s newfound dominance over competitor Microsoft will affect consumers and competitors in the world tech market. (Seriously, what does any of that MEAN, anyway?)

But despite the attention Jobs and his company have received for their ever-increasing market value ( which, as of Wednesday, stands at around $222 billion), little attention has been paid to a subtle decision by Jobs and, supposedly, his business partners as well: Under no circumstances will pornography be made available as applications on the iPhone or the iPad.



When asked about his decision by tech commentator “gdgt”, Jobs answered thusly: “You know, there's a porn store for Android....You can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That's a place we don't want to go - so we're not going to go there.”
On a separate occasion, TechCrunch posted an email by a disappointed customer who criticized the decision, accusing Apple of taking on the role of “moral police”. Jobs did not back down, however, and responded “We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone."

I should point out that I am not at all savvy when it comes to the devices produced at Apple, especially the iPhone and the iPad. That being the case, I have no idea whether or not this policy of “no porn applications” will actually make a difference to many users. For example, if the internet is available on these devices, what is to stop users from accessing their desired entertainment regardless of Apple’s policies? But even if that is true, it is unrelated to the real significance of the decision. While a number of businesses clearly profit by providing access to adult pay-per-view entertainment- hotel chains chief among them- Apple executives have chosen to stand out, regardless of what petty criticism they happen to receive.




It is a typically progressive viewpoint that morality, as a rule, ought to be legislated. To proponents of such a statist ideology, private citizens are not responsible enough to be trusted to make the right decision. This decidedly negative view of their constituents is in my opinion a prime reason that liberals have no moral qualms about driving businesses into oblivion with an ever-increasing rate of taxation. After all, if all businessmen are evil, profit-seeking slimeballs, who cares if you siphon off a chunk of their gains? Such is the ideology of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid regime.

Steve Jobs and his associates deserve our congratulations for making the right choice in what many would have perceived to be a trivial matter. That such respect would be shown to traditional tech users in an age dominated by the rejection of personal restraint is worthy of applause, and these men of business are to be commended.

Now if only we could say the same of the financial watchdogs at the SEC (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/02/sec-workers-investigated-porn-surfing/)... Oh government, what would we ever do without you…