Apple Inc. has twice rejected an iPhone and iPad app by the Christian right. The corporation says it’s because the app is “offensive to large groups of people,” according to a news release.
The app in question was the Manhattan Declaration, a 4,700-word manifesto written in 2009 by James Dobson, Charles Colson, Richard Land and other conservative Christian leaders.
The declaration includes Bible verses on marriage, but also condemns gay marriage and abortion. It was the condemnation of gay marriage that bothered Apple.
The Christian right tweaked the language to try to appease Apple. But on Dec. 23, Apple rejected the new version, the Baptist Press reports.
On its website, www.manhattandeclaration.org, the Christian is fighting back. There it says: ”Inasmuch as the Manhattan Declaration simply reaffirms the moral teachings of our Christian faith on the sanctity of human life, marriage and sexual morality, and religious freedom and the rights of conscience, Apple’s statement amounts to the charge that our faith is ‘potentially harmful to others.’ It is difficult to see how this is anything other than a statement of animus by a major American corporation against the beliefs of millions of Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox citizens.”
In a recent column for the San Francisco Chronicle, Colson wrote, “If the Manhattan Declaration’s positions are offensive, (then) so are those of mainstream Christianity for the past 2,000 years.”
Did Apple, a corporation known for taking a liberal stand on social issues, drop the ball on this one?
Apple rejects Christian right iPhone app as “offensive to large groups” is a post from: The Pulpit