Do politics and technology mix? Well, on occasion, they do exactly that.
After nearly 8,000 people signed a petition to protest an app that blasts gay marriage and abortion, Apple booted it from the store. The iPhone application drew from the Manhattan Declaration, a product of conservative Christian leaders who created the document in 2009.
In it, they condemned abortion as the “cheapening of life” and a “license to kill,” and referred to homosexuality as “sexual immorality” that could “lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions.”
The app prompted users to answer a few questions in a survey/quiz, and pro-choice sentiments or those supporting gay rights were selectively scored to fail.
When Change.org got wind of this, they started a petition urging Steve Jobs to pull the “hate fest” from the App Store, and more than 7,700 people signed it. Not a huge number, but large enough for Apple to notice — the company removed the app over the Thanksgiving weekend, saying, “It violates our developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people.” ManhattanDeclaration.org responded by contending that its manifesto used “civil, non-inflammatory and respectful” language, and posted the following on its site:
We emphasize with great sincerity that “disagreement” is not “gay-bashing.” The Manhattan Declaration clearly calls its signers to reject “disdainful condemnation” of those who disagree and declares that all people are worthy of respect, because all are loved by God.
So was Apple right or wrong for pulling the app? There are people on both sides of the issue that consider this an unsavory display of censorship, while others applaud the removal for a variety of reasons — whether driven by personal beliefs or for business reasons.
Before you answer, consider these two contradictory bits of background: Steve Jobs may be known for rigid, even ultra conservative approaches to the iOS ecosystem, but in the larger world, he’s actually a democratic supporter.
(President Obama has even held court with Jobs as recently as a few weeks ago.) But, as the L.A. Times notes, the ManhattanDeclaration app was originally evaluated and accepted into the App Store with a 4+ rating — which seems to indicate that Jobs’ company found no objectionable content in there.
What do you think? Was exiling this app the right thing for Apple to do? Weigh in below in the comments.
