Press Release - Response to Libertarianz Party
The International Jedi Church, based in New Zealand, are terminating
discussions with the Libertarianz Party due to significant differences
in opinion.
The Jedi Church believes that the forthcoming census is extremely
important so that we can manage our church resources effectively to
our Jedi parishioners across New Zealand. In contrast, the
Libertarianz Party is advising civil disobedience by encouraging
people to burn their census papers.
It is noted that a recent response by Master Yoda, claiming to be of
the Jedi High Council, was not an official response of Jedi Church NZ.
However, we concur with his thoughts. The Jedi Church believes in
universal compassion. We advise that the leader of the Libertarianz
Party, Richard McGrath, should "beware of the dark side". Some
freedoms create suffering for others. The Jedi Church believes we
should live in a harmonious society, and that may necessitate some
taxation and regulation.
The Jedi Church encourages all who believe their spirituality is
innate, those who "feel the force", should consider answering Jedi to
the religion question in the forthcoming census. We note that the only
issue the Jedi Church has with Statistics NZ, is that they require we
pay for the data when other religions have the data published free of
charge.
The Jedi Church was started by Reuben Jackson, in February 2003, in
response to Statistics NZ claiming that Jedi was not an valid
religion. Jackson took offence that Statistics NZ should make any such
judgement of the validity of any religion, noting that Satanists,
Witches and Scientologists were all treated as valid religions by the
government department. Thus a website, www.jedichurch.org, was
established to be the home of the Jedi religion, where the Jedi
followers could meet and discuss their faith. The Jedi Church now has
over 10000 registered members internationally, and over 1600 Facebook
friends. There are new ministries of the Jedi faith starting all over
the world continuously. The Jedi Church website ranks #1 on google
searches for phrases like "Jedi Religion" and "Jedi Faith". In the
2006 census over twenty thousand people answered Jedi to the religion
question in the census. The census is important to monitoring the
growth of this popular religion. The Jedi faith is serious and is not
a one time census anomaly.
The Jedi Church looks forward to entering into discussions with other
political parties who do share our values. Winston Peters and Rodney
Hyde should not apply.
Official Website of the Jedi Church NZ
www.jedichurch.org
2006 Census Jedi Breakdown in NZ
http://www.jedichurch.org/
Posted: Sun 13 Feb 2011
