'Immoral' TV Causing RI Disasters, Tsunamis - Tech Minister

Pulling a page from a playbook more often associated with the American evangelical nutter class, Indonesia's Communications and Info Technology Minister used Friday’s Idul Adha prayers to blame 'immorality’ for the country's recent spate of deadly natural disasters.
Fresh from getting excoriated in the blogosphere and by some of his Twittering brethren for unilaterally blocking access to blogger.com last week, Tifatul Sembiring was quoted by the national wire service Antara saying:
"Television broadcasts that destroy morals are plentiful in this country and therefore disasters will continue to occur."
He later singled out naughty DVDs produced in Indonesia as particularly blameworthy.
AP quoted an Acehnese tsunami survivor, who lost 10 members of her family to the Dec. 26 disaster as replying:
“I prefer to believe that natural disasters occur because of the destructive force of nature that cannot be avoided by humans.”
Over the past few years Indonesia has experienced a series of natural calamities including the tsunami, multiple deadly earthquakes and more landslides, ferry-sinkings and plane crashes than I care to remember.
To much rejoicing from his acolytes at the Taliban-lite Prosperous Justice Party he fronted until last month, the Minster said he expects to complete (another) piece of anti-pornography legislation in the next six months that will block access to site deemed blasphemous or offensive to ethnic and religious groups… (in other words 70 percent of the content on the Internet).
Though he has only been in office since October, the guy who heads up DepKomInfo is rapidly emerging as one of the leading knuckleheads of SBY’s gormless new cabinet. What, oh what, will he say next?
They might not agree on much else, but the Minister finds himself walking lock-step with some of the more reptilian delegates of the American lunatic fringe.
Over the past decade most of America’s leading evangelical lights have blamed fags, women and porn for a variety of natural disasters, terrorist attacks and diseases: it squares with their reading of the same final chapters of the Old Testament that receive wide reverence from Islamic scholars.
Some notable samples:
"We take no joy in the death of innocent people," Michael Marcavage, the head of Repent America and a former Clinton White House intern said following hurricane Katrina "But we believe that God is in control of the weather. The day Bourbon Street and the French Quarter was flooded was the day that 125,000 homosexuals were going to be celebrating sin in the streets. We're calling it an act of God."
In 1998, televangelist Pat Robertson warned the city of Orlando, Fla., that a gay celebration there bring the wrath of God in the form of a hurricane or other disaster. Celebrating homosexuality "will bring about terrorist bombs, it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor," he suggested.
In 2001, Wee Jerry Falwell blamed gays and lesbians (along with feminists, abortionists and the American Civil Liberties Union) for the terrorist attacks in New York City. "I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen," he said
In 2007, the Brits piped up to prove Yanks don’t have the corner on the idiocy market. Following widespread flooding in the UK, a group of senior Church of England bishops opined that the grred and immorality of modern society – rather than a lot of rain – was to blame.