The main theme throughout all of the nonsense that Access Ministries have been peddling, the one constant, immutable “fact” has been their claim to overwhelming public endorsement and support of their SRI and chaplaincy programs. In fact, their favourite number seems to be 98% – they even print glossy brochures about it (via SUQLD, 764kb .pdf). They throw all sorts of bogus numbers at you, but the magic 98% is by far their favourite.
These extraordinary boasts require extraordinary evidence, and Access have already thrown large amounts of cash at professional data torturers to extract the truth out of selectively harvested factoids – both Edith Cowan University and Social Compass, as previously discussed here. And to reiterate, I hold neither of these organisations to blame – they simply delivered product as defined by the customer scope, just a simple business transaction. Access wanted confirmation bias support, and that is what they got.
So let’s revisit this issue of the alleged massive support that Access have from the public then. Just over a month ago, with much hoopla, when the shit started hitting the fan, Access announced a new, improved Facebook Causes page and urged the masses to rise up and voice their disgust at the evil, child hating secularists. As observed at the time, this was hardly a roaring success. But never mind, it was probably a slow boil, and the people’s obvious support would arrive once the grass roots word of mouth campaign got in full swing. Wouldn’t it? (more…)
