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Politics : The Castle -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (1919)	8/22/2003 5:16:05 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7936

First the two acts are very different. One is between consenting adults; the other is perpetrated against a particular group/minority. Your comment was that the law was a paper tiger. It doesn't matter that the two acts are different we are talking about how the law treat them. If the law treats murderers harshly but in practice doesn't penalize drug dealers then the law against illegal drug sales would be a paper tiger, and the law against murder would not be. The fact that murder is a different crime then drug dealing would be irrelevant to the point in question. 2nd - Stating an opinion is not something perpetrated against anyone, at least not in the legal sense, at least not as long as we have freedom of speech. Secondly, its not clear whether the Vatican materials would be justification for prosecution under Ireland's Anti Hate law of 1989. Liam suggest they might be. However, under the TX sodomy laws, there was no question you could be prosecuted. At this point its more likely that the Bishops would get prosecuted and imprisoned then a gay couple in Texas. Thirdly, if the Vatican was prosecuted under the 1989 law, they would be treated with civility. Under the sodomy laws, gays were treated very badly..........many were seriously injured in the process of being arrested and detained. A prison term for stating your opinion or your religious conviction is not being treated very civically. Also you have no way of knowing that they would be treated in a very civil manner. Other people that have run afoul of politically correct mandates have not been treated well. In any case I am not saying that the Texas sodomy law was just, it was unjust, my point is that legal penalties for speech are also unjust. and you will find that the Church's position was to mostly ignore the problem or participate in a kind of conspiracy or to send these wayward priests to a institutions hoping they would be cured and then putting them back into situations where they were close to kids. That wasn't the Church's position, it was not a matter of doctrine or dogma, or Church law, or Papal order. It was priests and other Bishops, some of them also pedophiles, committing a conspiracy to cover everything up, often from the rest of the Church in addition to the public and the legal authorities. I agree it was disgusting in fact I would say that is putting it mildly. It wasn't Catholics, it was the Vatican hierarchy from the Pope on down. The "It" in this case isn't the cover-up of the crimes of the pedophiles, but rather accepting and promoting Catholic doctrine. That goes beyond just the Vatican hierarchy. Sorry........denigrating a particular group of people for many of us is the equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. Denigrating a group of people in a letter to the editor in a newspaper isn't even vaguely like yelling fire in a crowded theater, and if someone takes it as if it was and acts violence the problem is entirely with the person who becomes violent. Should you be locked up because you "yelled fire in a crowded theater" when you denigrated neocons or the Bush administration? Of course not, the very idea is nonsense, and dangerous nonsense at that. No, emphatically! You still don't seem to get it. Very few bigots are able to compartmentalize their feelings. If they are a bigot in their private lives, they will very likely be bigots in the classroom. Why take that risk? I submit that it has not been determined that his is a bigot, and also that not being able to compartmentalize feelings is not limited to bigots but is also a frequent problem with radicals and extremists of all sorts. I further submit that punishing him for something he didn't do , and wasn't attempting, but instead at some future point could theoretically decide to do is not justified or fair or right. Saying negative things in public against a minority is a crime. "Not in the US it isn't. We still have the 1st amendment. You are right that it is in some places but it shouldn't be." It shouldn't be by your standards, but not mine. By my standards, marriage between gays should not be denied but it is and we have a president actively working to prevent it. I don't think that's very fair and I happen to think its more unfair than your concern but life's a bitch and then you die. It isn't a crime even if you think it should be. Do minorities get special benefits or is denigrating the majority a crime? How about a plurality, or anyone who isn't easily placed in any of those categories? As for gay marriage that isn't an issue of speech. The equivalent of what these people are facing would be for you to be sent to prison because you just posted that you think homosexual marriage should be legal. To disparage someone who is a minority is not the same as disparaging someone for their ideology. So we have special protected groups that can not be insulted, and speech allowed or not allowed based on content? That's scary, very scary. Personally I'm not ready to junk the first amendment. OK tell me the next time someone is convicted of (voluntary) sodomy in Texas. The law has been found to be unconstitutional and it will not be enforced. Maybe not in Houston but I bet in a town like Crawford it will be. Its possible, even if it isn't likely, that someone might be arrested and charged but the charge would be dismissed or in the remote chance there was a conviction it would be overturned on appeal. amazon.com No, I think they should be warned and then fined. If they persist, then yes, they should go to jail. No law has ever been passed saying that the Bible can not be read in school. The constitution says that congress shall make no law that establishes religion. Leaving aside the fact that this isn't an act of congress or the federal government, and the fact that its very questionable to call someone reading the Bible an example of the establishment of a religion, if the person reading Bible was a school or government official they could be fired or impeached, or recalled and that would end any establishment. There is no criminal law against the individual reading the Bible. What is illegal is the government establishing a religion as an act of government. Also getting back to the actual issue, this was not at a school or government facility. None of the examples that I protested against concerned the conduct of a government or school official acting as an official or acting on government property. " A theocracy in the US is now less likely as a communist dictatorship." Maybe so but there has been a recent resurgence in the past few years that is very disturbing. ?!?! The religious right is getting their heads handed to them time and time again. They are losing just about every court battle, and many political ones. When you break the law, there are consequences. When you want exceptions to the law such as you propose, then that can lead to anarchy. I'm not asking for exceptions, I am pointing our unjust laws in some places, particularly in other countries and hoping they don't spread. The 1st amendment should protect us from them but our government has been known to ignore the constitution so I'm not sure we are entirely safe. You claim disparaging a minority in public is not against the law. My understanding is that it is. Neither of us are an attorney so I am not sure where to take the argument. I don't have to be an attorney, there is no such law, except perhaps local ordinances or laws in other countries. And any law to that effect would be in direct contradiction to the 1st amendment and thus unconstitutional. An attorney would be needed when the law is complex or unclear (and unfortunately that is the case far too often), but it is not in this case. Tim