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

To: TimF who wrote (1923)	8/23/2003 3:28:29 PM
From: tejek	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. Then we agree.......I think the Liam Reid law is a paper tiger because I think the worst that will happen is that the Vatican would get a slap on the wrist. For the Irish, just opposing a Vatican edict is major. Whereas the sodomy laws in TX are not minor issue. They were enforced and enforced harshly. 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. You keep ignoring the fact that preventing someone from yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is not considered a violation of freedom of speech. In the same way, not allowing someone to call a minority a derogatory term is not a violation of 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. I don't believe that's accurate. As I understand it, the whole reason that the TX sodomy laws were on review was because a gay couple had been arrested and treated badly. 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. That position may not have been part of the Church dogma but it was the de facto position. And the entire church knew there was a problem, including the Vatican, but they ignored it, paying off the victims only when those victims confronted the church. Any victims who remained silent and/or committed suicide were paid nothing. And please don't tell me the Church was not aware of all the hush money payments that were made over the past 40 years. 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. I don't believe the law agrees with you. 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. Neither the Bush administration nor neocons are in a minority position nor have experienced years of discrimination. 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. He said gays should not be applauded. Does that tell you he likes gays? It tells me he DOESN'T like them. Whenever your biases determine your liking as opposed to your experiences of a particular person him/herself, then you are a bigot. "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? Minorities can not disparage other minorities. 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. My point was that there are issues for which we all can't agree. You feel that people should be able to disparage minorities publicly while I feel gays should be allowed to marry if they want. Neither are allowed in these united states. 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? Why should you be allowed to insult minorities? What could you possibly thing that that will accomplish. That's scary, very scary. Personally I'm not ready to junk the first amendment. I think its scary that you want to have the right to disparage minorities in public. After all the problems this country has had with discrimination and race riots and school busing and integration, its shocking to me that you think this is a major violation of 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. You assume that it will go to court. People have a way of 'disappearing' in TX or getting killed in prison before they have time to go to court. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/006019006X/qid... This book is probably very accurate. The level of animosity that has developed between conservatives and liberals is disturbing. Sometimes, it feels like a civil war could break out at any moment. 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. There have been any number of laws that separate church and state. That is a given. But more importantly, we are hardly a nation of one religion but a rather a nation of many religions. Why should one religion predominate in our public buildings? " 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. That's because the religious right refuses to get it! They believe they are doing God's work and keeping pushing and pushing the issue. I wish God would speak on his own behalf instead of relying on human interpretators. 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. reason.com It seems to me that if whole universities can restrict the freedom of speech and not be held in contempt of free speech, than restricting verbal attacks on minorities can not be either. ted