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Orkeosaurus wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:Exactly. It's not a threat, yet people found it threatening. The analogy being that being told that you're a sinner, and having some inkling of what happens to sinners, can seem threatening even if the person doing the telling has no intention of carrying it out. It's much more like harassing someone rather than threatening them.

I think calling it harassment would be going to far, unless the person was repeatedly targeting an individual or group who had asked to be left alone with the message. I would call it "annoying", in most cases.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Incidentally, making a member of a group, organisation or family feel uncomfortable about their beliefs constitutes a criminal threat. We're all part of some sort of family... and a lot of people have cases here.

What country has that nonsense?

Mine, that rainy place near Europe, most of yours and interestingly, not Canada. Is Texas its own country yet?

Do you have a more... uh... exact citation of the law you're describing?

Well since you're talking about harassment as well... The expression of an offensive religious opinion, regardless of which party take offense, is subject to being treated as harassment just as sexual harassment would. It's your right to free speech, don't complain to me about how ineffective it is.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Well since you're talking about harassment as well... The expression of an offensive religious opinion, regardless of which party take offense, is subject to being treated as harassment just as sexual harassment would. It's your right to free speech, don't complain to me about how ineffective it is.

Harassment fits under specific criteria, like I said. Simply offending does not equal harassing. Expressing controversial religious opinion in an office may be harassment, but doing so on the street corner almost certainly isn't, just as telling raunchy jokes may be harassment in an office but not in a bar.

Also, do you have the citation for a law that states "making a member of a group, organisation or family feel uncomfortable about their beliefs constitutes a criminal threat" in the United States?

Arctik_Firangi wrote:
Well since you're talking about harassment as well... The expression of an offensive religious opinion, regardless of which party take offense, is subject to being treated as harassment just as sexual harassment would. It's your right to free speech, don't complain to me about how ineffective it is.

I think you're equating laws about harassment in the work place, with the general concept of harassment. Harassment in the work place, especially sexual harassment, can be regarded as fairly heavily enforced. Though that has as much to do with corporations working to avoid law suits as it does the law itself. Harassment in public, or away from private property, is much more difficult to prove or determine.

This is a sad and sorry story indeed, but not one the churches are unprepared for, such measures date back to the frist term of the Blair government, and accelerated after 2005. There has been a lot of legislation of late which directly targets Christianity, New Labour doesn't like us very much. I wont go into all the details but the new laws that criminalised Christian beliefs were veiled under seemingly unrelated acts of Parliament. We are being persecuted by stealth. I first read of prosecutions of street preachers back in 1998, after two preachers were arrested for preaching on the steps of a cathedral, on the grounds that Moslems might be offended. I find that rather odd allowing for what some Moselm clerics preach openly.

It is also odd that Moslems are not being targeted by this law even though religious based homophobia is a FAR bigger problem in Islamic and Jewish communities than it is in Christianity. But that is a point for another thread.

The last set of 'homophobic hate speech' laws in 2007 were curtailed mainly on the behalf of comedians, though the church also benefited through a lter amendment, it was this amendment to the white paper which was annulled in the stealth legislation. You could call homosexuality wrong from the pulpit, until now. I don't have the notes to hand but this final concession was repealed in a sub-clause of a bill relating to a completely different matter, nothing to do with hate speech or freedom of speech at all. Passed quietly and enacted.

You see the first and biggest problem is that some entire genres of speech are now classified as hateful whereas hate is an emotional overlay. If I was to say vote for party x or not for party y I am making polticial point not a point of hated per see, though I might hate some politicans or not the opion is not by default hateful. If I was to say my faith calls x good and y evil that should not be considered hateful either, its explaining a point of relgious doctrine, yes some could hate through the doctrines, but people can and do hate over any cause, the cause itself is not to blame.

Yet along come these new laws that broadly define any religious critique of homosexuality hateful. This is not only absurd its highly ironic.


Looking up at the four pages of this thread there are some who rile at Christians simply for expressing their religious views, regardless of what action is taken over them.

Take these two alarming comments:

Albatross wrote:Good, I'm glad he was arrested. Free speech is a myth anyway, and people shouldn't be allowed to preach hate on our streets.

LuciusAR wrote:Hmmm.

Well this person is certainly a bigot and a fool who will be ignored by most. But a criminal? Sorry I'm not comfortable with people being arrested for voicing opinions, no matter how odious and silly they are.

Let him preach his nonsense and let the rest of the world respond by ignoring him or telling him precisely what we think of him. Now that's free speech.

Some here calling for expressing Christian doctrines on homosexuality to effectively be banned, on the grounds they are 'hateful' others being somewhat more lenient but still calling for those who profess such points of doctrine to be mocked. Where is that hate here, in the street preacher or in the critic. There is the possibility the street preacher was genuinely hateful, but the press reports makes no comment on such, only that these opinions were expressed. However we can see undeniable malice towards those who hold such views.

Persons such as myself.

I believe in God, in the teachings of the Bible and in Gods law. I honestly believe that homosexuality is a sin. I placed that comment in red so that it stands out. Yes I believe that, rationally and calmly and without hatred. Now I can and normally would add a plethora of caveats* to that statement because the Bible is a most misunderstood book, and Christians are largely misunderstood people, but today I will not, after all if faced by a real bigot, someone who hates on account of that comment and that comment alone, I might not get a chance to explain further. even though my personal testimony** could help heal many breaches on this subject.
All I will say is that there is no hatred in the above comments, and as you do not know me, or see me calmly typing here I ask you politely to take that at face value. After all we are all capable of expressing an opinion that something is wrong without seething, though some may find that more difficult than others, we all know this is true and thus I should get entitled to the benefit of the doubt here.


What is the future for myself and my Christian brothers? While I have witnessed violent persecution in England that was a freak occurance, however this is undoubtably state persecution. I am being told that I cannot follow my Biblical beliefs and must be too ashamed to speak them. I will not bow to this. I am not hateful and I do nothing wrong, however I believe in my God wholeheartedly, like many before me I will not abandon my faith just because it is made unwelcome by politicians, the Romans tried that, and many others throughout history, the Chinese are trying that now. Who am I to give up so easily if my brothers do not give up when they face far more terrible abuse than I could face as a result of this little unjust law. It is bad enough to face actual persecution in a western democracy, and many in the church wondered if and how that could possibly happen with all the rights and freedoms we have.





* and ** I will be happy to go into those on another post or thread, but they are not the issue here.

While it's important that everyone is entitled to speak their opinion, that doesn't mean that it's a good to have everyone capable of saying whatever they want in any situation - fire and crowded theatres and all that. I think it was fair to ask the man to move along, as I don't think it's a necessary part of the public debate to have guy yelling hateful things on a public sidewalk.

Arresting the fellow was too much, he should have been told to move along, and provided with a few locations he could give his speach - public squares open to speakers and the like.

generalgrog wrote:Speech shouldn't be restricted to certain places. In America we even allow the nazi skinheads to have their little marches. People show up to yell back at them, but as long as no violence erupts or any inciting of riot happens it's fine.

In america, the law isn't their to protect you from speech, but to protect speech from you. It's a shame Britain is so close minded.

Yeah, there's this US idea that they hold free speach above and beyond, and it's wrong.

The US is far more willing to restrict art on the basis of public decency, swear words and nudity are heavily restricted, and if your special kind of porn is found to be obscene then you might end up losing your house. Protests against Bush were moved into 'free speach zones' away from Bush's motorcade. Libel and slander carry more weight in the US, and the grounds for establishing them are typically lower than in Europe. US copyright laws are far broader, and fair use far more narrowly defined.

This isn't to say the US is wrong in its level of censorship, it's policies have evolved over a couple of centuries and seem to more or less represent the balance the US population wants between free speach and other matters. In Europe the same thing applies, speach there is more free in some ways, and less free in others, as they've chosen their own balance.

I don't buy the equivocation going on in this debate, either here on Dakka or more widely in our respective countries' media. Stating publicly that a certain behavior is sinful can only be illegal in a tyranny.

Manchu wrote:I don't buy the equivocation going on in this debate, either here on Dakka or more widely in our respective countries' media. Stating publicly that a certain behavior is sinful can only be illegal in a tyranny.

Hear, Hear!

sebster wrote:While it's important that everyone is entitled to speak their opinion, that doesn't mean that it's a good to have everyone capable of saying whatever they want in any situation - fire and crowded theatres and all that. I think it was fair to ask the man to move along, as I don't think it's a necessary part of the public debate to have guy yelling hateful things on a public sidewalk.

Where do you get that idea? The Public Oder Act already covers this however there is a world of difference between yelling and 'made the remark in a voice loud enough to be overheard by others' . Read the article, he was arrested over content not method.

The Public Order Act can cover arrest for saying anything depending on its manner of delivery, shout them loud enough or in a threatening manner and you can be arrested under the Public Order Act for reciting nursery rhymes. There is no indication in the article that the defendant was doing any such thing as invoked the Act.

The disturbing fact is that such arrests and official interference are hardly rare occurances, I have witnessed this myself and seen how blatantly hypocritical the authorities get on this issue. I know friends who do 'outreach' and booked a Saturday timeslot to set up a stall outside the shippng centre. Many groups do this religious and secular. The Chrisians and the Chritians alone were forced to set up their stall at the side of the plaza rather than in the middle near the foot traffic. Socialist Worker could set up in the middle, so could Al Mouhajiroun, Animal liberty and anyone else except Christians. Also the church was monitored very heavily to ensure it caused no offence and to make sure those holdiong the stall did not stray over a n arbitrary line while holding materials. The very next Saturday Al Mouhajiroun was there, set up in the middle of course and leafleting anyone who approached, the council sent no monitors to keep them to any specific area. They only offered some leaflets to some people and other leaflets to others, I picked up the other leaflets they were handing out to certain targeted minorities anyway. I still have them. Of the eight different leaflets one called for violent Jihad angainst Israel, one called for violent Jihad against America, and one called for all women to be forced to wear the veil by law. Somehow this was more acceptible than baloons labelled 'Jesus loves you' and small leaflets expaining how to accept Jesus as Saviour. Al Mouhajiroun is now banned post 7/7 but at the time it was given more leeway, far more leeway than harmless church groups.
The blatant hypocrasy beggars belief.

Orlanth wrote:Where do you get that idea? The Public Oder Act already covers this however there is a world of difference between yelling and 'made the remark in a voice loud enough to be overheard by others' . Read the article, he was arrested over content not method.

He was standing on a step ladder yelling his views. The final trigger was the coversation with the women, but the context of what he was doing shouldn't be ignored.

It still seems that the hateful part is standing on a ladder and yelling. So, as Orlanth said, the man could have just as well been yelling nursery rhymes, right? The Public Order Act therefore prohibits standing on ladders and yelling at people?

Manchu wrote:I don't buy the equivocation going on in this debate, either here on Dakka or more widely in our respective countries' media. Stating publicly that a certain behavior is sinful can only be illegal in a tyranny.

The perceived equivocation only exists where one persists in the delusion that one does not live in a tyranny simply because one lives in a liberal democracy or constitutional republic. To put a fine point on here, everyone here is in favour of tyranny so long as it favours their beliefs over different ones. There's plenty of lip-service otherwise, but seeing as it's usually couched as incoherent appeal to some principle such as freedom of speech it can be ignored as the product of brainwashing. Why are these appeals incoherent? Because to believe in the primacy of the 'freedom of speech' over some other set of controls on one's powers of speech is to favour one's beliefs over those of others.

Even in nations that allow wide latitude to express opinion certain opinions are not tolerated. Such opinions are the usual examples used to demonstrate that the 'freedom of speech' is merely the branding of what should properly be called 'power of opinion', since it is both power to express a particular set of opinions, as well as freedom from censorship of those opinions. One such classic example is that of loudly expressing the opinion that there is a fire in a crowded theatre. More recently and close to home for me is a current gag-order on the Canadian press covering a particularly nasty murder/rape of a young girl; the court is invoking state-law to prevent the details of the trial from being published.

As it was put in a memorable "Law and Order" episode I saw a couple of years ago:

"Open up! Police!"
"Hey man, this is a free country!"
"No it isn't, it's a democracy and the rest of us don't like what you're doing."

The fact is that while inveighing against any change in the shape and scope of one's power of opinion as being tyrannical, the fact is that you gave up any claim on sovereignty when you took up citizenship in a country and handed it over to a government to exercise that power over you. Yes, to make it illegal for someone to declare legally acceptable behaviour to be a sin is tyrannical, but then so is making it legal.

Once you realize that you're simply preferring one form of tyranny to another, then the equivocation is simply acknowledgment that the sales-pitch doesn't match the product. Pepsi doesn't sell itself with the phrase "What else are you going to drink?" and so likewise liberal democracy prefers more upbeat branding to distinguish itself from other forms of tyranny.

The idea that any degree of limitation on speech implies every degree of limitation on speech is childish. (Similarly, the confusion of a liberal democracy with a tyranny belies that peculiar form of naiveté specially bred into the citizens of liberal democracies.) I'm afraid I find the rest of your points incoherent.


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Manchu wrote:It still seems that the hateful part is standing on a ladder and yelling. So, as Orlanth said, the man could have just as well been yelling nursery rhymes, right? The Public Order Act therefore prohibits standing on ladders and yelling at people?

Quick amendment here. This can't be right, as I see pictures of Muslims yelling things in your British streets very often. Admittedly, they are not standing on ladders. And it could be that newspapers do not print stories about their arrests, although this seems doubtful.

Manchu wrote:It still seems that the hateful part is standing on a ladder and yelling. So, as Orlanth said, the man could have just as well been yelling nursery rhymes, right? The Public Order Act therefore prohibits standing on ladders and yelling at people?

It's a combination. You can stand on a ladder and sing Jose Feliciano songs and not get arrested, you might even get an arts grant for it. You can tell people that homosexuality is a sin, you can even form a political party around it and run for office and no-one will stop you.

But standing on a ladder in a public forum and saying emotionally charged things opens it up to another set of considerations. Is there any right to go shopping without being told you're living a sinful life? If nothing else, do parents have a right to take their kids shopping without being exposed to homosexuality and sexuality in general?

Is there a limit to where the political dialogue can take place?

Again, I don't think the guy should have been arrested, but I have no problem with telling him to move along.

Manchu:

Well, that's because you failed reading comprehension. I wasn't saying that some degree of limitation on free speech justified any degree of limitation on free speech. I was pointing out that the rhetorical appeal against tyrannical behaviour that you used was stupid because liberal democracies differ only from other tyrannies in degree rather than in kind.

I see that the coke analogy flew straight over your head, because otherwise you might have made the connection that people genuinely like coke regardless of its advertising. You're allowed to prefer liberal democracy; indeed I believe it was Winston Churchill that remarked how terrible democracy was except by comparison to all other political systems.

My point, to belabour the point, is that a beneficent tyranny is still a tyranny, so why are you surprised when people dance around that fact, and that rhetorical appeal to the undesirability of tyrannical behaviour is therefore mendicant?

Did I dumb it down enough for you. Would you like to try again?

Nurglitch wrote:To put a fine point on here, everyone here is in favour of tyranny so long as it favours their beliefs over different ones.

That is, on its face, absolute nonsense. All you've done here is illustrate your own, incredibly narrow, understanding of rational self-interest.

Nurglitch wrote:
There's plenty of lip-service otherwise, but seeing as it's usually couched as incoherent appeal to some principle such as freedom of speech it can be ignored as the product of brainwashing. Why are these appeals incoherent? Because to believe in the primacy of the 'freedom of speech' over some other set of controls on one's powers of speech is to favour one's beliefs over those of others.

Yes, but that does not imply that one's beliefs are to favored of the beliefs of all others.

Nurglitch wrote:Well, that's because you failed reading comprehension.

I don't know about Manchu but I got gold stars and well done! stickers on all my reading comprehension homework, and I'm struggling to figure out what you're saying.

I mean, I get that you know that all liberal democracies have limits on speach, but there's a whole other something going on that's quite hard to figure out.

Dogma:

Speaking as someone who is bringing up rational self-interest in a discussion of consistency of political beliefs, you may want to reconsider the assignment of who's talking "absolute nonsense".

One's beliefs are always favoured above those of others. It follows that one preferring freedom of speech oppresses one that wishes to enforce radical controls on speech and print. Perhaps you would like to prove me wrong by arguing for my position against your own.

Nurglitch wrote:One's beliefs are always favoured above those of others. It follows that one preferring freedom of speech oppresses one that wishes to enforce radical controls on speech and print. Perhaps you would like to prove me wrong by arguing for my position against your own.

What's if one's belief is in freedom of speach?

This thread becomes much less enjoyable after the Scotch wears off....

Manchu wrote:It still seems that the hateful part is standing on a ladder and yelling. So, as Orlanth said, the man could have just as well been yelling nursery rhymes, right? The Public Order Act therefore prohibits standing on ladders and yelling at people?

Public Order Act 1986

1986 CHAPTER 64

An Act to abolish the common law offences of riot, rout, unlawful assembly and affray and certain statutory offences relating to public order; to create new offences relating to public order; to control public processions and assemblies; to control the stirring up of racial hatred; to provide for the exclusion of certain offenders from sporting events; to create a new offence relating to the contamination of or interference with goods; to confer power to direct certain trespassers to leave land; to amend section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875, section 1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953, Part V of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 and the Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc) Act 1985; to repeal certain obsolete or unnecessary enactments; and for connected purposes

[7th November 1986
]
BE IT ENACTED by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:–

[4A Intentional harassment, alarm or distress]

[(1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he—

(a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or

(b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,

thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.

(2) An offence under this section may be committed in a public or a private place, except that no offence is committed where the words or behaviour are used, or the writing, sign or other visible representation is displayed, by a person inside a dwelling and the person who is harassed, alarmed or distressed is also inside that or another dwelling.

sebster:

If one's belief is in freedom of speech, then clearly one prefers that freedom of speech to radical controls on speech. So...if one's belief is in freedom of speech, it follows trivially that one prefers that belief in freedom of speech.

However, given that one prefers that belief in freedom of speech, one prefers it to other beliefs in different degrees of freedom in speech. Usually when one refers to 'freedom of speech' they mean the current configurations of powers of speech available to citizens of liberal democracies such as the USA or Canada or Australia, rather than to such powers of speech as are available in Iran or Korea.

This is better seen if one compares the freedom of speech one has amongst liberal democracies rather than in more tyrannical states, such as the difference between one's freedom of speech in Canada as compared to that in Australia, or the anemic version currently on life support in Airstrip One.

Manchu wrote:The idea that any degree of limitation on speech implies every degree of limitation on speech is childish. (Similarly, the confusion of a liberal democracy with a tyranny belies that peculiar form of naiveté specially bred into the citizens of liberal democracies.) I'm afraid I find the rest of your points incoherent.


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Manchu wrote:It still seems that the hateful part is standing on a ladder and yelling. So, as Orlanth said, the man could have just as well been yelling nursery rhymes, right? The Public Order Act therefore prohibits standing on ladders and yelling at people?

Quick amendment here. This can't be right, as I see pictures of Muslims yelling things in your British streets very often. Admittedly, they are not standing on ladders. And it could be that newspapers do not print stories about their arrests, although this seems doubtful.

Stories in the papers about Christians being arrested are vanishingly rare, that is why there is so much comment about this case. This is only the third or fourth case in several years which has made the papers due to the controversy about suppression of Christians.

Whoa there Killkrazy, let's not bring sanity, confirmation bias, and the representativeness of newspaper reports into this. At this rate people will shrug and go back to discussing toy soldiers!

sebster wrote:I don't know about Manchu but I got gold stars and well done! stickers on all my reading comprehension homework, and I'm struggling to figure out what you're saying.

It sounds like Manchu is using tyranny to mean "overly restrictive laws/a government that has such laws", while Nurglitch is using tyranny to mean "restrictions/a government that has restrictions", and they're fighting over it. Or something.

Orkeosaurus wrote:

sebster wrote:I don't know about Manchu but I got gold stars and well done! stickers on all my reading comprehension homework, and I'm struggling to figure out what you're saying.

It sounds like Manchu is using tyranny to mean "overly restrictive laws/a government that has such laws", while Nurglitch is using tyranny to mean "restrictions/a government that has restrictions", and they're fighting over it. Or something.

Aha, that is the definition of a "conflict!"

And I think I need some scotch to finish reading the rest of this thread.

But hey, this is a society in which we try to be sensitive to others and their way of life. Unfortunately modern religion does not like much of the modern acceptance of socially liberalizing ways of life.

So let's switch to the ancient worshipping of Dionysus, who partied alot and didn't care who he ended up with at the end of the night!

Orkeosaurus gets a gold star! You see that Manchu? That means Orkeosaurus is smarter than you.

Of course, there's no actual conflict since they're the same thing!

WarOne:

Actually Dionysius, along with Mithras, Horus, and a couple others, are the basis for the modern Christ.

Remember the marriage at Cannae (edit: or "Capernaum" or what have you)! Jesus wants you to get drunk.

Nurglitch wrote:

Actually Dionysius, along with Mithras, Horus, and a couple others, are the basis for the modern Christ.

This Horus?

Wow, even after imbibing a bit more to make this thread more tolerable, I found that Nurglitch's douchebaggery is directly corollary to his ignorance...their both really high... If you really think that about Christ then you are sorely misguuided, and your own level of rudeness is horrible. Learn this phrase: civilis est non a subcribo infirmitas. You Latin speakers, please pardon my horrible grammar...

Yup. It was the whole "son of God" thing, although Joshua only referred to himself as the "son of Man", or "this dude". Makes for a nice syncretism.


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JEB_Stuart wrote:Wow, even after imbibing a bit more to make this thread more tolerable, I found that Nurglitch's douchebaggery is directly corollary to his ignorance...their both really high... If you really think that about Christ then you are sorely misguuided, and your own level of rudeness is horrible. Learn this phrase: civilis est non a subcribo infirmitas. You Latin speakers, please pardon my horrible grammar...

That's alright, I think you're pretty stupid yourself.

Now now! Remember Rule 1.