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Relapse wrote:

Once again, people, this might be the latest in a series of things this kid has gotten busted for.

Or he might have been a paragon of the community helping old lady's across the street tend volunteering at the homeless shelter. I can make stuff up with no evidence too.

Relapse wrote:
To you, as an athiest, it's an inanimate object.

No matter who you are, it IS an inanimate object. An unfeeling, undamaged object.

=Relapse 614804 7200489 null]To many Christians, it represents a redeemer who suffered more pain than can be imagined in order to save them.

Good for them. To him (and many others) it represents nothing- it's just a statue. Tell me why, in law, one representation should be protected and the other not?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Relapse wrote:

Once again, people, this might be the latest in a series of things this kid has gotten busted for.

Considering you have absolutely no evidence to back that up, I'd say that you should stop trying to use that to deflect attention away from a ridiculous and apparently unconstitutional law.

Consider also that you have no evidence otherwise and I used the word "MIGHT", to offer a "POSSIBLE" explanation as to why a two year sentence was even mentioned as punishsment for this kid's idiocy. Chances are he didn't just wake up that day, after a lifetime of good deeds and figure that would be a fine picture to take and put on the internet.


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 Kojiro wrote:

Relapse wrote:
To you, as an athiest, it's an inanimate object.

No matter who you are, it IS an inanimate object. An unfeeling, undamaged object.

=Relapse 614804 7200489 null]To many Christians, it represents a redeemer who suffered more pain than can be imagined in order to save them.

Good for them. To him (and many others) it represents nothing- it's just a statue. Tell me why, in law, one representation should be protected and the other not?

I agree it's an inanimate object. I was talking about what the statue represents to both sides of the fence. But since you expect that only your opinion matters, there's not much point in discussing it further with you.

So this is the case that will decide whether or not statues are people.

Think I'll jot down some names from this thread and save them for the next time Pastor Muttonchops decides to burn a Koran.


EDIT: Terry Jones, that's the guy I'm thinking of.

Not accusing anyone of anything yet, but due to this thread, there's a lot of potential for... fun the next time that happens.

 RatBot wrote:
Think I'll jot down some names from this thread and save them for the next time Pastor Muttonchops decides to burn a Koran.


EDIT: Terry Jones, that's the guy I'm thinking of.

Not accusing anyone of anything yet, but due to this thread, there's a lot of potential for... fun the next time that happens.

I'll save you some trouble and say I think the man's ignorant for doing it.

Relapse wrote:

I agree it's an inanimate object. I was talking about what the statue represents to both sides of the fence. But since you expect that only your opinion matters, there's not much point in discussing it further with you.

I asked you to explain why one representation should be referenced- by law- over another. If you don't have an argument, I accept your concession.

I'd give him at least some community service for being dumb enough to post this on the internets.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
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 Iron_Captain wrote:
This is same, except it is offensive to billions of people all over the world.

So, freedom of expression actually means freedom of saying things that are not offensive? Also, billions of people all over the world? Hyperbole much?

Hyperbole? Maybe. Christianity has 2.2 billion adherents. Assuming only half of them find this offensive, that leaves still over a billion offended people. That is of course assuming all 2.2 billion christians would see this picture, which they won't, so you are free to regard it as hyperbole if you want. Nonetheless, the point was that it is offensive to a huge lot of people.
And freedom of expression does not mean freedom to be disrespectful towards and deliberately offend others.

Unfortunately it does. In fact that is really the key point. Freedom of speech exists to allow citizens to make statements that other people want to suppress and that includes being deliberately offensive.

I completely agree that the behaviour in this case is stupid, juvenile, objectionable, and ultimately indefensible.

There's nothing unfortunate about it. Freedom of expression is a wonderful thing.

I meant unfortunately for the argument of the previous poster to whom I was replying.

Yes, for his argument, it certainly is unfortunate.

To put my argument differently, I think the kid is an obnoxious little prick. He ought not to have done it.

It's quite obvious this was not a political or artistic statement, it was a moment of "Beavis & Butthead" idiocy. He should be punished by his parents.

The law ought not to be empowered to punish him because it isn't possible to distinguish between legitimate statements and moronic statements without allowing the law to start classifying whatever it dislikes as punishable.

I completely agree.

So this is like RAW vs RAI?

RAW: The object is undamaged thus no charges can really be pushed.
RAI: Morale damage, thus charges could be pushed.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
To put my argument differently, I think the kid is an obnoxious little prick. He ought not to have done it.

It's quite obvious this was not a political or artistic statement, it was a moment of "Beavis & Butthead" idiocy. He should be punished by his parents.

The law ought not to be empowered to punish him because it isn't possible to distinguish between legitimate statements and moronic statements without allowing the law to start classifying whatever it dislikes as punishable.

This.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Pretty much broadcasted evidence that freedom of expression does mean you can be disrespectful and deliberately offend people.

But that if your opponents are violent enough, then you will be censored by a spineless channel .

Relapse wrote:
To you, as an athiest, it's an inanimate object.

To any Christian with an at least half-working brain, it is an inanimate object too!

 RatBot wrote:
Think I'll jot down some names from this thread and save them for the next time Pastor Muttonchops decides to burn a Koran.


EDIT: Terry Jones, that's the guy I'm thinking of.

Not accusing anyone of anything yet, but due to this thread, there's a lot of potential for... fun the next time that happens.

Hope that will not bring the wrath of the moderation unto me for mentioning it, but I did burn a Quran myself and the video is on YouTube, I can send you link if you want to .

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I completely agree that the behaviour in this case is stupid, juvenile, objectionable, and ultimately indefensible.

I think it is unsophisticated, but apart from that? If he finds this funny, it is perfectly fine. See the long list of of people doing the same from Matt.Kingsley. And no, the fact this statue represent a religious figure does not give it super-powers to be immune to mockery.

 n0t_u wrote:
So this is like RAW vs RAI?

RAW: The object is undamaged thus no charges can really be pushed.
RAI: Morale damage, thus charges could be pushed.

The RAW in this case mean that he can be charged with desecration, as someone, somewhere, some when could get their feelings hurt because someone did something and they found out somehow. It would be interesting to see how often this law is enforced and the types of cases which use it.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
It would be interesting to see how often this law is enforced and the types of cases which use it.

I'm guessing almost never. Hopefully it will be found unconstitutional, because it is.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
So this is like RAW vs RAI?

RAW: The object is undamaged thus no charges can really be pushed.
RAI: Morale damage, thus charges could be pushed.

The RAW in this case mean that he can be charged with desecration, as someone, somewhere, some when could get their feelings hurt because someone did something and they found out somehow. It would be interesting to see how often this law is enforced and the types of cases which use it.

I would imagine that actual desecration cases would focus on stuff like actually dealing physical damage to stuff that actually symbolizes that religion: spray-painting Jesus, damaging a cross, slashing a Torah, spraying a swastika on a synagoge, burning a Koran, etc. I wouldn't think that "mocking people by doing something without actually damaging it" would (or should) be covered.

But then it comes back to "why is some physical stuff more special than other physical stuff" in the eyes of the law, and the question about trying to determine if having the government elevate religious items to a higher level constitutes an endorsement of religion. It seems like we should be able to cover actual desecration under existing hate-crime laws which focus on intent and not on what is actually damaged.

Spray-painting Jesus should be vandalism, just like spray painting my garden gnome. Burning someone else's Koran should be destruction of property, just like burning my book. Breaking into a church and trashing it should be breaking and entering, just like breaking into my house and trashing it. If someone did it specifically because they were targeting them for their religion then you charge a hate crime on top of the already existing non-religion based criminal charges.

It seems like doing that would take the focus of the law away from giving special status to certain items and shift it to the actual intent of the guy breaking the law. At least it seems that way to me, others might feel differently.

(I'm not saying that the kid commited a hate crime, just to clarify. Just talking about these kinds of laws in general.)

That would be how I would have the laws apply as well d-usa.

 d-usa wrote:
Burning someone else's Koran should be destruction of property, just like burning my book.

And if you are burning your own Quran, then it is perfectly fine .
(And, by the way, it is apparently the only acceptable way of getting rid of a Quran for some Muslims, because putting it in the trash would be sacrilegious…)

 SilverMK2 wrote:
That would be how I would have the laws apply as well d-usa.

So kids spray painting your Jesus statues in front of the church because they were roaming through the neighborhood tagging everything they can = vandalism.
Guy spray painting your Jesus because he hates Jesus and Christians and wants to cause you emotional pain by doing that = vandalism + hate crime bonus charge.

Not because the government says your Jesus statue is special and has super secret squirrel powers and is precious and needs to be protected, but because the government recognizes that you were singled out by someone because you are different than him.

It sounds good in my head, but I'm not sure everyone would agree

Similarly if someone was going down the street throwing rocks through windows and happened to throw a rock through the window of the director of a family planning clinic, that would be vandalism. If they got the address of the director and then firebombed his house because their buddy Jesus says that every sperm is sacred and therefore they have to go out and kill someone and possibly their family, that would be a hate crime.

 d-usa wrote:
Guy spray painting your Jesus because he hates Jesus and Christians and wants to cause you emotional pain by doing that = vandalism + hate crime bonus charge.

Let us be honest though, what are the chance of this happening? Very low.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Guy spray painting your Jesus because he hates Jesus and Christians and wants to cause you emotional pain by doing that = vandalism + hate crime bonus charge.

Let us be honest though, what are the chance of this happening? Very low.

While I haven't heard it particularly with Christian items, you do hear it occasionally with mosques and more frequently with synagogues.

I would also be interested to hear whether people feel desecration charges should be levelled at people who Photoshop church signs to say things disrespectful to religion?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Guy spray painting your Jesus because he hates Jesus and Christians and wants to cause you emotional pain by doing that = vandalism + hate crime bonus charge.

Let us be honest though, what are the chance of this happening? Very low.

It would be a pretty high bar to prove the additional hate crime charge (which I am perfectly fine with and which would prevent the "he just did it because he hates me" cases to be filed left and right), so I would think that most cases like that would just be plain old vandalism charges. And that would be just fine.

Despite all the comparisons made, no actual damage was done and offence taken is after the fact, via a photo. The boy didn't break into someone's house, he didn't vandalise anything, he didn't abuse an animal, he didn't harass and abuse anyone or intimidate anyone. So just forget your examples of people abusing those going to abortion clinics, kicking people's pets and damaging property.

Certain people should take a look at themselves, so much for a religion of kindness and turning the other cheek. Suggestions on how to punish a 14 year old for doing something rude to a statue when no one was around range from imprisonment to being badly beaten.

In the UK a few years ago a young man urinated on a war memorial when drunk, probably 18-19, an adult. An act that actually required some cleaning afterwards, unlike the 14 year old in this story. He ended up with hours of community service.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Despite all the comparisons made, no actual damage was done and offence taken is after the fact, via a photo. The boy didn't break into someone's house, he didn't vandalise anything, he didn't abuse an animal, he didn't harass and abuse anyone or intimidate anyone. So just forget your examples of people abusing those going to abortion clinics, kicking people's pets and damaging property.

Well, some people are talking about this particular case and some people are talking about the laws that are mentioned in this particular case.

I talked about this particular case when I mentioned that the worst charge I could actually see is trespassing, but that I also think that unless the property is fenced of marked it would be a hard case to make since areas like this are usually open to the public. In this particular case comparing a kid doing something disrespectful (to some) to abortion protestors and wondering if either might be trespassing is perfectly valid. It is also valid to point out that doing offensive stuff (protesting, shaming, posing) when you are not trespassing is legal.

I also talked about the laws that are mentioned in this particular case when I talked about damaging property and if laws that make some property more special than other property should exist. When talking about the laws talking about kicking pets and damaging property is perfectly valid.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
[While I haven't heard it particularly with Christian items, you do hear it occasionally with mosques and more frequently with synagogues.

And Mosque too, of course. But for Churches? I know some U.S. Christians love to victimize themselves (“The war of Christmas”, booh-hoo, cry me a river!) but really they are the dominant force in the U.S. and they do not get suffer from hate crime usually. More often Christianity is the religion of those performing hate crime there.