Religion of Peace Alert! (via @BillyHallowell)
A disturbing trial came to a close this week in London, England, after three men were convicted of distributing pamphlets that called for gays and lesbians to be murdered. The hateful fliers were disturbing at best. One of them, titled, “Death Penalty?,” showed a mannequin that was hanging from a noose and said that gays should be sent to hell.
“The death sentence is the only way this immoral crime can be erased from corrupting society and act as a deterrent for any other ill person who is remotely inclined in this bent way.”
The leaflet continues: “The only dispute amongst the classical authorities was the method employed in carrying out the penal code.”
It goes on to offer burning, being flung from a high point such as a mountain or building, or being stoned to death as suitable methods.
It’s okay, the real threat to gays (according to American gay leftist/progressive types) is Rick Santorum.
Move along, nothing to see here. Except the truth.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
Trouble is that this case would face a legitimate First Amendment challenge here in the States. As repulsive as their message is, they seemed to be calling for a change to civil law (bringing it in line with Islamic law) that would be considered free speech here.
Not exactly news to me, I posted about this in the comments section four days ago.
So Bruce, care to weigh in on whether you think this should be considered free speech under the First Amendment? I say it should, Heliotrope has very strongly argued that it shouldn’t (considering it a direct death threat), other commenters have been less clear.
I am coming at this issue more from the perspective of the hypocrisy of American gays railing against those who oppose gay marriage on moral/policy grounds… rather than ever raising a peep about the VOLUMES of stories like this from the Muslim faith.
On 1st Amendment, tough call. They probably have the right to do it, but also would have to face the consequences. Although this does seem to come close to “fire in theater” territory.
Just my opinion.
I would say there is a small but important difference to be noted here. Those who “oppose gay marriage on moral/policy grounds” are frequently found in Congress, in state legislatures, and on the campaign trail proposing and even passing legislation to keep same-sex marriage unrecognised or even reverse current recognition. The latter are the be found in an English jail waiting to be sentenced on hate crime charges.
I think it’s the fact that the politicians keep their rhetoric mild that makes them the threat, they might actually get what they want done and thus warrant active opposition to make sure they don’t. The hatemongers who go nuts and call for homosexuality to be a capital offence either get jailed or ignored, and so stand no chance of actually doing damage to gay rights.
Of course there are countries such as Iran where gays are actually being killed. In such cases, I think diplomatic pressure is really all that can be done (unless you want to go to war with the entire Middle East and half of Africa, which I certainly don’t) and there’s no conflict between fighting for gay rights at home and abroad, trying to pit one cause against the other is just a false dichotomy and red herring.
A reasonable one at that. I’m sure the comments on this thread will prove interesting now.
Not sure if this got posted. . .
Don’t remember a peep being raised about the Chambliss event where
All faxxots must die slipped out
“Trouble”? Really? Sorry but I consider that a feature, not a bug. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Bruce’s post rightly highlighted the fact that these Islamists hate, and represent the true threat to gays and lesbians. That they were also prosecuted unjustly under the fascist “hate crimes” law of a nation that has sadly abandoned its once-great tradition of freedom, is a valid, but separate, point.
The First Amendment is close to absolute – as it should be.
The problem in the UK (and in much of the west) isn’t the lack of free speech protections (which is a problem). The problem is allowing immigration from cultures incompatible with western civilization. It’s like the French burka ban – silly. Burkas aren’t the problem; it’s the culture the burka represents.
And ILC, this whole thing of labeling a religion or culture by the actions of three individuals is so tiresome. Just Chambliss dismissed the staffer for the ugly kill all faxxots, I really don’t think all folk that follow and support Chambliss hold the view that Chrysler deserve death
Dang. Auto correct. Chrysler should be gays
The hopelessly PC British actually jailed MUSLIMS for hate crimes against gays?! HELL IS FROZEN!!!!!!
Rusty, I don’t think ILC was labeling a religion or culture by the actions of three people. I think ILC was labeling a religion/culture by the actions of a hell of a lot of people who just happened to be epitomized by those three nutjobs in England.
You know, we should give that “fire in theater” trope (of the speech-suppressing statists) a lot less credit than we do.
Buy yourself a movie ticket tonight. Go to the theater. Start watching the movie. Now pause to ask yourself: if somebody started yelling “fire!” for no reason, would you really panic and run out of the theater? Would their action, in reality, be any more offensive or harmful than any crazy person yelling whatever comes into their head? I say, no and no.
The “fire in theater” trope comes from a time, like today, when so-called “progressive” elites were ascendant in U.S. culture and politics, and were looking continually for new reasons to restrict the rights of the People over whom they sought to rule.
Serenity says, “Of course there are countries such as Iran where gays are actually being killed”. Of course there are! Do we just sit around arguing if they have the right. And Serenity, in case you don’t know it, that is their religion to kill infidels and the gays are the first on that list, and they don’t do it very kindly.
Ok so we’re dealing with the Serenity persona who actually posted the link, not the one who had no idea what was said? got it.
Based on what I know of this particular case, we are in agreement. My use of “trouble” was in reference to Bruce’s bringing up this case as an example of a “real threat to gays” when their agenda has little chance of passing and in the States at least would more than likely fall under First Amendment protections. That protection ends of course if they instead advocated violence against gays outside of the law, at least as far as American law goes.
That’s funny. We don’t remember a peep from you or anyone else in the LGBT community when Obama supporter and LGBT leader Dan Savage called for the death of all Republicans on national TV.
I have not seen the leaflet. If it is written in this way, throughout, the authors and distributors were to issue it in the United States it would have a First Amendment protection. It is “merely” the expression of an opinion and is not calling for the action. It “demands” the “resolution” of a “societal problem” through the penal code.
I do not support “hate crimes” and this example is a very good reason why. To turn the police power of the government loose on society and hand out penalties because of hurt feelings is a mare’s nest that cheapens the concept of justice.
We take the First Amendment very seriously and it is just this type of bombast that keeps us honest about when and how we curb speech.
A specific threat that would be actionable would be if the second leaflet blurb quoted above had been less well “constructed” and said “The only dispute
amongst the classical authorities was the method employed inis whether the government will enact and enforce a penal code death sentence for gays or whether we have to carry out the death sentence ourselves.”What is clear is that calling this leaflet a “death threat” was journalistic malfeasance and misfeasance from the outset.
Which comes down to the nub of the problem. Liberals feast on social management by the government while railing at social management by the government based on religious codes.
There is a pathetic throw back to the “Age of Reason” mindset in liberals. If you get enough of the “correct” minds thinking in the “correct” way and just “reason things out” according to the established “common sense”, you do not need any other input.
This is the state of England today. They have in their midst the seeds of the fundamental upheaval of the long established culture. Their old imperial instincts are to push, drag, coerce the newly acquired cultural misfits into compliance. Their underlying fear is that if the fundamentalists won’t “diversify” in the right direction, it will have to be confronted. What “better” way to coerce than by “hate crime” education? The issue is whether the British fundamentally understand the game and have principles they will stick with and see through.
Canada has the same issues. The United States is not far behind.
On a previous thread, I addressed the foolish notion that the First Amendment protects actual death threats. I have not moved one degree from what I explained on that thread. I have no control over the quality of understanding which any particular reader brings to this site.
But the liberals say that Muslims are misunderstood. We should be nice to them and they will reciprocate by killing us and calling for a caliphate.
I know that the horse is long out of the barn, but the European project of importing inimical cultural and religious aliens en masse and trying to make believe they could become “Dutch” or “Swedish” or “British” without utterly unravelling and subverting the cultures of these countries –ethnic states one and all– is one of the most astounding episodes of combined arrogance, stupidity and self-loathing in history.
At least the Trojans didn’t know what the horse hid inside it.
EssEm, well put!