Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol[W:649]

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

Flamethrower said:

As long as the school staff don't try to pray or lead the students in prayer. The ACLU and Lib courts have stripped these citizens of their rights.

I guess the staff should have no religious rights. Do you think public schools should be ran by Big Brother, or the local citizens?

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They should be ran according to the constitution

Also staff and officials are free to pray or lead in prayer so long as its understood they are doing so as individuals and there is no institutional backing. Prayer at the flag pole is a thing at many schools for example.

Your community standards argument does not override the constitution

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

Flamethrower said:

As long as the school staff don't try to pray or lead the students in prayer. The ACLU and Lib courts have stripped these citizens of their rights.

I guess the staff should have no religious rights. Do you think public schools should be ran by Big Brother, or the local citizens?

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The staff can pray - to themselves - any time they want. Go for it, staff! pray away! "I pray this day ends without me killing any students" (smile)

But no, they cannot lead students in prayer.

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

matchlight said:

What if the members of the infant-sacrifice cult in my example claimed that being denied a display in the public square was an unfair limitation to their religious freedom--that it was nothing but a case of someone else's religion disagreeing with their own "religion?" I take your "Well duh" to mean you think the answers in these cases are glaringly obvious to anyone who's not as dim as me, so I suppose they should just call on you to interpret the First Amendment for them.

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Any infant-sacrifice cult - if they actually did that - would be in jail for murder. If they had a display showing infants being sacrificed - they would be in jail for murder as well.

If someone wants to advocate sacrificing infants - I'm not sure what the penalty is for advocating murder without actually doing it.

Pretty sure their religion would only be popular with parents of toddlers (that was a joke, everyone!)

I believe Indian tribes who wanted to smoke peyote as part of their religious rituals were not allowed to do so.

I personally find the pictures that anti-choicers like to wave around repugnant; but legally they are allowed to show them. I also find the videos of ISIS beheading people repugnant, but they are legal to show.

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

Flamethrower said:

As long as the school staff don't try to pray or lead the students in prayer. The ACLU and Lib courts have stripped these citizens of their rights.

I guess the staff should have no religious rights. Do you think public schools should be ran by Big Brother, or the local citizens?

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They have the same religious rights as everyone else.

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

Flamethrower said:

As long as the school staff don't try to pray or lead the students in prayer. The ACLU and Lib courts have stripped these citizens of their rights.

I guess the staff should have no religious rights. Do you think public schools should be ran by Big Brother, or the local citizens?

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Hardly, nobody can possibly be stopped from praying quietly to themselves. The only thing the courts have done is stopped these people from making a public spectacle. Anyone can pray, any time they want. They just aren't allowed to use it to cause peer pressure on others.

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

Ikari said:

I mean, if you're actually going to sacrifice an infant, sure. Did this display include the the sacrifice of infants?

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I made the answer to that clear by saying "a public display depicting one of its rituals." A typical creche, for example, depicts the stable at Bethlehem with the infant Jesus, Joseph and Mary, various animals, etc. Why not a graphic depiction of goats and chickens having their throats slit and the blood pouring out, or a model of a volcano with some heathens throwing a virgin girl to her death, or a portrayal of jihadist savages sawing off the head of some unbeliever to celebrate their fervent religious belief that slaughtering unbelievers is Allah's will, or any other damned disgusting thing you can imagine? It may be hard to get more vile and depraved than Devil-worship, but shouldn't we try?

This country was founded by English Protestants, and their values are embedded in our laws and traditions. Our Constitution, to some extent, reflects the beliefs of those founders about how best to foster a civil society. The notion that anything in the Constitution requires Americans to sacrifice their own culture and customs to celebrate everyone else's, all in the name of complete tolerance of every foreign or bizarre trend, no matter how repugnant to our way of life it may be, is very recent in our history. It is also very stupid and self-destructive. As a Supreme Court justice once noted, the Constitution was not a suicide pact.

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

matchlight said:

Why not a graphic depiction of goats and chickens having their throats slit and the blood pouring out, or a model of a volcano with some heathens throwing a virgin girl to her death, or a portrayal of jihadist savages sawing off the head of some unbeliever to celebrate their fervent religious belief that slaughtering unbelievers is Allah's will, or any other damned disgusting thing you can imagine?

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Was that the case?

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

prometeus said:

Next time try with something rational, plausible and legal.

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That's not an argument, but just a peevish, condescending wisecrack. Next time, come ahead--try to match your reasoning ability and knowledge against mine, on this or any other matter of First Amendment law.

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

beefheart said:

So, you can't answer yes or no without a qualifier. This isn't a should or shouldn't case...the goat is out of the barn, it happened.

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Was that the challenge?? Yes or no without a qualifier?

You should give the rules before the game starts!

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

matchlight said:

I made the answer to that clear by saying "a public display depicting one of its rituals." A typical creche, for example, depicts the stable at Bethlehem with the infant Jesus, Joseph and Mary, various animals, etc. Why not a graphic depiction of goats and chickens having their throats slit and the blood pouring out, or a model of a volcano with some heathens throwing a virgin girl to her death, or a portrayal of jihadist savages sawing off the head of some unbeliever to celebrate their fervent religious belief that slaughtering unbelievers is Allah's will, or any other damned disgusting thing you can imagine? It may be hard to get more vile and depraved than Devil-worship, but shouldn't we try?

This country was founded by English Protestants, and their values are embedded in our laws and traditions. Our Constitution, to some extent, reflects the beliefs of those founders about how best to foster a civil society. The notion that anything in the Constitution requires Americans to sacrifice their own culture and customs to celebrate everyone else's, all in the name of complete tolerance of every foreign or bizarre trend, no matter how repugnant to our way of life it may be, is very recent in our history. It is also very stupid and self-destructive. As a Supreme Court justice once noted, the Constitution was not a suicide pact.

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The crucifix is pretty awful and bloody. It's legal.

Heck, a lot of religious art is pretty awful in terms of violence, stabbings, blood, etc. Should we ban it? or is it allowed as long as it's christian imagery?

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

paddymcdougall said:

Any infant-sacrifice cult - if they actually did that - would be in jail for murder. If they had a display showing infants being sacrificed - they would be in jail for murder as well.

If someone wants to advocate sacrificing infants - I'm not sure what the penalty is for advocating murder without actually doing it.

Pretty sure their religion would only be popular with parents of toddlers (that was a joke, everyone!)

I believe Indian tribes who wanted to smoke peyote as part of their religious rituals were not allowed to do so.

I personally find the pictures that anti-choicers like to wave around repugnant; but legally they are allowed to show them. I also find the videos of ISIS beheading people repugnant, but they are legal to show.

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Of course you find them repugnant, the truth often hurts.

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

matchlight said:

That's not an argument, but just a peevish, condescending wisecrack.

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On the contrary, it was spot on, as your comparison was at best idiotic.

Next time, come ahead--try to match your reasoning ability and knowledge against mine, on this or any other matter of First Amendment law.

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Nah, I do now wish to regress...

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

paddymcdougall said:

Any infant-sacrifice cult - if they actually did that - would be in jail for murder. If they had a display showing infants being sacrificed - they would be in jail for murder as well.

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What on earth are you talking about? Any state law that defined the crime of murder so broadly as to include graphic depictions of murder would obviously be unconstitutional on due process grounds. You can hardly sentence someone to life in prison for making a drawing or other depiction of a murder.

If someone wants to advocate sacrificing infants - I'm not sure what the penalty is for advocating murder without actually doing it.

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Advocacy of all sorts of repellent activities, including criminal violence, is speech protected by the First Amendment. To cross the line, the speech must create a clear and present danger of imminent lawless action. To do that, it must be both designed to cause such imminent lawless action and likely to cause it. The Supreme Court established those rules several decades ago in Brandenburg v. Ohio.

I believe Indian tribes who wanted to smoke peyote as part of their religious rituals were not allowed to do so.

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You may be thinking of the Court's 1990 decision in Employment Division v. Smith, which was a First Amendment Free Exercise case authored by Justice Scalia. It raised a lot of eyebrows by radically narrowing the protection of the right to free exercise of religion from the standard the Court had established in the Sherbert and Yoder decisions. Congress meant to restore the previous broader view by passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which not long ago was the basis for striking down a HHS regulation on contraceptives in the Hobby Lobby case.

The Court wasn't concerned with whether Smith, an Indian in Oregon, had a legal right to use peyote in his religious ceremonies. The issue was whether an Oregon law that denied unemployment benefits to people who had been terminated for using such substances violated Smith's First Amendment right to free exercise. The Court held it did not--and too bad for Smith.

I personally find the pictures that anti-choicers like to wave around repugnant; but legally they are allowed to show them. I also find the videos of ISIS beheading people repugnant, but they are legal to show.

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You are talking more there about the freedom of expressive speech. I agree that all sorts of extremely repulsive speech should be protected, as the Court did in upholding the right of members of the Westboro Baptist Chhurch to carry signs denouncing homosexuals near the ceremony in which the grieving parents were burying their son, a U.S. serviceman. (The dead man had not been a homosexual--their beef was with the military's policies regarding homosexuals.) I also agree with the Skokie decision forty years ago that a group of Nazis had the right to march, in full regalia, through a town where many Jews who had survived concentration camps lived.

But this thread is about religious displays in the public square, and the Court's decisions on that subject have not always been so accommodating of anti-Christian nuts. The Court has in several decisions recognized the important role of Christianity in this country's history and traditions. And it has not seemed willing to say that any damned thing at all has to be tolerated--see, for example, the Summum case I mentioned.

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

Grant said:

Was that the challenge?? Yes or no without a qualifier?

You should give the rules before the game starts!

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You should be able to answer yes or no.

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

j-mac said:

Can the other religions ask for space to erect their displays? I think as referenced by the fact that Satanists had a display, the answer would be yes. Also, I don't think that Jews, or Muslims are offended by a nativity scene either....In fact I think the only ones offended by a nativity scene, are the less than 1% of people that don't believe in ****, and want to force everyone else to see it their way, or rain on their day. Miserable people really.

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I can't disagree with you. I was proffering an opinion based on news stories of these kinds of things that I've read and seen over the years. Evangelical Christians are often offended by other depictions of God, but as you say say, many other religion petition for equal time as well. I don't get along with the atheist world view or political perspective on religion. I however do not like a particular religion interloping in public affairs by allowing for instance the ten commandments to be displayed in a court room; which has happened.

When a religious belief interferes with my day to day life, I apply the first amendment.

tacomancer said:

Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol | Fox News

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For all those people who were whining about how these laws are applied only to Christian objects, you are now proven wrong. They will arrest for desecrating non-Christian objects as well.

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

The space is a "free speeech zone" (which was presumably named as such to sidestep the 1A) As such, any group can set up any display they like. Apparently someone held a confederate flag display there previously. You don't have to be a religious group, so long as you pay the fee.

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

Paleocon said:

Satanism is a heinous evil.

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What are you talking about? Satanism is awesome dude!

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

jet57 said:

I can't disagree with you. I was proffering an opinion based on news stories of these kinds of things that I've read and seen over the years. Evangelical Christians are often offended by other depictions of God, but as you say say, many other religion petition for equal time as well. I don't get along with the atheist world view or political perspective on religion. I however do not like a particular religion interloping in public affairs by allowing for instance the ten commandments to be displayed in a court room; which has happened.

When a religious belief interferes with my day to day life, I apply the first amendment.

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I understand. However surely you know that Moses and the tablets, sans writing have promenence on the facade of the SCOTUS

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

Grant said:

Was that the challenge?? Yes or no without a qualifier?

You should give the rules before the game starts!

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I asked you yes or no.

If you can't understand that...:roll:

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

beefheart said:

I asked you yes or no.

If you can't understand that...:roll:

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Perhaps you can read the response again and try to understand what is being said. I know short answers often suit those of limited intelligence but sometimes comprehension is important as well.

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

beefheart said:

So, you can't answer yes or no without a qualifier. This isn't a should or shouldn't case...the goat is out of the barn, it happened.

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More like he's smart enough to not leave it at a simple yes or no. Such a response leaves it open for you or someone else to twist the intent and meaning behind the answer into something he is not saying or meaning.

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

Grant said:

Perhaps you can read the response again and try to understand what is being said. I know short answers often suit those of limited intelligence but sometimes comprehension is important as well.

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No need for a personal attack.

Grow up.

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

maquiscat said:

More like he's smart enough to not leave it at a simple yes or no. Such a response leaves it open for you or someone else to twist the intent and meaning behind the answer into something he is not saying or meaning.

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I agree

Often the best answer to a trap question is to qualify it

Re: Woman arrested after damaging Satanic display at Florida Capitol

tacomancer said:

They should be ran according to the constitution

Also staff and officials are free to pray or lead in prayer so long as its understood they are doing so as individuals and there is no institutional backing. Prayer at the flag pole is a thing at many schools for example.

Your community standards argument does not override the constitution

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If our own government in Congress is allowed to pray, then so should local institutions like public shcools. Liberal court rulings are an insane interpretation of seperation of church and state and the 14th due process clause.

If the 14th didn't allow public school prayer, then the SC justices would have enacted this back at least by the 1870's.