From: Kevin Tarr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Europe: Right to reply Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2003 16:35:09 -0400
At 02:19 PM 6/17/2003 -0400, you wrote:IMHO: This would be a disaster for european bloggers and web site, brought under the guise of human rights and "protecting" media freedom:
http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-1017333.html
Some commentary here: http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/003673.html#003673
Wow (for me), three local references in one article.
<snip>
Last year, or the year before, he ordered a courthouse to remove a plaque of the ten commandments.....that had been on the building for 86 years. <satire> of course that's a clear violation of the separation of church and state. Why, a custodial worker might spend ten cents on a cleaning spray and wipe the plaque off once a month</satire> It wasn't in a courtroom, it wasn't lit up with lights, you had to make an effort to read the plaque, but somebody! was offended. Can't have a person be offended!
This has nothing to do with someone being "offended". This has to do with the message that the court is sending to the people. We've been over this onlist before: Having it hang in a court of law strongly implies that the state government _supports_ a specific religious doctrine, possibly over others. It skews the impression of complete objectivity and justice that the court is trying to present to the world.
This may surprise you, but to some people Christianity doesn't exactly have a great connotation associated with it. The Crusades and the Inquisition are a couple of solid examples why. Judaism isn't at the top of many people's list of preferred religions: look at all the antisemitism that's out there. Do you really want people to enter a court of law and assume even before a trial starts that the outcome is biased against them because those trying them don't believe the same things they do? There are lots of places that are really like that in the world and many of them are Muslim theocracies. We should not strive to emulate them.
Jon
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