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So we have to allow people prone to violent reactions to dictate the law so they don't react violently? If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa
In none of the cases under discussion did the "offenders" accost or pursue the "offended" with the intent to cause them distress. If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa
If driven far enough we all are prone to violent reactions.
I'm just saying it should also be if the contents of the video are blasphemous.
Unless it's a part of a wide-spread, long-term campaign of harassment. Which Pussy Riot is not, except in the deluded fantasies of conspiracy merchants.
- Jake Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
Mind, there are cases where a line must be drawn. Where it is difficult to decide which behaviour to criminalise and which not. This doesn't apply here, because the performance was in a church.
The standard you repeatedly appeal to - consistently with the outrage being about the YouTube video rather than anything that happened in the church - is "offends religious sentiments." Blasphemy offends the religious sentiments of many people. Therefore, criminalization of blasphemy is a subset of the standard you propose.
You further propose that any building that a religious group uses for its occasional get-togethers should be subject to religious law at all other time, no matter its wider historical, aesthetic, cultural or architectural significance. That is a monopolization of cultural heritage which I frankly also find objectionable.
Mind, there are cases where a line must be drawn. Where it is difficult to decide which behaviour to criminalise and which not.
Because we're assuming that if it comes to that, the judge presiding over a court case should be described as disinterested (and, therefore, secular). If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa
There is a name for the sort of society where there are different kinds of courts for different religious or ethnic groups, and you cannot appeal to a universal standard of jurisprudence. We call such a society "apartheid."
There is also a name for societies which raise the prejudices of a single religious group to the level of universal standard of jurisprudence. We call such a society "theocracy."
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, sparked a stormy debate when he appeared to suggest that some aspects of Sharia law should be adopted in the UK.
Then again, some elements of Sharia are already in European legal codes. Because Sharia contains a bunch of commonsense rules that every society needs, and which, therefore, the Sharia contains alongside all the bonkers stuff.
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