Implied BJ on Jesus, atheists support teen.

[FatAndFaithless]

No but really...Heywood you're comparing goofing around on a statue (that resulted in no damage to anyone or anything), with digging up and messing around with a dead body? Are you insane?

[Mister Agenda]

You can desecrate your own American Flag. If you take my American flag and burn it.....your could be charged with theft, vandalism, or perhaps even arson.

But if you have your flag hanging low enough for a teenager to mime copulation with it, he can't be charged with anything. Once again, category error: you compare disrespect for an object with stealing and vandalizing it.

The writers of South Park don't desecrate other peoples property. This kid desecrated someone else's property....an important element that you are ignoring.

The owners do not possess the right to no one doing anything with their property that might offend them. If someone gives your lawn gnome the finger as they walk by; you have no legal recourse, no matter how much that gnome means to you. If you wanted it protected from obscene gestures, you shouldn't have it out in public view in the first place. That's one of the risks of putting something out on public display. In fact, I'd say that knowingly choosing to expose an object to the risk of being treated disrespectfully puts the onus for any disrepect following that decision to fall on the one putting it out in public view.

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Suppose it was the corpse of your dead mother upon which this kid simulated a sex act?

Then the kid would be a grave-robber.

Would you be screaming, "it just the fucking corpse of my dead mother for fucks sake?"

I'd be pressing charges. I wouldn't need a DA to do it for me.

To be honest, I don't care that this kid desecrated a statue......and I wouldn't care if he desecrated the corpse of your dead mother either.

That's because you're a moral idiot.

The world doesn't revolve around my sensibilities and it doesn't revolve around yours.

You seem to be the king of unconscious irony.

It revolves around the sensibilities of the community and this DA may just be enforcing the sensibilities of his community.

In the USA, we have a little thing called the Bill of Rights based precisely on limiting what communities can do to individuals in the name of enforcing their sensibilities.

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Then just say your position is that any desecration that does not result in property damage should not be criminalized. When you go and specify that you don't want to criminalize this particular act of desecration that does not involve property damage, it implies you take the position that you would be willing to criminalize other acts of desecration that don't involve property damage.

Heywood, NONE of your counter-examples DON'T involve property damage! They involve destroying your property, or stealing the corpse of my dead grandma, which btw is secured in a coffin and nailed shut and buried so as to require considerable effort on the part of anyone bent on desecrating it; not out on display on my front lawn. You've got a serious problem telling apples from oranges, dude.

Its not my reading comprehension that is the issue. Its your inability to convey your thoughts unambiguously that is the problem.

Keep telling yourself that.

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For the sake of argument lets assume Hovind's action constituted desecration(I don't think it did....but what ever)....I think it should be left up to the community to determine if desecration of that particular monument constituted a crime.

LOL, what a hypocrite! That's like letting the KKK decide what constitutes descraton of an MLK statue in their neighborhood!

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I don't think any desecration that doesn't result in physical property damage should be criminalized.

Which somehow doesn't keep you from thinking the DA's got the law on his side.

Concerning the situation we are discussing, if the owners of the statue felt they have been damaged in some way, then they would be free to seek compensation in civil courts.

They ARE free to do so. They probably wouldn't get much for their trouble, but they are free to pursue the matter.

That being said if we are going to have anti desecration laws then somehow a line has to be drawn to determine when the law should apply and when it shouldn't.

How about not have them?

The community should determine that line. I think that would be better than you or I....or certainly some freak like Minimalist determining that line.

That's precisely why we shouldn't have them. Communites are the unit of society most responsible for discriminating against minority views.

Does that mean the sensibilities of some small minority groups are not going to be protected?

Fortunately, this is happening in America, so ultimately the law must side with the rights of the minority over the preferences of the majority.

Sure....but the world ain't perfect and we are never going to be able to make it perfect.

So if it can't be perfect, why try to make it better at all, eh?

Sometimes you just have to accept that we can't fix every injustice.

This is not one of those times.

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What if it was a statue of Rosa Parks and the community was Ferguson? Would it be okay for that community to get offended if this white kid simulated a sex act with a statue of Rosa Parks in Ferguson?

The community having a right to be upset and having a right to prosecute the kid for hurting their feeling are two very different things. And you know it.

[JesusHChrist]

Oh look - more desecration of a venerated object:



I mean who doesn't venerate that lovable goof of a fast-food mascot!

Worthy of two years in jail? You bet your hamburglar it is.

[Mister Agenda]

And trademarked, as well!

[vorlon13]

As noted at Wiki:

Piss Christ alludes to a perceived commercializing or cheapening of Christian icons in contemporary culture.


And note, the crucifix is a small, cheap, mass produced plastic version, not a wood and plaster full size version nicked from the Vatican.

I'd have some concern about the fidelity/accuracy, quality of the materials, and care in manufacturing of the alleged Jesus statue. I'd also have some concerns about the makers of the statue; are they pius, does their facility also manufacture other more concerning objects, has the statue been consecrated by an acknowledged faith that can pass my minimal standards of sincerity of belief, was the statue acquired new or used or donated, and is the statue a 'Catholic' or 'Protestant' model ??

[Minimalist]

The community having a right to be upset and having a right to prosecute the kid for hurting their feeling are two very different things. And you know it.

Nah. I don't think he gets it at all. His kind never does.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

The community having a right to be upset and having a right to prosecute the kid for hurting their feeling are two very different things. And you know it.

Nah. I don't think he gets it at all. His kind never does.

They do persecution well, both as an activity and a complex. Not so much anything else.

[Brian37]

Oh look - more desecration of a venerated object:



I mean who doesn't venerate that lovable goof of a fast-food mascot!

Worthy of two years in jail? You bet your hamburglar it is.

No shit. Mc Donnald's corporate goons get offended when you suggest workers get better pay, then cry about how we are oppressing rich people.

It is a blasphemy law there is no other way to paint it. And anyone thinking they are protecting people from being bullied with laws like this do not know what bullying is.

[Heywood]

Both a corpse and a statue are inanimate objects that people venerate. The fact that one is made of dead biological tissue and the other is made of paint and plaster is inconsequential.

If it helps you out, pretend the Jesus statue was carved from a tree....then the comparison would be inanimate object made from dead biological tissue with another inanimate object made from dead biological tissue.

I'd be interested in hearing how you suppose one would obtain said corpse without committing other crimes in the process.

Pretend you're skullfucking a Hitchens statue all you want and post as far and wide as you can; it's not a crime to be a douche.

Corpses are often put on public display before they are buried. Its called a viewing. Often times corpses are left out in the open for a while before they are picked up. Imagine the outrage if intermediately after the Ferguson shooting all the cops that arrived started to tea-bagging Michael Browns body.

Does anyone believe that the cops have a constitutional right to tea bag the body of someone they just shot?

[Exian]

Imagine the outrage if intermediately after the Ferguson shooting all the cops that arrived started to tea-bagging Michael Browns body.

Then, immediately after that, imagine the outrage of tea-bagging a statue....

It's a different outrage, isn't it?