Disturbing news from Philly, not Scout related

[OldGreyEagle 5]

Ok, this is not scout related, so I want to be sure I sa that up front. YoungSpikedEagle brought this story to my attention and I assured him there had to be more to the story, the question is, is there? Does anybody know anything about this story?

 

It would seem this would be tailor made for the ACLU to be brought in on the side of the Christians. Anyway, here it comes

 

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/inpublic.asp

[johndaigler 10]

OGE,

 

Interesting event!!! Definitely more to the story! That's obvious because many of the preaching group were let go and only a few were arraigned. Did anyone catch news coverage?? This story is from last November??? What has happened since?

 

jd

[packsaddle 753]

johndaigler,

Yep, a whole lot more. But the event was on 10 October and I'm not sure what the current status is. I would advise thorough investigation of this before forming hard judgements.

OGE, this is sort of scouting-related because Marcavage was a boy scout, a fact that was mentioned in this article:

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/counties/philadelphia_county/philadelphia/10640442.htm?1c

If it wraps keep clipping it into the address. You'll see what I mean. Here's another:

http://citypaper.net/articles/2005-02-03/cover2.shtml

Remind you of anyone?

[shawneetrainer 10]

Make me sad to be a Pennsylvanian! Unreal!

[evmori 11]

Don't expect the ACLU to get involved. They only support atheists when their rights are stepped on.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

Stop lying, Ed. Seriously. You aren't even good at it.

[johndaigler 10]

Ed, Isn't it just as likely that the individuals involved would already carrry a lack of respect for the ACLU and not want their assistance?

[Proud Eagle 13]

This is really a nutty case.

 

So this radical guy goes to a homosexual event and intends to protest/preach then he is confronted by a mob of the homosexuals using whistles and foam. (I wonder how loud those whistles were? Could have a hearing loss related lawsuit in the making...)

 

So the police then asks the group who have been surrounded by another group to move.

 

They refuse.

 

The police arrest them.

 

Do I have that relatively close to correct?

 

There are a few details that are a bit unclear such as:

 

Was this guy interefering with an event that these other people had a permit for? (If he was across the street as one version suggested that would seem ulikely.)

 

Were the people with the foam and wistles breaking any sort of laws? It seems like surrounding someone, blocking off the area with foam, and blowing wistles at them would surely be a violation if what this guy did was.

 

If he was not infringing the rights of this other group, what right did the police have to make him move?

 

 

 

So while this guy may be a bit annoying and such, this case is quite disturbing. I find it difficult to see how this guy and his supporters were breaking any law, and if they were I find it hard to believe the group that surrounded them with the foam and wistles wasn't also breaking the law.

 

 

 

Oh, and the ACLU does sometimes defend Christians. This usually happens in cases that have nothing at all to do with religion, but it does sometimes happen. It is probably not very common in high profile cases.

 

I would however be willing to bet most Christians think the ACLU is anti-Christian. After all, most of its high profile cases are in some way in opposition to Christian values. (This doesn't make them anti-Christian, though they may be.)

 

[FScouter 24]

Suppose the shoe was on the other foot. A church is running an event. A group of homosexuals come along and start espousing their views and waving gay pride signs, interrupting the church event. The church people come out and try to put a stop to it. The police come. Who gets arrested?

[NJCubScouter 1389]

We don't really know what happened here. What we have are the versions of the story from each side, with each side claiming it was peaceful and orderly, and the other side was not. The anti-gay protesters say they were arrested for "preaching," but the police say they were arrested for being disorderly, trying to disrupt the speech of others, blocking the street, etc. The story you get from the bottom section of the page is much different than the one in the section on top. This is what we have courts for, to sort these things out and hopefully arrive at the truth. In this case there appear to be two "competing" videos of the events, which is two more than a court usually has available to figure out what happened. What the tapes show, and what their proponents say they show, may of course be two different things.

 

Either way, this is not the "crime of the century" and chances are the penalties will be light even if there are convictions. But to tell people that these individuals were arrested for "preaching" or for "reading the Bible"... well, that is the kind of thing that plays well on the Internet, but it isn't necessarily the truth.

[NJCubScouter 1389]

FScouter, it depends what the "church people" do when they "try to put a stop to it." Maybe they BOTH get arrested. Maybe neither side gets arrested. It also depends what the "homosexuals" do to interrupt the church event. Are they just talking loudly? Are they throwing rocks? Are they destroying church property? What do they do when the police tell them to disperse? It all depends on the facts, and in your case as in this case, we don't really know what those are.

[ehcalum 10]

The case was ruled by the court against the Repent America group. They appealed and will go to trial again on the 17th of Feb. Personally, I cant stand hard core people of any type, being right, left, homosexual, or evangelical. The Gay Pride group had the right to their gathering, and due to the tecniques of Repent America, their peaceful gathering was disturbed. This guy has been arrested may times before, so perhaps he's out for shock value and such. Free speach is a good thing, as long as its used properly. Protesting a peaceful gathering, using words that may not directly say hate, but incite hate and are announced in a hateful manner is considered a hate-crime. Many states do have homosexuals protected under hate crime laws. If the Repent America people had reworded their words and changed their actions, this probably would not have happened.

It just seems to me that if we all respect others decisions and rights, we would all get along togeather more. If christians really want to convert people to christanity, or if a person of any religion for that matter wants to convert and/or being in new followers, the I'm Right Your Wrong so go to hell, approach isn't the right way to go. You'll make more enemies than friends that way.

[NJCubScouter 1389]

One other thing.

 

OGE said in his original post, "It would seem this would be tailor made for the ACLU to be brought in on the side of the Christians." I don't know why some people seem to think the ACLU is the only organization that steps in to defend people in high-profile or ideologically-charged cases, or that they have some sort of obligation to get involved in any particular case. In fact in this case, the message from Mr. Wildmon states that his American Family Association Center for Law and Policy is providing legal representation for these defendants. There are a number of organizations that do that sort of thing, some specializing in the "right," some in the "left," some in both and some in neither. The ACLU is only one of them. I think most people on the "right" would feel more comfortable turning to some other organization, as in this case.

[packsaddle 753]

I think there is another way to look at this. If I am in a forum where a person with an opposing view is speaking, I wait quietly until it is my turn to speak. I do this out of courtesy and respect. Also because it is the golden rule. My personal view is that exercise of my freedom of speech should not limit expression by the other guy. Nor his mine. I think that Marcavage could have quietly held signs and there would have been no problem. But with the bull horn he got the response he expected.

[OldGreyEagle 5]

Not being acclimated to all the groups that do legal things for groups I apologize if I misunderstood the ACLU mission, I thought it was for everyone. At the very least the ACLU gets the most publicity

 

I think we get in a slippery slide if Free Speech isn't free, it cant have restrictions on it as far as what is hate, taunting, whatever, they had a right to speak and the other side had a right to ignore or speak back.