A lot of people have commented on this article and while they have all had thought provoking and interesting arguments about it, it is time for me to post my own feelings on it. Quite honestly, the judge was completely wrong in his ruling. We have specific laws governing freedom of speech (which does include expression) and these are not to be tossed away just because something offends you; we defend hate speech all the time i.e. the Westboro Baptist Church. It does not matter what the Muslim that assaulted Ernie Pierce thought, or the judge’s own beliefs (which in my mindset is grounds for the decision being overturned), attempting to stifle someone’s freedom of speech is a vile act, no matter what pretense you do it under.
Let’s put this into perspective shall we? This was a Halloween parade with a zombie Jesus and a zombie Pope walking along with Mr. Pierce, neither of them were attacked by Christians, so apparently the costume ideas were not all that horrible. So we are faced with a situation where a Muslim was offended and once it came before a judge, it was dismissed because of the judge’s biased towards the Muslim community… this is such a clear violation of the law it is not even close to funny. We are so stuck on this current trend of “Don’t offend the Muslims no matter what” that people that are perfectly within their rights are being the persecuted ones. I’ve had Muslim neighbors and we got along very well, I am not judging them all, however I am judging this man in this specific instance. He was wrong in his actions, very wrong, and if he has become a citizen of this country he needs to be sent back to citizenship classes and be forced to retake them to learn the laws of this land.
The idiot judge for this case, Mark Martin, should lose his robe, be disbarred and quite frankly face some jail time of his own. One quote from the trial is as follows:
In many other Muslim-speaking countries, err, excuse me, many Arabic-speaking countries, predominantly Muslim, something like this is definitely against the law there, in their society. In fact, it could be punished by death, and frequently is, in their society.
Here in our society, we have a Constitution that gives us many rights, specifically First Amendment rights. It’s unfortunate that some people use the First Amendment to deliberately provoke others. I don’t think that’s what our forefathers intended. I think our forefathers intended to use the First Amendment so we can speak with our mind, not to piss off other people and cultures – which is what you did.
Well Mr. Martin, this is not a Muslim country, hell it is not even a Christian country. As I have said before and will say forever the Founding Fathers intended this to be a secular nation and no one will ever convince me otherwise. Mr. Martin what happens in other countries and with their legal systems has absolutely no barring on judicial proceedings in this country, none at all, just like our laws and customs are not taken into account when it comes to courts in other countries. (Anyone else remember the youth that got himself caned in Singapore?) As for your “interpretation” of the First Amendment Mr. Martin… well this is why you will never advance any further in your career, the Founding Fathers did in fact intend for it to be used in this manner as they themselves used the same practice to send a big Fuck You to the most powerful nation in the world at that time completely denouncing England’s laws and customs.
As much as something someone does may offend you, such as burning the flag, you do not at any point have the right to assault them for it, it is that simple Mr. Martin. You Mr. Martin are trying to re-open Pandora’s box, you are trying to create a world in which chaos can rain supreme and whenever we encounter beliefs we do not accept or support we can beat them out… or perhaps in your twisted mind set it is only YOUR beliefs that matter, that could be interesting to study.
Either way, I am grateful to live in this nation and have the freedoms I do and I sincerely hope that Mr. Pierce pursues this case and does not let the simple-mindedness of Mark Martin rule. Perhaps I will get lucky and be brought before Mr. Martin on some drummed up contempt charge, I would love the chance for that as I am sure the ACLU would as well.
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- The baseball conditional in the Zombie Mohammed case (languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu)
- News – When will America ban parts of freedom of speech? (thesecularity.com)
- Judge In “Zombie Mohammed” Case Responds (jonathanturley.org)
- Geller Exclusive in the Daily Caller: Hundreds of threats for assault victim in case dismissed by Quran-minded judge (atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com)
- Tolerance and Multiculturalism (ontoliberty.wordpress.com)
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