[Palladin]

I was referring to the National Enquirer article, which was never retracted, that said that a police source revealed that a journal was taken from one of the Smarts. This journal is said to detail the homosexual activities of Tom, Ed, and Dave Smart. Legal pornography, of a homosexual nature, was found on one of the Smarts' computers.

To my knowledge, the Smart family has never denied this story, preferring instead to give "No Comment". Up to this point, no member of the Smart family has filed a libel lawsuit against the National Enquirer.

NE has a gaggle of lawyers reviewing its articles before publication. They allowed this article to be published.

[Devil_Anse]

Legal pornography, of a homosexual nature, was [allegedly] found on one of the Smarts' computers.

Why the fascination over this, one small part of the story?

[anatolfz]

Okay; found it here, or at least a summary. Here's a bit of it, apparently the NE for Fri. 21 June (a good while ago).

"Police found a horrifying journal alleging the mind-boggling activities of all three brothers....it contained explicit allegations of homosexual activity concerning Dave, Ed, and Tom, including preferences for sadomasochism, a history of their homosexual activity, and details of their wives' knowledge of the brothers' homosexuality."

"The journal also recorded their alleged use of male escorts."

It looks bad, but I'm not sure what the implications are.

[Devil_Anse]

NE has a gaggle of lawyers reviewing its articles before publication. They allowed this article to be published.

They also claimed a week or so ago that the Smart case was solved. So, um, like, what are we doing here.....?

The NE has the resources to pay a defamation award, if one should be awarded to someone who sues them. More often, it is a quiet settlement. They consider it a cost of doing business.

It also makes it much easier for them to print untrue things about those 3 people you mentioned b/c those people have sought the limelight and are therefore arguably public figures. Are you saying that everything the National Enquirer has published about any given celebrity has been true? Under the law governing public figures, someone can publish something about them that turns out to be untrue as long as the publisher didn't do it with "reckless disregard for the truth."

The most humorous part of this is the way you pick apart, mistrust, and question every word other publications publish about this case--yet you take the National Enquirer's word on face value, swallowing it whole. That says a lot about you, Palladin (as if we needed more.)

[jandji]

yep, not only that, which would be easy pickin's for the smart family in libel court, notice that issue of NE was not available in any smiths, albertsons, etc. or not available online, or anywhere. just disappeared. hmmmmmm.