I'd kiss it.
Posted on 04/27/2007 12:22:04 PM PDT by Anti-MSM
Actor Richard Gere has apologised for causing offence when he kissed Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty.
The incident, at an AIDS awareness event in Delhi, prompted public protests and then an arrest warrant for both stars over the "obscene act".
Gere, 57, said he had misread Indian customs and that he regretted any problems he had caused Shetty.
He asked for the "media circus" to end and hoped it would not detract from the message of preventing AIDS.
Gere kissed Shetty, 31, several times on the cheek while sweeping her backwards in a tango-style move.
The court in Jaipur in Rajasthan state called it "an obscene act" after a local lawyer filed a complaint.
Gere said: "What is most important to me is that my intentions as an HIV/AIDS advocate be made clear, and that my friends in India understand that it has never been, nor could it ever be, my intention to offend you.
I've felt terrible that (Shetty) should carry a burden that is no fault of hers.
Richard Gere "If that has happened, of course it is easy for me to offer a sincere apology."
Gere had earlier taken a tougher line, saying he expected any charge to be dismissed.
Speaking on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, the actor said the situation as "nothing".
"There is a very small right-wing, very conservative political party in India and they are the moral police in India... they do this kind of thing quite often," he said.
A judge had ordered Shetty to appear in his court on 5 May, saying she did nothing to resist the kiss, which he called "highly sexually erotic".
Gere said Shetty was not to blame for the incident.
"I've felt terrible that she should carry a burden that is no fault of hers," he said.
Photographs of the clinch were splashed across front pages of newspapers in India.
Public displays of affection are still largely taboo in India, and protestors in Mumbai (Bombay) set fire to effigies of Gere following the incident.
Shetty has defended Gere saying that it was all done "in good humour".
Under Indian law, a person convicted of public obscenity faces up to three months in prison, a fine or both.
Gere, star of films such as Chicago and Pretty Woman, is a Buddhist and travels to India frequently to visit the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in the north of the country.
Yeah...the “Shetty” kiss. I believe it considering the source.
Gerbil alert.
but but but...
I'd kiss it.
some jokes just write themselves....
I feel better knowing that our elite entertainers are screwing up other countries as they are ours. I also take comfort in knowing that Gere is despised by India.
No Shetty........That’s to bad.
"That was a Shetty kiss!"
“He asked for the “media circus” to end and hoped it would not detract from the message of preventing AIDS.”
Richard Gere, master of irony.
Whoo-hoo! Get me in the same room with her and I’ll show you some kissing!
Shouldn’t “Gere apologises over Shetty kiss” be spelled “Gore apologises over Shitty kiss” and be about what he did at the 1999 Dem convention?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1824165/posts
Richard Gere’s arrest warrant outrages legal experts
The Times of India
Posted on 04/26/2007 5:17:21 PM EDT
JAIPUR/NEW DELHI: A Jaipur additional chief judicial magistrate on Thursday ordered the arrest of Hollywood actor Richard Gere for landing a peck on the cheeks of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, triggering an outrage among the country’s top legal experts who called it a “cheap publicity stunt” that bordered on “judicial indecency”.
The magistrate, Dinesh Gupta, reacting to a private complaint filed by advocate Poonam Chand Bhandari, watched a CD of an AIDS awareness function in Delhi at which Gere hugged and gave Shilpa a peck, as shown by a TV channel, to pronounce that the act was “sexually erotic” and “indecent”.
Former attorney-general Soli Sorabjee, who is one of the most respected legal luminaries of the country, took little time to describe Gupta’s ruling as reminiscent of the “Taliban moral police”.
Finding flaws in Gupta’s ruling, other top legal experts too called it yet another instance of “hounding orders on frivolous complaints”. They said the Indian judiciary would become a laughing stock in the world and urged the high court to take suo motu notice of the order and quash it.
“Judicial magistrates should not behave like Taliban moral police,” said Sorabjee. He said the magistrate, acting on an attention-grabbing complaint, had completely overlooked the “clear distinction between obscenity and vulgarity.”
“The order is totally unsustainable and makes us look ridiculous,” he said. Senior advocates Mukul Rohtagi, K T S Tulsi and Dushyant Dave felt the public peck at the AIDS awareness programme was not an act to deprave the morality of the nation. While Rohtagi felt that the magistrate was “trigger-happy”, Dave termed the order as an act of “judicial indecency”. Tulsi said,”The issuance of arrest warrant is contrary to all judicial norms. A consensual kiss between two adults can never be said to be an offence.”
Magistrate Gupta found the episode objectionable and in violation of sections 294 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code(IPC). Section 294 says:
“Whoever to the annoyance of others does any obscene act in any public place shall be punished with imprisonment of three months or with a fine or both.”
How does a guy that is so much smarter then the rest of us, not to mention more worldly, get himself in this kind of trouble?
Apologizes?
He doesn’t get it. Jail time, man.
Down boy....or I'll post the antidote picture.
Congratulations Hindu extremists!
Another reminder for the liberals who are sooo happy to accept all this diversity being foisted onto the American culture, when they go overseas they are viewed as nothing but cultural virus!
Cultures that respect themselves, protect themselves!
I saw a clip of the stupid kiss and it was more than just a kiss. He acted like he wanted to get on the floor with her and do it right there.
And stupid liberals like Gere are out there making America look like fools every single day. It’s a shame.
Then go back to India and appear with her in court when she makes her court appearance, Dick.
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