Posted on 06/25/2007 12:39:01 PM PDT by ZGuy
Last week, a German court sentenced a 55-year old Lutheran pastor to one year in jail for “Volksverhetzung” (incitement of the people) because he compared the killing of the unborn in contemporary Germany to the holocaust. Next week, the Council of Europe is going to vote on a resolution imposing Darwinism as Europe’s official ideology. The European governments are asked to fight the expression of creationist opinions, such as young earth and intelligent design theories. According to the Council of Europe these theories are “undemocratic” and “a threat to human rights.”
Without legalized abortion the number of German children would increase annually by at least 150,000 – which is the number of legal abortions in birth dearth Germany. Pastor Johannes Lerle compared the killing of the unborn to the killing of the Jews in Auschwitz during the Second World War. On 14 June, a court in Erlangen ruled that, in doing so, the pastor had “incited the people” because his statement was a denial of the holocaust of the Jews in Nazi-Germany. Hence, Herr Lerle was sentenced to one year in jail. Earlier, he had already spent eight months in jail for calling abortionists “professional killers” – an allegation which the court ruled to be slanderous because, according to the court, the unborn are not humans.
Other German courts convicted pro-lifers for saying that “in abortion clinics, life unworthy of living is being killed,” because this terminology evoked Hitler’s euthanasia program, which used the same language. In 2005, a German pro-lifer, Günter Annen, was sentenced to 50 days in jail for saying “Stop unjust [rechtswidrige] abortions in [medical] practice,” because, according to the court, the expression “unjust” is understood by laymen as meaning illegal, which abortions are not.
Volksverhetzung is a crime which the Nazis often invoked against their enemies and which contemporary Germany also uses to intimidate homeschoolers. Soon, the German authorities will be able to use the same charge against people who question Darwin’s evolution theory.
Indeed, next Tuesday, the Council of Europe (CoE), Europe’s main human-rights body, will vote on a proposal which advocates the fight against creationism, “young earth” and “intelligent design” in its 47 member states.
According to a report of the CoE’s Parliamentary Assembly, creationists are dangerous “religious fundamentalists” who propagate “forms of religious extremism” and “could become a threat to human rights.” The report adds that the acceptance of the science of evolutionism “is crucial to the future of our societies and our democracies.”
“Creationism, born of the denial of the evolution of species through natural selection, was for a long time an almost exclusively American phenomenon,” the report says.
“Today creationist theories are tending to find their way into Europe and their spread is affecting quite a few Council of Europe member states. […] [T]his is liable to encourage the development of all manner of fundamentalism and extremism, synonymous with attacks of utmost virulence on human rights. The total rejection of science is definitely one of the most serious threats to human rights and civic rights. […] The war on the theory of evolution and on its proponents most often originates in forms of religious extremism which are closely allied to extreme right-wing political movements. The creationist movements possess real political power. The fact of the matter, and this has been exposed on several occasions, is that the advocates of strict creationism are out to replace democracy by theocracy. [...] If we are not careful, the values that are the very essence of the Council of Europe will be under direct threat from creationist fundamentalists.”
According to the CoE report, America and Australia are already on their way towards becoming such undemocratic theocracies where human and civic rights are endangered. Creationism is “well-developed in the English-speaking countries, especially the United States and Australia,” the report states.
“While most curricula in Europe today unashamedly teach evolution as a recognised scientific theory, the same does not apply to the United States. In July 2005, the Pew Research Center conducted a poll that showed that 64% of Americans favoured the teaching of intelligent design alongside the theory of evolution and that 38% would support the total abandonment of the teaching of evolution in publicly owned schools. The American President George W. Bush supports the principle of teaching both intelligent design and the theory of evolution. At the moment, 20 of the 50 American states are facing potential adjustments of their school curricula in favour of intelligent design. Many people think that this phenomenon only affects the United States and that, even if it is not possible to be indifferent to what is happening on the other side of the Atlantic, it is not the Council of Europe’s role to deal with this issue. That, however, is not the case. On the contrary, it would seem crucial for us to take the appropriate precautions in our 47 member states.”
Though one may disagree with people who take the Book of Genesis literally (believing that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh), surely secularist political organizations telling people what they may or may not believe, constitute a far greater threat to human rights than religious institutions telling their faithful how to vote. In the voting booth people are free to do what they like, whilst in contemporary Europe people are no longer free to publicly voice their own, deeply felt opinions in public.
In Germany, believing abortion to be as murderous as the holocaust is a crime, and educating your own children is a crime too. In France, saying that “homosexual behaviour endangers the survival of humanity” is a crime, and so is the distribution of pork soup to the poor. In Belgium, speaking out against immigration is a crime.
In the latest issue of the Dutch conservative magazine Bitter Lemon the Dutch author Erik van Goor writes that European courts are silencing conservative and orthodox citizens. Freedom of speech no longer exist, says van Goor.
“While many in the West still idolize the second-hand fighters for free speech, such as [Ayaan] Hirsi Ali and Theo van Gogh, the true victims of curtailment are deliberately kept under wraps. Hirsi Ali, [Pim] Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh were not curtailed by the state or by court, Johannes Lerle is. The former voiced mere opinions – expressions of a public opinion which one may or may not value or believe. The latter – Dr Lerle – shows that what is at stake is not merely opinions, but a moral order which is being questioned; a reality of life and death which is at risk.”
Hirsi Ali, Fortuyn and van Gogh did not defend Europe’s traditional Christian moral order. People such as Johannes Lerle and Christian Vanneste, the French parliamentarian who was convicted for “homophobia,” do. The latter are being persecuted by Western Europe’s political regimes – a phenomenon which is ignored completely by the Western mainstream media, who participate in the persecution.
Ah, but they *will* be something else. They'll be Muslim.
You’re preaching to the choir. But then again, when you’re in church, the choir is one of the best places to be (unless you’re in Germany where being a member of the proverbial choir carries a minimum one year sentence).
Why am I not surprised that you have nothing but disdain for the principles that underly the First Amendment. Having said that, it makes no sense that a holocaust denier would compare the holocaust to abortion unless his point was either A) to say abortion is ok B) that abortion isn’t happening. I have a feeling there is more to this story than meets your created eyes.
You really want to attach yourself to this Nazi they put in jail? You'd best research this a little bit on your own, rather than take the word of another Liar for Jesus.
How scientific of them (/sarc)
At least they're not trying the 'science' lie like the evos here are doing.
You just can't say that sort of thing in Germany. Yes, one can deny the Holocaust in America and be protected by the First Amendment, and the German law grates a little against American sensibilities. But Germany is a country that has had to come to grips with its recent horrific history, and the laws against Holocaust denial are an integral part of making sure the biggest stain on the 20th century never happens again.This case, like the case of Paul Hill, shows the danger of extremist anti-abortion rhetoric, leading some people to murder abortionists, and others to deny or minimize well-documented historical atrocities -- real atrocities perpetrated on real people, not theological ones perpetrated on blastocysts -- all in the name of preventing a medical procedure that in most cases leads to the extinction of a small, hardly differentiated mass of cells.
The wages of fanaticism is imprisonment.
If you want to know what I think, I think RWP is ethically deranged.
Cordailly,
Yeah. He appears to be a raving lunatic, and you've just jumped into bed with him because he claims to be a Christian.
I learned my lesson about trusting Christians when three of the Christians I trusted the most wrote letters to a judge attempting to get leniancy for another Christian that had molested several neighborhood children, and possibly my own daughters. Those Christians always stick together, even when they're detestable human beings.
I don’t care if he is a holocaust denier. I’d much rather meet him in the court of public opinion than in the same jail for expressing mine. All you have proven is that your Darwinist faith is inimical to the principles that underlie the First Amendment. Way to go!
bump.
The First Amendment is just about unique in the world. I didn't say I agreed with the sentence, merely that the original article that claimed he was put in jail for opposing abortion is a complete distortion. I.E. A lie for Jesus.
It sounds like he still believes the BIG LIE. If that’s what he really said, for you have yet to provide any links—GGG
Coyteman provided the links. Dig a bit deeper.
It seems like everything for the Church of Darwin comes down to consensus (although, you don’t even have that because the majority of Americans disagree with you). Your mentality belongs in socialist Europe much more than it belongs here. Here in the USA, our belief in certain unalienable rights (such as life, *liberty* and property) transcends consensus.
That isn't even close to the belief that the "Left Behind" series presents. I hope that your post is simply out of ignorance, and not a deliberate deception.
So you must have figured out that the guy they put in jail really is a Nazi.
He has made that clear here many times. His hatred of truth is his life blood.
PS And if he’s a Nazi, what’s he doing comparing abortion the holocaust? Is he for abortion????
In case you've forgotten, the Nazis were pretty violent people. Sympathizing with them, and attempting to justify their actions or disputing the history of their murders is obviosly enough to consider the guy "violent". The clips I posted above are plenty enough to demonstrate that he wasn't put in jail simply for comparing abortion to the holocaust. He said and wrote quite a bit more than that.
Asserting that abortion is a holocaust is not holocaust denial. You know it, and the antichrists of the german star chamber know it too.
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