Posted on 08/21/2013 11:13:04 AM PDT by fwdude
My agreement is not with gdani but tsomer. My apologies for reversing the order, although I am sure it was clear by the end of the post anyway.
A link to the opinion is available in the first sentence of the article’s source page, but here is the URL:
http://ccrjustice.org/files/SMUG_OrderDenyingDefMTD_08_13.pdf
Yes, I give to Liberty Counsel regularly, knowing they do good work. The rage of the sodomites against them is proof.
The trail has already taken place and sentence rendered in Posner's warped mind. Read his opinion. It oozes with contempt for Lively and contains all of the invented homo-fascist empty talking points.
Right you are. The opinion is not work of a sober, impartial judge. It is the argument of a zealot.
Judge Michael Ponsor needs to be tarred and feathered and then run out of town on a rail as the enemy of liberty he is declaring himself to be.
One further point. Assume for the sake of argument ATS applied (which I do not believe is the case). The interaction between tort law and constitutional law is not one of artificial compartmentalization, but of seamless integration. An American citizen, at least in theory, cannot be condemned in tort *by an American court* for exercising a fundamental constitutional right, even if such action is disapproved by a foreign or international body of law.
Furthermore, it is a given that Ugandan law is not the issue, i.e., has not been breached by Lively. The only possible basis is international law, which is basically treaty law, including any relevant UN agreements or “understandings,” and so falls under the precedent of Reid v Covert and similar such cases, which have uniformly recognized positive, fundamental constitutional rights as superior to and unaffected by treaty.
So you can’t keep free speech out of it. Tort law requires there to be a duty, a breach of that duty, and a causal, legally proximate relationship between that breach of duty and some real harm in consequence. For Americans under the First Amendment, there is no duty to hide one’s viewpoint due to hypothetical harms that may or may not result. Falsely shouting “fire” in a theatre is not expression of a viewpoint, but a reckless or perhaps malicious misrepresentation of physical facts. Stating that a government should discourage social and legal accommodation with homosexuality, on whatever grounds, is viewpoint expression, and that is protected, and could never be reasonably considered a breach of duty under tort.
Looks like an another attempt to extend the notion of vicarious liability. The allusion to RICO by this judge is interesting. Sure, that law was used to bring down the Italian Mob, so people think it’s a good thing and necessary tool for law enforcement. There have been unintended consequences that have had huge detriment to liberty, and more only now manifesting.
Day by day, the metaphors of the slippery slope and the camel’s nose become more obviously true.
You are wrong. The 1st Amendment is a restriction on Congress.
The crowded theater
scenario was part of a USSC ruling regarding the first amendment basically saying that the it doesn't absolutely constrain congress. This was in order to justify prosecution of anti-draft literature/fliers in WWI, which is exactly the sort of political speech the founding fathers had in mind. — Basically this ruling is the same thing that Wickard was: refusal to smack down an overreaching Congress.
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