Legal action urged against Mel Gibson film

The Age ^ | March 12, 2004

[Vision Thing]

A Jewish advocacy group has asked the US Justice Department to "utilise civil, criminal and federal hate crime laws" against Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ.

The group, Messiah Truth Project, says the "anti-Semitic" tone of the movie has resulted in hate crimes against Jews, synagogues and Jewish cemeteries across the United States since its release on February 25.

Three incidents involving anti-Semitic graffiti have been reported in New York in the past fortnight and a Los Angeles college was closed yesterday after a speaker's car was sprayed with graffiti while she addressed a forum on hate speech on Tuesday.

Yesterday, the group's online petition had collected 195 signatures

[CSM]

Be afraid, be very afraid! The bible will be next!

[international american]

Hate crimes are down since the film came out....I wish them luck:)

[Vision Thing]

The group is asking the US Justice department to pursue it, but my guess is that the department will dismiss the request as frivolous.

[h.a. cherev]

Right. With less than 200 signatures?

[Moby Grape]

I suspect that some, if not all, of these CRIMES are being executed BY the groups who oppose the film so they can then blame the film.

[Sloth]

Three incidents involving anti-Semitic graffiti have been reported in New York in the past fortnight

How many similar incidents have occurred in the preceding year?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

But these attacks were occurring before anybody heard of Mel's movie. Sounds like tough sledding in the courts.

Maybe Mel should sue them for slander.

[Uncle Jaque]

So...

Have any of the perps of these "hate crimes" been caught, arrested, or interrogated yet?

Would anyone here be surprised if in fact it was these liberal wanks themselves (or their shills) going out desicrating their own Temples, graves, etc. in order to "justify" their litigious and propoganda attacks against Mel Gibson?

This movie has grossed how many $Millions so far?
And you don't think that a veritable flock of drooling, predatory trial Lawyers don't want a BIG piece of that action?

Oy! *{B^{P~

[Vision Thing]

Yup. I snickered when I saw that paltry number of 200 signatures. It made me wonder why The Age even bothered to report it. It just shows that the power-hungry mainstream press will do anything---no matter how irrelevant---to harm Gibson.

[Jokelahoma]

In a related story, the group "Americans For Anything We Can Possibly Claim Is Good For The Children" are calling for stiff fines against and possible jail time for the creators of "Sesame Street", claiming that since the show has been on the air, there has been a marked increase in the number of incidents involving blue-colored grouches popping up out of garbage cans on streets and being rude and mean to passers-by.

Look, I have little doubt that there are nutballs on the street who will take this movie as an opportunity to show their ignorance to the world. I also have little doubt there are fringe groups who are not above doing a few things themselves just to show how much their vigilance is needed (so please donate now! No, more! More! Look, more graffiti! Over there! Donate and we can stop this! Donate More!!).

There is nothing remotely anti-semitic in the movie, from my perspective. Continued claims to the contrary, and ridiculous requests such as this one, will only further motivate the marginal loose cannons to go ahead and "do their thing". But hey, at least this group got the publicity they so desperately wanted. Sigh...

[newgeezer]

Yes, "hate crime" is the only chance they've got. There's obviously been no real crime committed.

[Sam Cree]

I wish these jerks would quit calling themselves "Jewish" this or "Jewish" that, they're making the rest of us look bad...aside from the fact that they're the ones provoking any anti Semitism that might be latent.

How can the Justice department take action against the film if it accurately portrays Scripture, as I have read that it does? How can an "advocacy" group ask for such action, and still expect protection for its own religion?

I personnally have some qualms about the movie, but figure it's probably OK. It would make more sense just to keep an eye on it than to raise all this hollering, I think. But these dummies are bound and determined to build a controversy. I think their motives are really just derived from a leftist agenda.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - This is totally absurd!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jojodamofo]

Call me politically incorrect, but they have controlled Hollywood for so long, they obviously cannot accept the fact that a non-jew can produce a successful motion picture. This is depraved, but not altogether surprising.

[beelzepug]

"...the movie has resulted in hate crimes..."

Really? First I've heard about it.

[DentsRun]

The Los Angeles Times ran a big article on this incident this morning with three bylines and three photographs. The article says this incident was "the latest in a series of attacks" that began ealier this year at Claremont College. In the first, someone stole an 11-foot cross from an art class and burned it. A month after that someone wrote a racial slur on a picture of George Washington Carver. Finally there was some student group that, as a condition of membership, required participants to take a photo with at least ten Asians (I know; it doesn't make sense to me either.)

Kerri Dunn, the visiting professor whose car was trashed, says she had been outspoken in her classes on the issue of racial intolerance and she thought the vandalism might have been committed by one of her students or one of her student's friends. "I was speaking out and one of the things they wrote on my car was 'Shut up.'" She said she asked her students why they hadn't spoken out against previous racial incidents. "I kind of got on a soapbox and asked what was wrong with them."

The Times doesn't say what slurs were printed on her car (other than the one telling her to shut up). She is quoted as saying that one of them was anti-Semitic (she is a Catholic in the process of converting to Judiasm). Since no one except students in her class would know that she thinks it was one of her students.

So here's the bottom line. This is the fourth incident since the begining of the year at Claremont College. Two involved black racism, one involved Asian racism and one involved anti-Semitism. Kerri Dunn was using her class time to harrang her students for their indifference about previous racial incidents. Even with the anti-Semitic slur I'm having a hard time trying this to Mel Gibson or "The Passion of the Christ." There is no suggestion in the Time's article that anyone at Claremont thinks this incident was related to Gibson's film. Yet the Messiah Truth Project is so confident that the car trashing was caused by Mel's movie it wants Gibson prosecuted for hate crimes.

[narses]

A Jewish advocacy group has asked the US Justice Department to "utilise civil, criminal and federal hate crime laws" against Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ.

[nickcarraway]

I guess anyone publishing or spreading the Bible or Talmud should be likewise liable.

[kstewskis]

A Jewish advocacy group has asked the US Justice Department to "utilise civil, criminal and federal hate crime laws" against Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ.

This is the biggest bunch of bovine feces I have heard yet of this film.