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To: annalex
Common law. The plaintiff complains, the defendant explains, and the judge decides who is credible and compares the precedents. Worked for centuries.

You might find yourself in jail for saying bad things about Islam in such a system.

Why are you in favor of laws banning blasphemy? How are such laws any different than laws banning "hate speech" against homosexuals?

279 posted on 01/26/2005 12:16:01 PM PST by Modernman (What is moral is what you feel good after. - Ernest Hemingway)
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To: Modernman; malakhi
bad things about Islam [...] "hate speech" against homosexuals

It is possible to critically discuss religion without sliding into blasphemy, just like politics can be critically discussed without wild insults. A healthy society develops social rituals and conventions that delineate the acceptable and the unacceptable. It does so in immersion to a local culture. Naturally, different legal environments will emerge in predominantly Muslim countries and in predominantly Christian countries. This being said, if I deliberately set out to insult Muslims (or homosexuals) anywhere then I deserve to be sanctioned as per the local custom.

Our society is of two minds about hate speech laws because it lost all social convention. So at times we wish there were a law to bracket some lout, and at other times we recoil from it as we see the same law is used to muzzle legitimate debate. In a healthy culture the Muslim and the Christian would seek to separate and the homosexuals would keep to a closet, and most of it would be a moot point.

324 posted on 01/26/2005 12:49:14 PM PST by annalex
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