No, the "real point" here is that you wish to be able to use the courts to enforce your concept of what is appropriate religious content upon a pastor. You've stated in several posts that you think the pastor should be sued for what he said in a pulpit in a religious ceremony. All of our discussions trace back to that central issue. There is no legal or moral justification for this. Do you really want the courts to judge the suitability of the content of a sermon?
"I don't know why you would continue to use sophistry and rhetoric to defend such cruelty."
I am defending the pastor's right to determine the content of his sermons.
"You seem to present yourself as representing Christianity, and then lend a sadistic taint to the religion. You introduce red herrings like allegations of oppressive laws in foreign lands apparently to attach some global God vs. Devil significance to a local act of petty cruelty."
Don't you see that there is no diffence between the positions you've advocated and those oppresive laws overseas? In both cases, someone is offended by the content of a sermon and wishes to use the powers of the courts to control the content of a sermon? Or, in some cases, some people find it perfectly acceptable to beat up a preacher for preaching what he thinks is the Word Of God. These are not red herring issues.
"If I pick up a bible and call myself a preacher, may I tell your children that you are a liar and a child molester? Will others like you defend my behavior?"
If you have the facts to back it up, then you may certainly do so. I note that no one has claimed a factual error on the part of the minister for claiming that the man was a drunkard and a fornicator. These claims have no where been challenged. The only claim has been that these claims caused emotional distress. I point out that truth is always a perfect defense in a libel case.
"I know I waste my breath(figuratively), as the problem with you is one of willful feigned ignorance rather than lack of understanding."
No, I understand your point that you think the minister shouldn't have said what he said. I may even agree with you on that. But the point remains that the courts have no place in the pulpit.
If the people had attended a new church and didn't like the sermon, your posts might make a little sense. This was not the case. This was a funeral, not a Sunday sermon. The individual was a family member who was invited to speak. We all understand the purpose of the eulogy. We certainly believe that the family had certain reasonable expectations regarding the content of the eulogy. If the fellow in question had given them some warning regarding the fact that he was going to speak ill of the dead, the family would not have invited him to speak. Instead, he surprised everyone by doing something nobody could reasonably have expected. In doing so he caused great emotional harm to the deceased's loved ones.
I do not think referring to oneself as a preacher grants him licence to defraud or intntionally inflict torment. I do not think holding a bible in your hands grants you immunity from civil law.
As I said in a post to someone else, I am inclined to believe that the guy got sufficient comeuppance, but I do believe that he is rightly vulnerable to civil action for the manner and circumstances in which he callously amplified the grief of the mourners.
What if a preacher preaches the glory of homosexuality, bestiality and murder to five and six year old boys. I guess we couldn't sue or take any legal action against him, by your opinion.
The foregoing is called a "reductio absurdium" and disproves your assertion by showing that it leads directly to absurdities. If you begin to multiply your propositions in order to exclude absurdities, you will eventually admit some limitation on what may or may not be reasonably preached(preaching "Fire!" in a crowded theater, or preaching "Rape that woman!" to a bunch of mental patients, for examples). When you refine your position to the point that it cannot be shown to admit absurdities, you will have defined it in such a way that admits the exclusion of fraud or intentional infliction of emotional pain. Whereupon you will have opened the "preacher" to civil action.
I just can't stop....
So all this preacher has to do is prove that the deceased is, in fact, in hell.
It's probably a bad idea to get into the specifics of anyone's theology, but since most christians agree that we are all sinners, and since most christians also agree that there are some souls in Heaven, then irrespective of the deceased's alleged iniquities, he may indeed be in Heaven.
Since the preacher has no way of knowing the actual location of this man's soul, your "fact" defense won't work for him.
You are left with a liar pretending to know something that he doesn't, speaking conjecture as if it were fact in such a way as to further traumatize those who are already coping with the death of a loved one.
That is not the issue I was addressing. I never mentioned any legal aspect. Here's an excerpt from a subsequent reply of yours (#178):
No, I understand your point that you think the minister shouldn't have said what he said. I may even agree with you on that. But the point remains that the courts have no place in the pulpit.
You "may"? You haven't already decided? You don't know? You think such may be the right thing to do?
That was the issue I was addressing.