Tag Archives: Freedom of Expression

#446: The Religious Freedom Abortion Argument

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #446, on the subject of The Religious Freedom Abortion Argument.

It happens that I have twice heard this argument raised, some forty years apart, by Jewish women.  I do not know whether it is exclusive to them, but that will to some degree influence my treatment here.  The argument appears to be that Jewish law gives women the right to abort unwanted children, and therefore any national law forbidding that is an impingement on freedom of religious practice.

I had trouble believing that Jewish women had an affirmative obligation to abort a child under any circumstance, but I am no Talmudic scholar–so I consulted those who were.  Rabbi David M. Feldman’s article Abortion:  The Jewish View (here in PDF) has been adopted as a majority opinion of The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, sixteen to none with one abstention; it thus represents the interpretation of the Talmud from the perspective of Conservative Judaism, although it is not binding.

It may be worthwhile to acquaint the non-Jewish reader with a few concepts in connection with modern Judaism.

  • The Talmud is a large collection of writings interpreting earlier writings by thousands of rabbis interpreting the Torah, and is to a significant degree the fundamental basis for Jewish theology and practice.  The image accompanying this post gives an impression of its encyclopedic breadth.  It was completed around 500 A.D.
  • There are effectively four “denominations” of Judaism in the modern world, and they approach subjects differently.
    • Hasidic Judaism is the most conservative, adopting the most traditional views and many traditional practices.  These are the men you see in the wide-brimmed hats with the side curls and frequently robes.  They might be somewhat analogous to the Amish, separating themselves from the world and focusing on their own faith communities.
    • Orthodox Judaism is not quite as conservative as that, but sticks to traditional doctrine very closely.  The men of this denomination are often seen in yarmulkes and prayer shawls when out in public, and they follow many rules modern society would consider archaic–such as the concern that a man not come in contact even accidentally with a woman who is not a member of his family.  They might be most analogized to the Eastern Orthodox churches.
    • Conservative Judaism probably comprises the bulk of those in the modern world who are recognizably but not extremely Jewish.  Some will wear yarmulkes in public, but not all will, reserving their religious clothing for religious services.  They frequently have mezuzah, those small emblems of the Ten Commandments, on the doorframes of their homes.  Yet they are fairly fully integrated into the modern world.  From an outside perspective, they perhaps provide the best balance between religious piety and secular integration.  In one sense they are most similar to Lutheran and Episcopalian denominations.
    • The fourth group of Judaism is called Reformed, and it is perhaps the most diverse.  There was a joke in Mad Magazine many decades back to the effect that Orthodox and Conservative Jews had a different name for Reformed Jews, calling them “Christians”.  Those I have known have generally been kosher and observed most of the usual rituals, but you would have to know them to be aware that they were Jewish.  Individual beliefs of this group are the most varied, making them perhaps most comparable to Baptists.

This hopefully establishes why I consider Conservative Talmudic scholarship the best representation of modern Judaism.

There are a few critical points in the article.

  • The Talmud does not believe that the Torah establishes the unborn child as a living person.  It is regarded part of the mother until the moment either its head or a substantially large portion of its body has emerged.
  • Nevertheless, a mother may not decide to abort a child; it is a decision made by an attending medic, who must make the determination that it is a choice between the life of the child and the life of the mother.  The principle is that although the child’s potential life has value to be protected and once the child is born we do not trade one actual life for another, until that moment the mother’s actual life is more valuable than the child’s potential life.  It is thus incumbent on the doctor to abort the child if the mother cannot survive the birth.
  • Extrapolated from this, it is argued that if the birth of the child will have serious medical–not social or economic–impact on the mother, a doctor may decide to abort it.  It is specifically asserted that aborting a child because of a belief that genetic defects will result in a poor quality of life for the child is not permitted, because we cannot know that having no life would be better than having that into which the child will be born.  It is only the mother’s physical well-being that can be the justification for this.

At no point in Talmudic Law is a woman given the right, let alone the obligation, to abort an unborn child.

However, as mentioned, Reformed Judaism is a lot looser in its interpretations.  It is certainly within the realm of plausiblity that a Reformed Rabbi might believe and teach that a woman has the divinely-given right to abort a child she does not wish to carry to term.  That certainly does not have roots in traditional Judaism from ancient times, but if someone believes it, that makes it their religion, and they do under the Constitution have the right to believe whatever they choose.  Does that give us a religious argument?

Classical Islamic Law, as expressed in Shari’ah, requires that apostates be put to death.  This is done not so much as a punishment for abandoning Islam but as a protection of the community from the errors of the apostate.  Although the practice is rare in the modern world, there are still countries in which apostacy is punishable by death.  Similarly, many Muslims believe that killing an infidel–someone who does not believe in Islam–is a free ticket to paradise.  This is a religious view in a centuries-old religion.  However, killing people for unbelief in a particular religion is against the law in these United States, and in the majority of countries around the world.  If you murder your sister, the claim that she abandoned Islam for another faith is not a valid defense.

Yet it is a claim of religious liberty:  my religion says that I should kill someone who does this, so by killing them I am exercising the requirements of my relgion.

It should be clear that the fact that a religion requires certain conduct does not always stand as an excuse for the performance of that conduct–you cannot kill people for abandoning Islam despite the fact that your religion says you must.

The question of whether an unborn child is or is not a person is clearly a religious one; at the same time, it is one that the law has the right to decide.  We have decided that negroes are human beings and have the rights of human beings–something relatively new in the European-American world.  If the law decides that someone is a person, a religious belief to the contrary does not justify, legally, treating him as not a person.  In the same way, if the law were to say that abortion is not legal, a relgious belief that it should be does not justify it.

Further, the claim cannot be made that women have a religious obligation to get abortions.  It can be claimed only (and as we have seen on dubious grounds) that they have the freedom under their beliefs to do so, and that doctors are obligated to perform them at least in life-threatening situations (which in the modern world would ordinarily be addressed by a Caesarean section).  There are many things that are permitted but not required by many religions that are forbidden in our country or other countries, and the accommodation in such cases is that we limit our conduct to that which is permissible, opposing the law only when it is in conflict with that which is required, and, as in all cases of civil disobedience, accepting that we will receive the appropriate punishment for breaking the law.

Thus the claim of religious freedom as a basis for abortion appears to me to fail twice, first because there is no religion that requires practitioners to get abortions, and second because the law is permitted to decide whether or not a particular group is a protected class and thus can protect the unborn if it so chooses.

That makes it an issue to be determined by the democratic process.

#431: Mark Joseph Young En Français

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #431, on the subject of Mark Joseph Young En Français.

Over two decades ago, the respected Australian role playing game e-zine Places to Go, People to Be asked if they could translate an article series I had written for them, three parts under the title Law and Enforcement in Imaginary realms, to republish in their then-new French edition.  This was the beginning of a long and continuing relationship during which they continued translating my work into French for release to a wider audience.  Recently I received word that they were releasing the twenty-sixth such article, and I had often realized that I had not been keeping track of what they had published and ought to do that, at least for my own sake, but also for yours.

This is in roughly the sequence in which the articles were originally translated and posted.

  1. La Loi et l’Ordre dans les Mondes Imaginaires – 1re Partie : Les sources de la Loi, written for and still published at the Australian version back in perhaps 1998 and translated shortly thereafter, was entitled Law & Enforcement in Imaginary Realms Part I:  The Source of Law, and dealt with how legal systems develop from primitive tribal structures to modern governmental systems, and how we derive laws from that.
  2. La Loi et l’Ordre dans les Mondes Imaginaires – 2e partie : la procédure judiciaire was the second part, Law & Enforcement in Imaginary Realms:  The Course of Law, presenting the issues of who executes the law and how is it executed, including what rights people might or might not have.
  3. La Loi et l’ordre dans les mondes imaginaires – 3e partie : Les Forces de l’Ordre finishes the series with Law & Enforcement in Imaginary Realms:  The Force of Law, dealing with matters of how and why we punish criminals.
  4. Des pièces de monnaie invisibles was originally a Game Ideas Unlimited article (at Gaming Outpost), more recently republished by the Christian Gamers Guild as RPG-ology #34:  Invisible Coins, about an illusionist technique and referee control of play.
  5. Gauche ou droite ? was again from Game Ideas Unlimited, again republished as RPG-ology #47:  Left or Right?, one of my personal favorites and another illusionist technique.
  6. Dans l’esprit de la radio is an article I wrote for the Winter 2004 edition of the e-zine Daedalus, entitled In the Spirit of Radio, and no longer available in English on the web.  Fortuitously I downloaded that issue, so I have a copy, and although it was not easy to convert PDF into HTML I expect it to post in the RPG-ology series next spring.
  7. La Sagesse dans les jeux de rôles, originally published as Game Ideas Unlimited:  Wisdom about how to play a character said to be wiser than the player, but only partially preserved on the web in English, it is my hope to reconstruct this eventually.
  8. LNS : de la théorie à l’application is a translation of an article originally published at The Forge and still available there as of last look, as Applied Theory, discussing how to apply concepts of gamism, narrativism, and simulationism to game design.
  9. Théorie 101 – 1re partie : le système et l’espace imaginaire commun is a significant piece.  Some years after I had written the Law and Enforcement series for the Australian e-zine, their editors put out a general call for someone to summarize the main features of role playing game theory as it was then being expounded at The Forge.  Being at that time involved in that work, I offered to compose something, and this, Theory 101:  System and the Shared Imagined Space, was the first of three parts.  It explains the concepts system, credibility, authority, and other aspects of how games work “under the hood” as it were that enable the creations of a shared world.  This article was later republished by Gaming Outpost, and the three-article translation was compacted and published in the French print magazine Joie de Role.
  10. Théorie 101 – 2e partie : Le Truc Impossible Avant Le Petit Déj’ is the second of the three parts, Theory 101:  The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast, discussing referee styles and how they resolve the conflict between the statement that the referee controls the story and the fact that the players control all the actions of its main characters.
  11. Théorie 101 – 3e partie : Les propositions créatives is the third part of the series, originally Theory 101:  Creative Agenda, discussing what is popularly called “GNS” or gamism, narrativism, and simulationism, the three primary approaches to player play, and what makes games fun for different people.
  12. Étreintes was originally Game Ideas Unlimited:  Embraces, and is scheduled to be reposted as RPG-ology #48:  Embraces on November 16 (2021); it deals with romance in role playing games.
  13. Valeurs was originally Game Ideas Unlimited:  Value, discussing what makes anything valuable or cheap.  It is on the list to be republished as an RPG-ology piece, but not yet scheduled.
  14. Récompenses was originally Game Ideas Unlimited:  Rewards, dealing with in-game reward systems, no longer available in English but on the list for eventually republication.
  15. Création de perso was originally Game Ideas Unlimited:  Chargen, about different ways of creating characters.  The English version only exists as a partial article, but eventually I hope to reconstruct it from the translation and republish it in RPG-ology.
  16. Du cash was originally Game Ideas Unlimited:  Cash, addressing the development of systems of exchange from barter through the invention of money in various forms to the future of electronic credit.  An English version exists, and will eventually be republished as an RPG-ology piece.
  17. Points négatifs was originally published as Game Ideas Unlimited:  Negative Points, a further discussion of character generation extolling the virtues of stronger and weaker characters.
  18. Maîtriser l’Horreur comes from closer to home, a translation of mark Joseph “young” web log post #132:  Writing Horror, about some of the elements that create a good horror story, whether for a book or for a game session.
  19. Moralité et conséquences : les fondamentaux oubliés. recovers the first article I wrote for someone else’s web site, Morality and Consequences:  Overlooked Roleplay Essentials, originally published among the earliest articles at Gaming Outpost around 1997 and restored as mark Joseph “young” web log post #237:  Morality and Consequences:  Overlooked Roleplay Essentials in 2018.
  20. Les Pactes avec le Diable is a translation of Faith and Gaming:  Deals, from the Christian Gamers Guild, about the Christian value in roleplaying deals with the devil.
  21. Le festin de Javan is again from the Christian Gamers Guild, Faith in Play #3:  Javan’s Feast, about an act of charity that rocked the game and impacted the players at the table.
  22. Histoire des Points de Vie was RPG-ology #3:  History of Hit Points, discussing the origin, development, and value of a fundamental mechanic in many games.
  23. Sentience was another Game Ideas Unlimited article, not spelled differently in English, and dealing with the elements of intelligence as a groundwork for creating alien minds.  It is scheduled for RPG-ology early next year.
  24. Funérailles reproduces another from Game Ideas Unlimited, this one republished recently as RPG-ology #46:  Deceased, asking why we don’t have funerals in our role playing games.
  25. Blessures is translated from Game Ideas Unlimited:  Wounds, addressing how events from adventures should impact character personality thereafter, which eventually should wind up in the RPG-ology series.
  26. Vous avez le droit de garder le silence… was more simply Game Ideas Unlimited:  Silence, about the relatively modern right against self-incrimination and how legal systems were different without it.  It, too, is slated for inclusion in the RPG-ology series.

The original French index on their site is here, for those more facile in French than I.  They expect to continue adding my material to their collection in the future, so I expect there may be a sequel to this article eventually.  My contributions are a drop in the ocean of excellent material they have gathered from a wealth of well-respected writers whom I will not begin to name for fear of omitting someone who ought to be mentioned.

#406: Internet Racism

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #406, on the subject of Internet Racism.

I have previously written quite a bit about discrimination and racism, and about freedom of speech.  I deplore any expression of racism–but I have a lot of trouble with efforts to curtail it by stifling the right to express opinions.  Having read Ray Bradbury’s excellent book Fahrenheit 451 and assuming that all reasonably intelligent well-educated individuals have if not read it at least understood the message it conveyed, I assumed that at least among such people it would be recognized that any effort to stifle speech led directly to dystopian results.

British soccer player Marcus Rashford among those criticized for a missed penalty shot.

Yet it seems I was mistaken in this.

I recognized my mistake watching the British morning light news and talk show Good Morning Britain for July 13th, 2021.  Among the top stories was the unfortunate fact that when England had lost in a major soccer tournament (and I do not follow any sports and care little enough about them that I did not research many of the details) supposed fans went to major social media outlets and posted racist comments about some of the players who had missed critical shots.  The uproar is not exactly because they were criticized for missing shots, but because the criticism suggested that their failures were because they were persons of color.

O.K., that’s plainly stupid.  Maybe it’s an American thing, but blacks dominate many of our sports.  It would be racist to claim that they are naturally better at them (and actually the evidence suggests that it has more to do with their devotion to play at a young age).  Whoever these players are, they are good enough to have gotten on the British national team, and frankly they are inarguably better than any of their critics.  They missed a few shots; that happens.  The critics are displaying their own stupidity through their posts.

However, at least two social media platforms made a concerted effort to remove any posts containing racial slurs about the players as quickly as possible.  Yet the British media thinks this is not enough.  They want those who posted such statements identified and brought up on criminal charges.  They want it to be a crime to express an opinion that includes a negative attitude about race.

Let me turn your attention to Bradbury’s aforementioned book.

The story focuses on a near-term future world and a man who works for the fire department.  It is almost impossible for homes in the future to burn without some kind of accelerant, so there isn’t actually any work putting out fires.  That’s not their job.  Their job is to burn books, and since book lovers can be very devious in hiding books, they burn down the homes of anyone suspected of possessing such contraband.

What is significant for us, though, is how Bradbury imagines the world came to be that way.  The fact is, it is impossible to write anything meaningful that does not offend someone.  Recently books like The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings have been accused of racism.  As Bradbury suggests, if you write about mobsters you offend the Italians, if you write about cowboys you offend the Native Americans, if you write about Americans in space you offend the Russians (indeed, the second season of the original Star Trek television series added Pavel Chekov precisely because the Russians were offended that the entire multi-racial crew of The Enterprise had no Russians aboard).  Yet if everything offends someone, and we decide no one is to be offended by anyone, it becomes impossible to write anything beyond the palest pablum.

And so books become illegal because everything is offensive to someone.

Yet the British population wants to make it criminal to say anything via the internet that is offensive, at least to black athletes.  What, though, about offending Italians, or Spaniards, or whoever it was who beat the British team?  That’s also racist.  Offending white players is just as racist.  And before we know it, offending anyone becomes a criminal offense, and none of us can express an opinion about anything for fear that someone else might be offended.  If I say that a particular television show is trash which should insult the intelligence of two-year-olds (and I have said this), I have offended not only the creators of that show but its undoubtedly many fans who enjoy the show.  Yet if I say that a particular show is excellent and worth watching, I have offended those who find the show offensive for some reason.

The opinions of people who irrationally disdain persons who are different from themselves are not worth entertaining–but they are not worth suppressing, either.  They are not worth suppressing because once we do that we give someone power to decide what we are allowed to say.  Who do we want for our thought police?  The wealthy owners of the major social media networks?  Already I know people who have left Facebook and Twitter for MeWe, because the latter promises not to censor their posts.  Already I had a link to an article deleted from my Facebook page because someone (whom I suspect did not read the article) thought it was potentially offensive.

Remember the words of Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes, that “the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas–that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market….”  Remember, too, the words of Evelyn Beatrice Hall, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”  If you don’t want the thought police coming to arrest you for expressing your disagreement with someone, don’t empower them to do that now.

*****

Let me provide a few links to previous articles on the subject:

  • Freedom of Expression, a compilation of several previously published articles covering free speech, hate speech, racism, prejudice, and other related issues.
  • #135:  What Racism Is, an examination of the meaning of the word and how it is applied and misapplied.
  • #156:  A New Slant on Offensive Trademarks, anticipating the Supreme Court decision regarding whether an Asian-American band could trademark a name that was considered a derogatory moniker for Asians.
  • #194:  Slanting in Favor of Free Speech, sequel to that, giving the outcome and its implications, and also having much that is relevant to the question of free speech on the internet in connection with a related case.

#371: The Twenty-Twenty Twenty/Twenty

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #371, on the subject of The Twenty-Twenty Twenty/Twenty.

I believe the correct greeting is Happy New Year, as we enter 2021.  That means it is time for us to look back at everything that we published in 2020.

The big deal is the book, in paperback and Kindle format, Why I Believe, a compilation of evidence on the basis of which intelligent people believe in God and in Jesus Christ.  I’m told the hardcover version is out, joining the paperback and Kindle versions, but haven’t seen it yet.

The year began, appropriately, on January 1st with a look back at the previous year, web log post #325:  The 2019 Recap, doing then what we are doing now, providing a quick look at everything from the previous dozen months.

On the first of the year I also published a song, the first of a dozen continuing from the seven of the previous year:

  1. web log post #326:  The Song “Mountain Mountain”;
  2. web log post #328:  The Song “Still Small Voice”;
  3. web log post #334:  The Song “Convinced”;
  4. web log post #337:  The Song “Selfish Love”;
  5. web log post #340:  The Song “A Man Like Paul”;
  6. web log post #341:  The Song “Joined Together”;
  7. web log post #346:  The Song “If We Don’t Tell Them”;
  8. web log post #349:  The Song “I Can’t Resist Your Love”;
  9. web log post #353:  The Song “I Use to Think”;
  10. web log post #356:  The Song “God Said It Is Good”;
  11. web log post #362:  The Song “My Life to You”; and
  12. web log post #366:  The Song “Sometimes”.

That series continues with another song later today.

On the subject of series, there are several others, including both the Faith in Play and RPG-ology monthly series at the Christian Gamers Guild.  These are both indexed, along with other excellent material from other contributing authors, at 2020 at the Christian Gamers Guild Reviewed, posted yesterday.  Thanks to the editorial staff of the French edition of Places to Go, People to Be, a large collection of the original Game Ideas Unlimited articles, thought to be lost when Gaming Outpost closed, have been recovered and are now appearing slightly repolished in these series.  (Quite a few of them plus other articles have been translated into French for their site.) We also finished posting the rest of the novel Versers Versus Versers, along with updated character sheets in the Multiverser Novel Support Pages, and started on the seventh, Re Verse All, which will continue well into the new year.  There were quite a few behind-the-writings web log posts connected to those, but they are indexed in the novel table of contents pages so we won’t burden this entry with them.

There was also the continuation of another series, reminiscences on the history of Christian contemporary and rock music from the early 1980s, which picked up with:

  1. web log post #329:  CCM Guys at the Beginning, a conglomerate of artists from Randy Matthews and Randy Stonehill through Michael W. Smith;
  2. web log post #332:  The Wish of Scott Wesley Brown;
  3. web log post #335:  Bob Bennett’s First Matters;
  4. web log post #342:  Fireworks Times Five, one of the best rock bands of the era;
  5. web log post #345:  Be Ye Glad, one of the best vocal bands of the era;
  6. web log post #358:  DeGarmo and Key, Not a Country Band, another excellent early rock ensemble.

I should mention for the time travel fans that there is indeed a book in the works, possibly with a sequel, but it’s still in the early stages so that’s on the list for the coming year.  Meanwhile, temporal anomalies were not ignored, as we had several posts and pages.

Among the miscellaneous posts this year is one about the fact that my work appears under several slightly different names–Mark, Mark J., M. Joseph, M. J., and Mark Joseph–and the story behind that is explained in web log post #331:  What’s With the Names?  A musician asked a question on a Facebook group, which I answered in web log post #352:  Why No One Cares About Your Songs.

Giving extra confusion to the year, in February my second grandchild, my first grandson, was born, roughly a decade or so after his half-sister.  That was the beginning of a saga that still is not completely resolved, but it was several months before he came home, in time for Halloween.

My book reading slowed drastically, due largely to the fact that my Kindle was smashed and I’ve been trying to get it repaired, but there are a few book reviews (one of a book on writing) at Goodreads.  Also appearing are two republished book reviews, as web log posts #351:  In re:  Evil Star and #368:  In re:  Cry of the Icemark, recovered from the lost Gaming Outpost archives.

We were quiet on the political front until June, when events related to Black Lives Matter prompted the writing of web log post #344:  Is It O.K. Not to Make a Statement?  Some argued that it was not.  We later explained the mail-in ballot system adopted by our home state in web log post #360:  Voting in 2020 in New Jersey, with a follow-up a couple weeks later in web log post #363:  The 2020 Election in New Jersey.

The year ahead looks promising.  There should be another song posted today, with Faith in Play and RPG-ology articles already queued for publication later this month and well into the year ahead, chapters of the novel Re Verse All with their accompanying behind-the-writings peeks standing by, more CCM history, some time travel movies awaiting my attention, and–well, we’ll have to see what appears.  Meanwhile, this is your opportunity to catch anything you missed or re-read anything you forgot.

I would be remiss if I did not thank those who have supported me through Patreon and PayPal.me, and to invite and encourage others to do so.  The Patreon web log is the first place where all new pages are announced, and the place to go for glimpses of what is to come, and even as little as a dollar a month helps me immensely and gets you that information delivered several times a week.  Thank you.

#344: Is It O.K. Not to Make a Statement?

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #344, on the subject of Is It O.K. Not to Make a Statement?.

Recent events have raised this question in my mind.

I don’t want to discuss the political issue; I want to discuss the discussion.  There are many people on one side and very few on the other, and the people in the majority–or at least the loudest group–appears to be of the opinion that no one is permitted to be quiet.  Everyone is required to agree with them or face consequences.

That’s how we get polarization, and the major issue with polarization is that everyone stops listening to the other side and compromise and progress become impossible.

And there are innocent victims along the way.

The Origins Game Fair, one of the longest-running major game conventions in the United States (old enough that the original Dungeons & Dragons game was debuted at it, and that was a minor incident in its ongoing history), faced with the problems of the COVID-19 virus, cancelled its event, the annual June game convention in Columbus, Ohio.  Efforts were progressing toward holding a massive online convention.

That has now been cancelled due to the Black Lives Matter protests.

The official reason seems to be something like (and I’m paraphrasing hearsay) it would be inappropriate to do something as frivolous as celebrate games during this time in which people are being horribly oppressed based on race.

The unofficial reason seems to be something like (and now I’m paraphrasing gossip) that people supporting the Black Lives Matter movement were pressuring this non-political corporation to make a statement in support of the movement, and when the non-political company chose to remain non-political the supporters of the movement began a boycott.

Well, the official reason is, if that’s actually it and you’ll forgive the expression, bull droppings.  Following its logic, and recognizing that someone-or-other has been oppressed for centuries, it would never be appropriate to celebrate anything good.  Cancel Thanksgiving; it is inappropriate to celebrate the abundance of the harvest as long as there is still oppression in the world.  But oppression of blacks and black poverty is much improved since half a century ago–and yes, I was there.

Besides, it has long bothered me that black poverty is made such an issue when there are so many impoverished whites living alongside them.  I looked up some statistics online (got 2018 numbers), and there are one and three fourths white people below the poverty line for every black–15.7 million whites, 8.9 million blacks.  That turns out to be a larger percentage of the black population, and you will get that statistic thrown at you quite a bit, because as Mark Twain once said, “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn lies, and Statistics.”  Yes we need to do more to help impoverished blacks; fundamentally, though, we need to do more to help impoverished people.  We need to understand that lives matter, and color doesn’t.

But in my mind the issue is not the issue.  Sure, I support protesters speaking out for better treatment for blacks.  I further think that those who for some reason want to protest against this (I can’t think of one right now) should organize intelligent counter-protests and not, as is allegedly happening, attempt to sabotage the peaceful protests of their opposition.  What I find objectionable is this outside-the-protest pressure on people who would prefer to remain neutral, insisting that they take sides in the debate and declare themselves, and so offend one side or the other, or be deemed an enemy of the movement and a target for reprisal.

This, though, seems to be the new strategy of public debate.  Not so long ago when it was still possible to question global warming there were honest scientists threatened with losing funding and positions if they didn’t toe the line and join the global warming brigade.  That was not the only time it has been done.  To recall the words of Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes:

Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition….[but] the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas–that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.

So hold your opinion.  Hold it strongly and express it loudly and clearly.

But accept that there are people who don’t hold your opinion, or don’t hold it as strongly, or don’t wish to be identified with one side of an issue, and have some human decency and respect and let them hold their opinion or keep it to themselves, as they prefer.  Demanding that they take sides publicly on a publicly controversial issue is more than just rude, it’s a violation of our Constitutionally protected rights.

#325: The 2019 Recap

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #325, on the subject of The 2019 Recap.

Happy New Year to you.  A year ago I continued the tradition of recapitulating in the most sketchy of fashions everything I had published over the previous year, in mark Joseph “young” web log post #278:  The 2018 Recap.  I am back to continue that tradition, as briefly as reasonable, so that if you missed something you can find it, or if you vaguely remember something you want to read again you can hunt it down.  Some of that brevity will be achieved by referencing index pages, other collections of links to articles and installments.

For example, that day also saw the publication of the first Faith in Play article of the year, but all twelve of those plus the dozen RPG-ology series articles are listed, described, and linked in 2019 at the Christian Gamers Guild Reviewed, published yesterday.  There’s some good game stuff there in addition to some good Bible stuff, including links to some articles by other talented gaming writers, and a couple contributions involving me one way or another that were not parts of either series.  Also CGG-related, I finished the Bible study on Revelation and began John in January; we’re still working through John, but thanks to a late-in-the-year problem with Yahoo!Groups that had been hosting us we had to move everything to Groups.IO, and I haven’t managed to fix all the important links yet.

At that point we were also about a quarter of the way through the novel Garden of Versers as we posted a Robert Slade chapter that same day, but that entire novel is indexed there, along with links to the web log posts giving background on the writing process.  In October we launched the sixth novel, Versers Versus Versers, which is heating up in three chapters a week, again indexed along with behind-the-writings posts there, and it will continue in the new year.  There are also links to the support pages, character sheets for the major protagonists and a few antagonists in the stories.  Also related to the novels, in October I invited reader input on which characters should be the focus of the seventh, in #318:  Toward a Seventh Multiverser Novel.

I wrote a few book reviews at Goodreads, which you can find there if you’re interested.  More of my earlier articles were translated for publication at the Places to Go, People to Be French edition.

So let’s turn to the web log posts.

The first one after the recap of the previous year was an answer to a personal question asked impersonally on a public forum:  how did I know I was called to writing and composing?  The answer is found in web log post #279:  My Journey to Becoming a Writer.

I had already begun a miniseries on the Christian contemporary and rock music of the seventies and early eighties–the time when I was working at the radio station and what I remembered from before that.  That series continued (and hopefully will continue this year) with:

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, it is evident that the music dominated the web log this year.  In May I was invited to a sort of conference/convention in Nashville, which I attended and from which I benefited significantly.  I wrote about that in web log post #297:  An Objective Look at The Extreme Tour Objective Session.  While there I talked to several persons in the Christian music industry, and one of them advised me to found my own publishing company and publish my songs.  After considerable consideration I recognized that I have no skills for business, but I could put the songs out there, and so I began with a sort of song-of-the-month miniseries, the first seven songs posted this year:

  1. #301:  The Song “Holocaust”
  2. #307:  The Song “Time Bomb”
  3. #311:  The Song “Passing Through the Portal”
  4. #314:  The Song “Walkin’ In the Woods”
  5. #317:  The Song “That’s When I’ll Believe”
  6. #320:  The Song “Free”
  7. #322:  The Song “Voices”

I admit that I have to some degree soured on law and politics.  Polarization has gotten so bad that moderates are regarded enemies by the extremists on both sides.  However, I tackled a few Supreme Court cases, some issues in taxes including tariffs, a couple election articles, and a couple of recurring issues:

I was hospitalized more than once this year, but the big one was right near the beginning when the emergency room informed me that that pain was a myocardial infarction–in the vernacular, a heart attack.  Many of you supported me in many ways, and so I offered web log post #285:  An Expression of Gratitude.

Most of the game-related material went to the RPG-ology series mentioned at the beginning of this article, and you should visit that index for those.  I did include one role playing game article here as web log post #303:  A Nightmare Game World, a very strange scenario from a dream.

Finally, I did eventually post some time travel analyses, two movies available on Netflix.  The first was a kind of offbeat not quite a love story, Temporal Anomalies in Popular Time Travel Movies unravels When We First Met; the second a Spike Lee film focused on trying to fix the past, Temporal Anomalies in Time Travel Movies unravels See You Yesterday.  For those wondering, I have not yet figured out how I can get access to the new Marvel movie Endgame, as it appears it will not be airing on Netflix and I do not expect to spring for a Disney subscription despite its appeal, at least, not unless the Patreon account grows significantly.

So that’s pretty much what I wrote this year, not counting the fact that I’m working on the second edition of Multiverser, looking for a publisher for a book entitled Why I Believe, and continuing to produce the material to continue the ongoing series into the new year.  We’ll do this again in a dozen months.

#310: Versers Mobilize

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #310, on the subject of Versers Mobilize.

With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first four novels, Verse Three, Chapter One:  The First Multiverser Novel, Old Verses New, For Better or Verse, and Spy Verses,  in serialized form on the web (those links will take you to the table of contents for each book).  Along with each book there was also a series of web log posts looking at the writing process, the decisions and choices that delivered the final product; those posts are indexed with the chapters in the tables of contents pages.  Now as I have posted the fifth, Garden of Versers,  I am again offering a set of “behind the writings” insights.  This “behind the writings” look may contain spoilers because it sometimes talks about my expectations for the futures of the characters and stories–although it sometimes raises ideas that were never pursued, as being written partially concurrently with the story it sometimes discusses where I thought it was headed.  You might want to read the referenced chapters before reading this look at them.  Links below (the section headings) will take you to the specific individual chapters being discussed, and there are (or will soon be) links on those pages to bring you back hopefully to the same point here.

There is also a section of the site, Multiverser Novel Support Pages, in which I have begun to place materials related to the novels beginning with character papers for the major characters, giving them at different stages as they move through the books.

This is the ninth mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 97 through 108.  Previous web log posts covering this book include:

History of the series, including the reason it started, the origins of character names and details, and many of the ideas, are in those earlier posts, and won’t be repeated here.

Chapter 97, Hastings 163

I spent a good day trying to wrap my head around this chapter, and then sat down and typed the first line–and the neighborhood power went out for most of an hour.  I didn’t get back to it until early the next morning, when I was squeezing in a few minutes before rushing out the door, so it was a bit rushed in the original draft.


Chapter 98, Kondor 151

I felt this had to be a Kondor chapter, but realized that he wasn’t going to be the inquisitor, and that meant the action would be mostly Slade, some Derek.  It took me a bit of thinking to wrap my head around how to do that.

I had also been thinking at the same time about how Slade would plan to penetrate the manor, and so I was ready with that when it was time.


Chapter 99, Beam 27

I decided on sleep next; I had several things I wanted to accomplish, but I needed the party to sleep while they still felt safe, so that was now.  I’m also trying to figure out how Beam’s relationship with Sophia is going to go.  At the moment she doesn’t much like him and he doesn’t much care, but that has to change because for a future story I need her to be very possessive of him.


Chapter 100, Hastings 164

I had decided on a lot of parts related to Lauren’s martyrdom, but I suddenly realized I had not decided whether there would be a trial, or what it would be like.


Chapter 101, Slade 151

I made an interesting observation while watching something on television (I think it was a movie, but I’m not certain now).  If in the script someone tells you the plan, it’s going to go awry; if the plan is going to work smoothly, the viewer isn’t given the details in advance.  I wasn’t entirely certain of all the details of the plan, and I had already thought that it was going to go wrong, but decided that it was better not to attempt to tell too much of what was supposed to happen.


Chapter 102, Beam 28

I needed the combat, and was looking for where to put it.  This seemed the best spot.  I gave some thought to the infiltrator.  It needed to be small enough to be credible as something that entered through small portals, but large enough to be a credible threat.

I was starting to worry about whether I could rearm the party soon enough at this point, and indeed whether the reader would think Dawn ought to be out of bullets by now.  I never said anything about how many bullets they had for either gun, but figured I have them in a place where they can get more, and that will be my next stop.

I also confess that I had a slight oversight.  When Dawn was introduced it was said that she had three guns visible, and Beam suspected she was also carrying other weapons, and he had his own revolver.  He swapped guns with her, at least briefly, but at some point apparently swapped them back.  However, thereafter the group was treated as if there were only the two guns, Dawn’s .44 pistol and Beam’s .45 revolver.  By the time I recognized the discrepancy I had already written the chapter in which they find the armory and better arm themselves, and in the interim there were few enough encounters that the oversight might be a matter of how scenes were described–that Dawn has extra guns doesn’t matter if she never uses them, and no combat lasted long enough for her to need another gun.


Chapter 103, Hastings 165

I had debated whether to have this trial, but when it struck me that I could make a mockery of their justice system by turning the trial into essentially a rubber stamp on the prosecutor’s case, I went with it.


Chapter 104, Brown 176

I had envisioned this covering considerably more of the rescue, which would have been bad for a climactic scene, but I had decided that the Amir would assign guards to them at the door, and it was a small and abrupt step to decide that he would invite the regular guards to wait there, separating Joe and Zeke from the others.  I needed Joe and Zeke on the rescue, so it gave me more story as Derek and Slade would have to eliminate the guards and then rescue Joe and Zeke before continuing.


Chapter 105, Beam 29

It was important to me that Beam get some high tech weapons for the next world, and that he replenish the ammo for the ones he had.  On the other hand, he wasn’t going to open a door and find it; I needed to make it make sense.  Thus he comes to a locked armored door, and it’s obvious that this must be the armory, but he has to figure out how to get through it.  I already knew the solution, but I needed him to face the problem, and thus I made this a cliffhanger.


Chapter 106, Hastings 166

Originally I was going to continue the scene in this chapter, but I decided I wanted the cliffhanger ending and I wanted more chapters in this part of the story.  I also wrote more at the beginning than I’d anticipated, so I put the break at the tense moment and went to the other story.


Chapter 107, Kondor 152

I kept changing my mind about who told which parts of the story.  Derek was going to be doing most of the work, because his was the only non-lethal attack, but I didn’t really want it to be all from Derek’s perspective, and I didn’t want to keep repeating how he disabled each guard.  There were enough of them, and unless something went wrong it would be pretty much the same.


Chapter 108, Beam 30

I discussed what kind of weapon Sophia might be able to use with Kyler, and he suggested several, of which the taser and the small rail gun seemed the most practical.  I had had a shotgun in mind for Bron for quite some time, and knew that Dawn would go for a military rifle with grenade launcher.

I also wanted to give him a way to carry everything, but decided with all the food he was going to need two.  I have not yet figured out how to get these into the weight limits of the characters, but that’s not yet a problem.


This has been the ninth behind the writings look at Garden of Versers.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue publishing the novel and these behind the writings posts for it.

#306: Versers Refocused

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #306, on the subject of Versers Refocused.

With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first four novels, Verse Three, Chapter One:  The First Multiverser Novel, Old Verses New, For Better or Verse, and Spy Verses,  in serialized form on the web (those links will take you to the table of contents for each book).  Along with each book there was also a series of web log posts looking at the writing process, the decisions and choices that delivered the final product; those posts are indexed with the chapters in the tables of contents pages.  Now as I have posted the fifth, Garden of Versers,  I am again offering a set of “behind the writings” insights.  This “behind the writings” look may contain spoilers because it sometimes talks about my expectations for the futures of the characters and stories–although it sometimes raises ideas that were never pursued, as being written partially concurrently with the story it sometimes discusses where I thought it was headed.  You might want to read the referenced chapters before reading this look at them.  Links below (the section headings) will take you to the specific individual chapters being discussed, and there are (or will soon be) links on those pages to bring you back hopefully to the same point here.

There is also a section of the site, Multiverser Novel Support Pages, in which I have begun to place materials related to the novels beginning with character papers for the major characters, giving them at different stages as they move through the books.

This is the eighth mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 85 through 96.  Previous web log posts covering this book include:

History of the series, including the reason it started, the origins of character names and details, and many of the ideas, are in those earlier posts, and won’t be repeated here.

Chapter 85, Hastings 159

I was pushing to get through the recounting of the previous novels, and finally concluded it.

I had realized several chapters before that Lauren didn’t know the names of any of the people who took care of her, and that this was one of her problems, of forgetting that the people around her were real people and she should care about them.  She hadn’t figured out yet why she was there, partly because she had been focused on getting out of there.


Chapter 86, Brown 174

At this point my challenge was to put the clues in place without giving away the mystery.  I’m not sure how successful I was; at this point it looks obvious to me, but then, I already know the solution.


Chapter 87, Beam 23

I was well behind my outline when I reached this chapter, but it managed to go smoothly and cover more than I expected.  I had already written most of the next two chapters, to give Kyler ideas, but the day I wrote this I had been feeling ill and lost a few hours, and it was late by the time I got this far, so I postponed the others to get more sleep.


Chapter 88, Hastings 160

The problem here is that her life is filled with inconsequential characters, but she can’t treat them like inconsequential people.  That means I can’t just write them off with “he tells you his name”, because names matter.  One of these people might become important; the problem is that she can’t know which one at this point, so they all have to be given equal importance in the text, and I have to burn through and remember a lot of names.


Chapter 89, Kondor 150

I was thinking that I hadn’t made my mystery tough enough, so I was trying to stretch the solution over several chapters.  I’m not at all certain how to resolve the matter—whether there will be a rescue or whether the kidnapper will surrender.  For the moment, though, the plot is still being examined.


Chapter 90, Beam 24

I had been imagining this chapter from the moment Kyler had explained the dysfunctional ring, and had written a substantial part of it in notes as “this is where I think we’re headed here”.  In the previous Beam chapter I had hinted but not actually stated that he put the dragon control ring on the finger on which he had worn his wedding band some years before, because I needed a reason why someone would remove it, and the new wedding ring was the obvious one.

As I recall, Sophia was something of a composite created by our collaboration.  She had to be a redhead because that’s Beam’s weakness (mentioned previously), and she had to be a witch because we needed to give him a support team that had power before the end of the book and he already had a powerful psionicist and a demonstrably weak wizard, plus a superb fighter.  She also had to have a strong personality, the kind who was going to fight with Beam but still love him.


Chapter 91, Hastings 161

I was looking for direction for Lauren, and what occurred to her is what occurred to me.  I’m not yet sure how it’s going to work, but I’m going to lay some groundwork here.

Kyler and I had a discussion about whether Lauren’s identification of Jesus should be capitalized “the Son of God” or left in lower case, “the son of God”.  The argument was that in this instance it was not a title or name but a descriptor, and so did not get capitalized.


Chapter 92, Slade 150

I kept swithering about the raid, on the one hand thinking that this could be resolved without violence, on the other hand thinking that it was going to end badly for someone.  At this point I decided on the raid, partly because I needed some good story and more action, partly because it was the best resolution I could find for the events to this point.  I also decided who was going to die in that raid, and some of the aftermath.

One of the challenges of this chapter was putting the right words in the right mouths.  I had to assume that Vashti was back with the entourage and therefore couldn’t say anything here; that means that the pieces of information about family and culture had to come from people who knew them, pieced together by the legal and logical knowledge of the others.  More than once I started to write something and decided that someone else had to say it.

I had been thinking for quite a while that Derek has to ask Shella to tell Vashti what it would mean for her to marry him and become a verser, but I didn’t want to get into those details too deeply.  I knew that it would be simple to have the actual conversation between the girls offstage, since neither of them are viewpoint characters.  Putting the initial conversation between Derek and Shella offstage as well meant that I could return with Vashti talking about what impacted her from that discussion, without dealing with what she might or might not know otherwise.


Chapter 93, Beam 25

I wrote most of this chapter months before, as the transition from the wedding to the new world, but I had to add material describing what was known of the new world.  I had wanted it to be a place with enough technology that Beam could recharge the Pyronics 2000 and obtain some other high-tech weaponry, with a high psi bias so Bob would be back in form, and a flatlined mag bias so my new witch would be mostly useless.  I tossed around a number of ideas, including the Titanic and another space ship of some sort, but settled on an automated mecha war zone.  The bunker was a good starting place.


Chapter 94, Hastings 162

I had been worrying about how to get Lauren out of this world, but I almost abruptly figured out how to do it.  I started working toward that here, as she shares the gospel with her caregivers.


Chapter 95, Brown 175

The difficulty here was that I wanted to go directly to the interview with Bilhah, but I couldn’t get past the conversation about becoming a verser between Derek and Vashti.

I realized while I was in the middle of this that somewhere I had a resource for titles in different cultures; I just didn’t know whether Caliph was on it.  It was, but the feminine forms weren’t, so I looked them up.


Chapter 96, Beam 26

There were several things I wanted to accomplish in this world, mostly in terms of supplying Beam with needed equipment, also in creating the foundation of a relationship between him and Sophia.  I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it all, but I decided to start with food.


This has been the eighth behind the writings look at Garden of Versers.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue publishing the novel and these behind the writings posts for it.

#305: The Cross Case: Supreme Court Sours on Lemon

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #305, on the subject of The Cross Case:  Supreme Court Sours on Lemon.

I have been watching for this case since it hit the circuit court, and so was pleased to see that the Supreme Court had decided it.  It seems on one hand to be a simple question:  is a century-old war memorial in the shape of a forty-foot cross originally built by private citizens but for half a century maintained on public land at public expense a violation of the “establishment” clause, that is, a constitutionally impermissible promotion of a particular religion by the government?  That’s the question; yes or no?

So imagine my surprise to discover that although Justice Alito managed to write a seven-to-two majority opinion that said no (that is, the cross can stay), there were five concurring opinions (a concurring opinion is one that agrees with the conclusion but not with all the reasoning) plus a dissent.  So how is there so much confusion over so simple a question?

At the time of this writing, I was unable to find the official Supreme Court PDF online; however, Justia has it in an easy-to-access form.  The Court combined two cases into one, so the title reads

THE AMERICAN LEGION, et al., PETITIONERS

v.

AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION, et al.; and

MARYLAND-NATIONAL CAPITAL PARK AND PLANNING COMMISSION, PETITIONER

v.

AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION, et al.

A lot of the trouble revolves around what’s been called the Lemon Test, named for Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), in which the court articulated a three-part test for whether something violated the establishment clause.  The short version is:

  1. Does the action/activity have a secular purpose?
  2. Is the principle or primary effect one that neither advances nor inhibits religion?
  3. Does it avoid fostering an excessive government entanglement with religion?

By these three questions all such cases were supposed to be answered.

Let’s get some backstory.

Just after World War I, a citizens group in Bladensburg, Maryland wanted to honor the forty-nine men from their community who died in that conflict.  Quite a few of the fallen in that war were never returned, and more were never identified.  The monument would serve as a surrogate grave for them, for their families to visit, and as a recognition of the service of so many others.  They hired an architect/sculptor, who designed a large Latin Cross, modeled on the crosses that had been used as temporary grave markers for the over one hundred thousand Americans buried in European graveyards.  (The Star of David was also used for such markers, but only about five percent of American casualties were Jewish, so crosses dominated the photos that came home and were emblazoned in the minds of the mourners.)  The citizens group raised money through donations, but ran out before completing the work, so the American Legion took over, adding their emblem to the cross, finishing the work, and maintaining it at their own expense into the early 1960s.  At that time, actions were taken to transfer the ownership of the property to the Maryland Parks Department, in part because the road around the monument had become a major traffic problem, in part because the American Legion was no longer able to afford it, and in part because the State wanted to expand the surrounding area into a memorial park with monuments for all the other wars.  Since then the monument has been maintained by state funds.  However, a few years back the American Humanist Association filed suit claiming that the cross was offensive and an impermissible endorsement of the Christian religion.  They wanted it removed, or demolished, or at the very least stripped of the crosspiece so it would be an obelisk instead of a cross.

The Federal District Court applied the Lemon test and sided with the park service, stating that the primary purpose of the cross was to honor the dead of World War I, and there was no evidence that any religious purpose was intended in its design or its present maintenance; any impartial observer who knew the history of the monument would conclude that it was not about promoting Christian faith, but about honoring the war casualties.  A three-judge panel of the Circuit Court, however, disagreed in a split decision, again applying the Lemon test but asserting that the cross was so tied to Christian belief that anyone seeing it would think it was an emblem promoting that religion.  The full court declined to review the case en banc (that is, all the judges), and the Supreme Court granted certiorari (or cert., agreeing to hear it).

Justice Alito wrote that there were many problems with applying Lemon, and that since the the test has a lot to do with motivations and intentions it is particularly difficult to apply the case to situations with deep historic roots.  It can’t be said that those who originally erected the monument had a religious purpose in view.  He cites other situations in which crosses are used as an emblem that do not have a religious purpose, notably among them the International Red Cross, whose red cross on a white field was designed to call to mind the white cross on a red field that was the flag of the neutral country Switzerland, and so marking the deliverers of medical care as neutral.  So, too, the crosses that dotted graveyards throughout Europe had become an image of the fallen in that war, popularized alongside the poppy even more by the poem In Flander’s Field.  Shortly after the war the same emblem became the basis for the national congressional medals known as the Distinguished Cross and the Navy Cross.  There was no reason to suppose that the original designers of the cross intended it to have any greater religious significance than that which is attached to any grave marker.  Indeed, one of the members of the committee which began the work and approved the design was Jewish.  Further, there is no evidence of bias or prejudice, sectarian or otherwise.  At the dedication ceremony, a Catholic Priest opened with an invocation, a politician gave the keynote address, and a Baptist minister gave the closing benediction.  Although racial tensions were high in the country and the Ku Klux Klan held a rally within ten miles of the site within a month of the dedication, black and white soldiers were listed together on the plaque.  To claim that the original intention was religious is to read our own ideas into their situation; we cannot do that.  Further, he argued, the fact that the monument has been there for almost a century means it has taken many other significances, historical and cultural.  We might think there is a religious significance to it as well, but it is a relatively small part of a memorial that has been part of the community for so long.  Besides, to destroy or deface it would appear to be an act against religion, not an act furthering religious neutrality.

The opinion did not overturn Lemon; it simply said that in dealing with matters steeped in history, it was generally impossible to know the motivations of those who made the original decisions, and so Lemon was rendered useless in such cases.

Justice Gorsuch in the main agreed, but went further.  Lemon, he said, was useless as a test.  Case law demonstrates that a court using the test can reach any conclusion it wants.  More pointedly, the notion of the response of a reasonable observer (whether a reasonable observer would think that the purpose was primarily religious) has created an “offended observer” status, that someone can file suit against an action on the grounds that it offends him.  This, Gorsuch argues, is not real injury and the Constitution gives no basis for anyone to sue without real injury.  Overturning Lemon and getting rid of its test would resolve much of the confusion in the courts and mean in the future cases like this, in which someone claims to be offended by the sight of a supposedly religious object, would be dismissed perfunctorily.

Justice Thomas agreed with that, but went further.  The Establishment Clause, he observed, begins “Congress shall make no law”.  He explains what kinds of laws had existed that were eliminated, but asserts that the protection has nothing to do with actions that are not based on laws made by Congress.  He suggests that one might apply the I Amendment to the States by virtue of the XIV Amendment, but even so the original purpose of the Establishment Clause was to forbid legislative actions compelling citizens to support a specific church or denomination.  Local creches, non-sectarian thanksgiving services, opening invocations and closing benedictions, and memorials to the dead are not covered by this, as they are not compulsory and in the main are not legislative acts.  Lemon, he asserts, should be overturned because it goes far beyond what is Constitutional.

Justice Kagan also wrote a concurring opinion, agreeing with nearly all of Justice Alito’s opinion but for two sections.  The important disagreement is that she asserts that Lemon, with its focus on purposes and effects, is still very valuable even though it does not resolve every Establishment Clause problem, and she would retain it.  Her lesser disagreement is that Justice Alito suggested that history would play an important part in Establishment Clause analysis, which she does not reject entirely but does not wish to see embraced as a principle of law.  She agrees, though, that it might be important to consider whether long-standing monuments, symbols, and practices reflect respect for different views and tolerance, with an honest effort to achieve non-discrimination and inclusivity, and a recognition of the important role that religion plays in many American lives.

Justice Kagan also agrees with the concurrence written by Justice Breyer, who has long said that no one test works for all Establishment Clause cases, but that in each case the court has to consider the purposes of the clause, “assuring religious liberty and tolerance for all, avoiding religiously based social conflict, and maintaining that separation of church and state that allows each to flourish in its “separate spher[e]”.  He says that the majority opinion is correct that there is no significant religious importance to the Bladensburg Cross, and that its removal or destruction would signal a hostility toward religion against the Establishment Clause traditions.  However, he objects to any sort of “history and tradition test” that might permit religiously-biased memorials on public lands in the future.

That, apparently, is a suggestion in Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence.  He fully joins the majority opinion, but emphasizes the importance of reviewing history and tradition in such cases.  He suggests that the Lemon test has proven useless and is never really used by the Supreme Court.  He also expresses sympathy for those, particularly Jews, who feel alienated by the cross, which he says must be recognized as a religious emblem.  The fact that it is a religious emblem does not mean the government cannot maintain it–but the government does not have to do so, and other branches of the government could take action to remove the cross or transfer its ownership and care to a non-governmental entity.  The objectors do have recourse to the political process if they wish to pursue this; what they don’t have is a court decision declaring that the cross cannot be maintained by the State.

Which leaves Justice Ginsberg’s dissent, joined by Justice Sotomayor.

Ginsberg maintains that the Latin Cross, defined as one in which the lower upright is longer than the other three branches, has always been recognized as a Christian symbol, and has never had a secular meaning or application.  (This in contrast to the Greek Cross, in which the four branches are equal.)  The Bladensburg “Peace Cross” is thus offensive to anyone of any other religion or of no religion.  Marshaling evidence that even in the aftermath of World War I the cross was identified by the government as a sectarian symbol to be put on the graves of all Christians and of any persons not known not to be Christian (in case they were), with Stars of David placed on all graves of soldiers known to be Jewish.  (Those who were known not to be either could, at the family’s request, have a plain stone, be transported home, or be interred in a private cemetery overseas with a headstone of their choice.)  There has never been a case in which a Latin Cross was identified as a non-sectarian emblem of death, and historically it has been regarded as conveying the message that Christians are saved and all others are damned–an offensive message to all those others.

While Ginsberg’s claim is well-supported, it is not clear that the modern cultural view of crosses as memorials perceives them as specifically Christian.  It comes to me that many graves of pets are marked with crosses, but no Christian denomination of which I am aware supports the theological belief that animals can be Christian, The Vicar of Dibbley notwithstanding.  (The eternal destiny of animals is not something the Bible tells us, which makes sense, as C. S. Lewis would have said, because it’s not actually something we need to know.)  Crosses are also frequently used in decorative graveyards such as in Halloween displays.  To many, the cross says “grave marker” much more than it says “Christian”.

I can’t say that everyone perceives such memorials as non-sectarian, but I do think that over time they have become more so.  It appears that the Court, in the main, agrees with that:  memorials using crosses in their imagery have become non-sectarian by their use over time, and the Bladensburg Cross far more represents the fallen of World War I and, since its rededication in 1985, all the American casualties of all our wars.  Lemon has not been overturned, but it has been significantly limited in its application in the future.

The Peace Cross stands.

#289: Stifling Lozman’s Protected Speech

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #289, on the subject of Stifling Lozman’s Protected Speech.

From one perspective, the most interesting thing about Fane Lozman’s recent victory at the United States Supreme Court is that it is the second time this ordinary citizen has taken a case to that court, and the second time he has won.  It really does happen in these United States, although in fairness he solicited aid from a law school and a group of pro bono attorneys.

The reason it is of interest to us is that this second win is an Amendment I Freedom of Expression case, a subject we follow with some interest.

The previous case is only of passing interest to us, more as background to the second.  Lozman built a floating house, which he had towed to various places until he docked it at a marina in Riviera Beach, in Palm Beach County, Florida.  The city wanted to exercise eminent domain over the marina to seize it, tear it down, and put it in the hands of a commercial developer.  Lozman objected, and brought a lawsuit against the city for improper procedure when they attempted to pass the measure a day before a Florida state law went into effect making such use of eminent domain illegal.  He won that suit.  However, while he was involved in this, the city declared that his house was a “vessel” under maritime law, and seized it.  Lozman fought this, stating that his house was not a “vessel” under the definitions provided in the law, and therefore not subject to seizure under that law.  In Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, Florida, 568 U.S. 115 (2013), the Supreme Court agreed.  The house was not designed to be a mode of transportation, and for this and several lesser reasons the court concluded 7 to 2 (Sotameyer and Kennedy dissenting) that maritime jurisdiction was inappropriate, and the city owed Lozman a lot of money to replace his home.

In the midst of these battles, Lozman showed up at a City Council meeting, and during the public comments time stepped forward and began calmly talking about political corruption.  It is said that he spoke for about fifteen seconds when one of the Councilmen instructed the police officer who was present for the purpose of maintaining order to remove him from the room.  He was handcuffed and charged, but the charges were dropped.  However, he filed suit claiming that his Amendment I right to free speech was violated.

In Fane Lozman, Petitioner v. City of Riviera Beach Florida, 585 U.S. ___ (2018), the Supreme court in an 8 to 1 decision said that it was–but noted that there were special circumstances that made it so.

At the head of those special circumstances, Lozman had presented evidence to the effect that the City Council had previously adopted an official policy of intimidation against him and others who had spoken out against them, and asserted that his arrest was executing that policy.  The evidence included a transcript of a closed Council meeting in which Councilmember Elizabeth Wade suggested that the city use its resources to “intimidate” Lozman and others who had filed lawsuits against the city.  At a later point in the meeting, one of the other councilmembers asked whether there was “a consensus of what Ms. Wade is saying,” and this was affirmed by others present.  Lozman asserts that these remarks formed an official plan to intimidate him.

The lower courts held that because there was probable cause to arrest Lozman at the meeting (on the very minor charge that he did not stop speaking when asked to do so, and thus was considered disruptive to the meeting) he could not claim the arrest was retaliatory.  However, the Supreme Court decided that if a jury might believe that the closed door meeting comments created an official policy of retaliation, and if the arrest at the later meeting was an implementation of that policy, Lozman would prevail.

It does not mean that all cases in which people are arrested for trying to speak at public meetings and so disrupting the meeting involve violations of Amendment I free speech rights, but only those in which there is evidence that the arrest is part of a government policy of intimidation against the person arrested.

Justice Thomas dissents, stating that the rule propounded by the majority is too convoluted and might never apply in any case including the present one, and that the previous rule in essence said that if probable cause was present no case for retaliatory arrest could stand, even if it involved freedom of speech.

Justice Thomas is right:  it is a bad decision.  It allows governments to harrass citizens exercizing their freedom of speech at meetings as long as there isn’t a paper trail suggesting that they agreed to do this.  Lozman probably wins (and I think that when Justice Kennedy writes that a reasonable juror would have to be able to believe that the statements at the closed meeting created a policy and that the action at the open meeting implemented it he believes that they would) because the idea of intimidating him was discussed on the record at a meeting.  If the Committeemembers had discussed this at a coffeeshop or cocktail party and agreed informally to do this, he would have no case–but his rights would have been just as impinged.

.

Meanwhile, the dissent’s probable cause test is worse.  I once was discussing a law that deprived anyone who had been convicted of a felony of certain rights, and commented that felonies were generally rather serious crimes.  I was informed that legislatures had taken to defining more and more crimes of lesser and lesser severity as “felonies” in order to enforce stricter penalties against them.  In the present case, it seems initially Lozman did not believe there was probable cause for an arrest, and there was some doubt as to whether there was probable cause for the charges initially brought.  He was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence–the former because he stepped up to the podium to raise issues at a public meeting, the latter because he refused to relinquish the podium when asked.  The District Court found that as a matter of law there was insufficient evidence to support probable cause for either of those charges.  However, the city dug up another statute prohibiting interruptions or disturbances in schools, churches, or other public assemblies–a charge never mentioned prior to the trial–and maintained that there was probable cause to arrest Lozman on that charge; Lozman conceded that there was probable cause for that.  That, though, shows that if the authorities want to arrest someone, they can probably find probable cause to do so if they look hard enough.

What was needed was a looser rule, one that permitted evidence of a pattern of intimidation to stand as proof of an intention of intimidation.  Lozman’s case adduced many incidents of arbitrary official actions taken against him; the stifling of his right to speak at the public meeting was the most egregious because it impinged his Amendment I freedom of speech.

The claim that Lozman’s speech was off-topic was insupportable.  In the first fifteen seconds he spoke of two government officials in other jurisdictions that were arrested for corruption.  That could be the preamble to any of a dozen on-topic speeches.  For the committee to have claimed he was speaking about something outside the parameters of the meeting is not defensible.

.

Congratulations to Lozman for winning twice at the Supreme Court (and winning several lower court cases along the way).  However, this decision is going to have to be modified by future ones before it is at all useful in the defense of free speech.