Obscene Anti-Catholic Halloween Costumes Infuriate Mom
Sound of Trumpet
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
excited priest this Halloween]
Times Herald-Record ^ | October 30, 2007 | Jeremiah Horrigan
Posted on 10/30/2007 8:18:12 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Vails Gate - Halloween is full of shocks. But the shocks Christine
O'Connor experienced at a local party and costume shop were not of the
traditional variety.
Far from it.
O'Connor and her 12-year-old son and 13-year-old stepson were
strolling the aisles in the Party Stop in Vails Gate about two weeks
ago.
It was there she found a rack of costumes she could hardly believe. A
pregnant nun. A costume depicting a Catholic priest with an erection.
"It made me sick," O'Connor said.
The sexual nature of the costumes was bad enough. The fact that they
were visually available to anyone, including children, was worse. She
got her kids out of the store, after complaining to a shop employee
who, she said, just shrugged off her complaint.
But there was another aspect of the incident that upset her.
"It seems it's open season on Catholics. What if it had been a rabbi
or a Ku Klux Klan costume?" she asked.
That concern was echoed by the pastor of her family's church, the Rev.
Robert Hilkiker of St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in New Windsor.
"Being anti-Catholic is the last acceptable prejudice," he said.
"Imagine the outcry if this had been Muslims or blacks or Asians -
there'd have been a storm of protest."
Costumes like those O'Connor described seemed no less incendiary to
him than symbolic nooses that have been used in the South and New York
City to inflame racial tensions.
Hilkiker said he understands the supposed humor is the result of some
"very bad press" about factual circumstances involving sexually
predatory priests.
"But perhaps we didn't fight back as much as we should have as a group
- I think it's foolish not using our clout, since we're a sizable part
of the population," Hilkiker said.
Alan Ortner, district manager of the three Party Stop shops in the
region, said he had received no complaints at any of them.
"Obviously, I didn't create these costumes. If I'd gotten a complaint,
I would have thought it over," he said.
Jennifer Holladay, a spokeswoman for Teaching Tolerance, a program of
the Southern Poverty Law Center, encouraged people to ask "What makes
this funny?" She said that when choosing a Halloween costume, for kids
or adults, it's all about stereotypes.
"If it's history, does it deal in caricatures?" she asked. "We have to
guard against stereotypes in the name of humor. It's really that
simple."
Funny or obscene? New Paltz - You can't quite say that writer Mark
Sherman makes his living as a humorist. But the retired SUNY New Paltz
psychology professor, who writes a humor column for the local weekly
here and performs comic songs, has been at it for a long time, and he
knows obscene from funny.
His brand of funny is informed by his understanding of people and
psychology. But when it comes to the border where "funny" Halloween
costumes flirt with disrespect or obscenity, he's not laughing.
It's not funny, he said, if you're not asking to be confronted.
"It's one thing if someone goes looking for something like that on the
Web, but when it's right in your face, I've got a problem, especially
where children are involved," he said.
Sherman said he's sensitive to freedom of speech issues, but feels
that, for example, if a controversial museum exhibit is being offered,
people have a choice to see it or not.
"But Halloween is supposed to be dedicated to kids, isn't it? Why do
they have to be offensive? There's enough unhappiness out there."
parsi...@gmail.com
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>
> Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
> excited priest this Halloween]
Fellow "christian", J Young, would say that this is only humor.
Get a grip, repressed moron.
les_on_usenet
On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:05:47 -0700, Sound of Trumpet
<sound_of...@HotPOP.com> wrote:
>
>http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>
>Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
>excited priest this Halloween]
>
>
>Times Herald-Record ^ | October 30, 2007 | Jeremiah Horrigan
>
>
>Posted on 10/30/2007 8:18:12 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
>
>
>Vails Gate - Halloween is full of shocks. But the shocks Christine
>O'Connor experienced at a local party and costume shop were not of the
>traditional variety.
>
>Far from it.
>
>O'Connor and her 12-year-old son and 13-year-old stepson were
>strolling the aisles in the Party Stop in Vails Gate about two weeks
>ago.
>
>It was there she found a rack of costumes she could hardly believe. A
>pregnant nun. A costume depicting a Catholic priest with an erection.
>
>"It made me sick," O'Connor said.
Stupid woman.
>The sexual nature of the costumes was bad enough. The fact that they
>were visually available to anyone, including children, was worse. She
>got her kids out of the store, after complaining to a shop employee
>who, she said, just shrugged off her complaint.
>
>But there was another aspect of the incident that upset her.
>
>"It seems it's open season on Catholics.
If you want open season on Catholics come to England on the
5th November:
http://www.daeschner.com/pope_burning.html
We all have our fireworks ready :)
<big snip of blather fulminating and hot air about a few amusing
costumes>
They do go on don't they?
Les Hellawell
Greetings from
YORKSHIRE - The White Rose County
Mark K. Bilbo
> "Being anti-Catholic is the last acceptable prejudice," he said.
"We just want to love our neighbors," he continued, "especially if
they're around fifteen and hot!"
"But perhaps we didn't fight back as much as we should have as a group.
And fuck what that stupid 'Bible' thing says about turning the other
cheek and not returning insult with insult!" Hilkiker said, getting an
erection.
--
Mark K. Bilbo a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
------------------------------------------------------------
“A Sunday school is a prison in which children do
penance for the evil conscience of their parents. ”
- H. L. Mencken
Mich...@gmail.com
I disagree. While I am not Catholic, I do think there is a double
standard. While I'm not going to call Reverend Al and ask him to form
a mob for me, I would re-think frequenting an establishment that
openly mocked my beliefs.
Josef Balluch
news:1194008747.9...@o38g2000hse.googlegroups.com:
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>
> Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
> excited priest this Halloween]
Don Martin
> On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:05:47 -0700, Sound of Trumpet wrote:
> > "Being anti-Catholic is the last acceptable prejudice," he said.
>
> "We just want to love our neighbors," he continued, "especially if
> they're around fifteen and hot!"
>
> "But perhaps we didn't fight back as much as we should have as a group.
> And fuck what that stupid 'Bible' thing says about turning the other
> cheek and not returning insult with insult!" Hilkiker said, getting an
> erection.
I understand that catholic priests _do_ get erections. The uses they
put them to have been mentioned in the media to a considerable extent
of late.
Christopher A.Lee
No child's left behind.
3843 Dead
>
>http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>
>Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
>excited priest this Halloween]
>
>
>Times Herald-Record ^ | October 30, 2007 | Jeremiah Horrigan
>
>
>Posted on 10/30/2007 8:18:12 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
>
>
>Vails Gate - Halloween is full of shocks. But the shocks Christine
>O'Connor experienced at a local party and costume shop were not of the
>traditional variety.
>
>Far from it.
>
>O'Connor and her 12-year-old son and 13-year-old stepson were
>strolling the aisles in the Party Stop in Vails Gate about two weeks
>ago.
>
>It was there she found a rack of costumes she could hardly believe. A
>pregnant nun. A costume depicting a Catholic priest with an erection.
>
>"It made me sick," O'Connor said.
Wow. I guess it's a good thing she didn't see the pregnant priest
costume...
--
What do you call a Republican with a conscience?
An ex-Republican.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=8827 (From Yang, AthD (h.c)
"I simply can not believe this is what the Republican party has
become. I just can’t. It just makes me sick to think all those years
of supporting this party, and this is what it has become. Even if you
don’t like the S-Chip expansion, it is hard to deny what Republicans
are- a bunch of bitter, nasty, petty, snarling, sneering, vicious
thugs, peering through people’s windows so they can make fun of their
misfortune.
I’m registering Independent tomorrow."
Putsch: leading America to asymetric warfare since 2001
Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
For the finest in liberal/leftist commentary,
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
For news feed (free, 10-20 articles a day)
http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/zepps_news
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a.a. #2211 -- Bryan Zepp Jamieson
Josef Balluch
news:1194008747.9...@o38g2000hse.googlegroups.com:
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>
> Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
> excited priest this Halloween]
...
> "It's one thing if someone goes looking for something like that on the
> Web, but when it's right in your face, I've got a problem, especially
> where children are involved," he said.
Ah, yes! It's for the kiddies, of course.
No ..... no. Nothing self serving here at all.
Regards,
Josef
A man always has two reasons for doing anything - a good
reason and the real reason.
-- J. P. Morgan
Robibnikoff
<Mich...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1194013167....@e34g2000pro.googlegroups.com...
So, I guess I shouldn't have dressed as a nun with a Marilyn Manson-style
white contact lense a couple of years back?
Shoot, fuck'em if they can't take a joke ;P
--
Robyn
Resident Witchypoo
BAAWA Knight!
#1557
Al Klein
<witc...@broomstick.com> wrote:
>So, I guess I shouldn't have dressed as a nun with a Marilyn Manson-style
>white contact lense a couple of years back?
>Shoot, fuck'em if they can't take a joke ;P
Didn't you mean, "Fuck, shoot'em if they can't take a joke ;P"?
--
Al at Webdingers dot com
"My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation
and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger
with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change
them."
- Abraham Lincoln
Al Klein
Or right one either.
Al Klein
>Vails Gate - Halloween is full of shocks. But the shocks Christine
>O'Connor experienced at a local party and costume shop were not of the
>traditional variety.
>
>Far from it.
>
>O'Connor and her 12-year-old son and 13-year-old stepson were
>strolling the aisles in the Party Stop in Vails Gate about two weeks
>ago.
>
>It was there she found a rack of costumes she could hardly believe. A
>pregnant nun. A costume depicting a Catholic priest with an erection.
>
>"It made me sick," O'Connor said.
>
>The sexual nature of the costumes was bad enough. The fact that they
>were visually available to anyone, including children, was worse. She
>got her kids out of the store, after complaining to a shop employee
>who, she said, just shrugged off her complaint.
>
>But there was another aspect of the incident that upset her.
>
>"It seems it's open season on Catholics. What if it had been a rabbi
>or a Ku Klux Klan costume?" she asked.
They wouldn't have bothered her, would they have?
Where were her kind when Jews were being skinned to make lampshades?
Or when Blacks were being hanged for not closing their eyes when a
white woman walked past?
It was "open season" on Jews for a few thousand years, and on Blacks
for a few hundred years and, not only did "good Christians" not raise
their voices in complaint, they were the PERPETRATORS of the "open
season" on Jews and Blacks.
Mich...@gmail.com
> On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:05:47 -0700, Sound of Trumpet
>
>
>
> <sound_of_trum...@HotPOP.com> wrote:
>
> >http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>
> >Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
> >excited priest this Halloween]
>
> >Times Herald-Record ^ | October 30, 2007 | Jeremiah Horrigan
>
> >Posted on 10/30/2007 8:18:12 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
>
> >Vails Gate - Halloween is full of shocks. But the shocks Christine
> >O'Connor experienced at a local party and costume shop were not of the
> >traditional variety.
>
> >Far from it.
>
> >O'Connor and her 12-year-old son and 13-year-old stepson were
> >strolling the aisles in the Party Stop in Vails Gate about two weeks
> >ago.
>
> >It was there she found a rack of costumes she could hardly believe. A
> >pregnant nun. A costume depicting a Catholic priest with an erection.
>
> >"It made me sick," O'Connor said.
>
> Wow. I guess it's a good thing she didn't see the pregnant priest
> costume...
> --
>
> What do you call a Republican with a conscience?
>
> An ex-Republican.
>
>
> "I simply can not believe this is what the Republican party has
> become. I just can't. It just makes me sick to think all those years
> of supporting this party, and this is what it has become. Even if you
> don't like the S-Chip expansion, it is hard to deny what Republicans
> are- a bunch of bitter, nasty, petty, snarling, sneering, vicious
> thugs, peering through people's windows so they can make fun of their
> misfortune.
>
> I'm registering Independent tomorrow."
>
> Putsch: leading America to asymetric warfare since 2001
>
> Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
> Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
> For news feed (free, 10-20 articles a day)http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/zepps_news
> For essays (donations accepted, 2 articles/week)http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/zepps_essays
>
> a.a. #2211 -- Bryan Zepp Jamieson
That is odd. For someone who claims they are independent, you are
spouting the liberal-progressive party line.
Jim
"Robibnikoff" <witc...@broomstick.com> wrote in message
news:5p13koF...@mid.individual.net...
load' stuff forget it. Fuck who?
The Chief Instigator
>On Fri, 2 Nov 2007 13:06:18 -0400, "Robibnikoff"
><witc...@broomstick.com> wrote:
>>So, I guess I shouldn't have dressed as a nun with a Marilyn Manson-style
>>white contact lense a couple of years back?
>>Shoot, fuck'em if they can't take a joke ;P
>Didn't you mean, "Fuck, shoot'em if they can't take a joke ;P"?
I think it works better in this newsgroup as: Shoot, joke 'em if they can't
take a fuck...
--
Patrick "The Chief Instigator" Humphrey (pat...@io.com) Houston, Texas
chiefinstigator.us.tt/aeros.php (TCI's 2007-08 Houston Aeros) AA#2273
LAST GAME: Syracuse 3, Houston 2 (October 30)
NEXT GAME: Friday, November 2 vs. Lake Erie, 7:35
Al Klein
wrote:
>Al Klein wrote:
>>Sound of Trumpet wrote:
>
>>>"It seems it's open season on Catholics. What if it had been a rabbi
>>>or a Ku Klux Klan costume?" she asked.
>>
>> They wouldn't have bothered her, would they have?
>>
>> Where were her kind when Jews were being skinned to make lampshades?
>> Or when Blacks were being hanged for not closing their eyes when a
>> white woman walked past?
>>
>> It was "open season" on Jews for a few thousand years, and on Blacks
>> for a few hundred years and, not only did "good Christians" not raise
>> their voices in complaint, they were the PERPETRATORS of the "open
>> season" on Jews and Blacks.
>
>I am sick and tired of these whiny idiots who think being made fun of is
>"open season" while they go to the polls and deny homosexuals the right
>to marry, after, as you pointed out, spending millennia teaching others
>what "open season" really means.
Christianity means the desire to have the right to not have any
opposing thought.
--
Al at Webdingers dot com
Nothing so completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity
himself, than straightforward and simple integrity in another.
- Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)
skyeyes
wrote:
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>
> Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
> excited priest this Halloween]
You still have your nun's outfit? Did it ever occur to you to put a
pillow under it? <G>
Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34
EAC Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herding
skyeyes at dakotacom dot net
Wordsmith
Would you accept, as "humor," a depiction of Mohammed submerged
in a glass of urine? If it's OK to do that to things sacred to
Christians, then
you must allow other religions to be mocked too. Gotta keep the
playing
field level, dont'cha know!
W : (
satyr
>It was there she found a rack of costumes she could hardly believe. A
>pregnant nun. A costume depicting a Catholic priest with an erection.
>
>"It made me sick," O'Connor said.
Outrageous. Disgusting. This implies that a Catholic Priest would
have consensual(?) sex with an adult female.
--
satyr #1953
Chairman, EAC Church Taxation Subcommittee
Director, Gideon Bible Alternative Fuel Project
Supervisor, EAC Fossil Casting Lab
Uncle Vic
bloodied us up with this:
> It was there she found a rack of costumes she could hardly believe. A
> pregnant nun. A costume depicting a Catholic priest with an erection.
>
> "It made me sick," O'Connor said.
>
> The sexual nature of the costumes was bad enough. The fact that they
> were visually available to anyone, including children, was worse. She
> got her kids out of the store, after complaining to a shop employee
> who, she said, just shrugged off her complaint.
Poor baby. She should have gone to church instead, leaving the enjoyment
of Halloween for real people.
--
Uncle Vic
aa Atheist #2011
Supervisor, EAC Department of little adhesive-backed "L" shaped
chrome-plastic doo-dads to add feet to Jesus fish department.
Convicted by Earthquack.
Uncle Vic
bloodied us up with this:
> Al Klein <ruk...@pern.invalid> writes:
>
>>On Fri, 2 Nov 2007 13:06:18 -0400, "Robibnikoff"
>><witc...@broomstick.com> wrote:
>
>>>So, I guess I shouldn't have dressed as a nun with a Marilyn
>>>Manson-style white contact lense a couple of years back?
>
>>>Shoot, fuck'em if they can't take a joke ;P
>
>>Didn't you mean, "Fuck, shoot'em if they can't take a joke ;P"?
>
> I think it works better in this newsgroup as: Shoot, joke 'em if they
> can't take a fuck...
>
Or there's always my fave... "Fuck, fuck 'em if they can't fuck a fuck.
panam...@hotmail.com
wrote:
Now *that* looks like my kind of fun! <g>
-Panama Floyd, Atlanta.
aa#2015/KoBAAWA!
Smiler
"Wordsmith" <word...@rocketmail.com> wrote in message
news:1194036010.5...@v3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
opinion, half as funny as a depiction of Mohammed fucking a pig.
The playing field level enough for you now, christer?
Smiler,
The godless one
a.a.# 2279
Wordsmith
> "Wordsmith" <wordsm...@rocketmail.com> wrote in message
You assume much.
W : )
Al Klein
<word...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
>On Nov 2, 7:11 am, parsifa...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On 2 nov, 14:05, Sound of Trumpet <sound_of_trum...@HotPOP.com> wrote:
>>
>> >http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>>
>> > Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
>> > excited priest this Halloween]
>>
>> Fellow "christian", J Young, would say that this is only humor.
>> Get a grip, repressed moron.
>
>Would you accept, as "humor," a depiction of Mohammed submerged
>in a glass of urine?
Stupid, yes. But humorous?
> If it's OK to do that to things sacred to Christians, then
>you must allow other religions to be mocked too.
It's okay by me. As long as you don't mock any atheist beliefs.
--
Al at Webdingers dot com
If you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an
ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish
the useful ideas from the worthless ones
- Carl Sagan, 1987.
Immortalist
wrote:
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>
> Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
> excited priest this Halloween]
>
Imagine that, in the mythical nation of Freedonia, it is considered
gracious for guests to belch after eating as a way of showing the host
that they enjoyed the meal. Suppose you didn't know this, and you were
visiting the home of a Freedonian dignitary in the company of some
diplomats from the U.S. State Department. If, after the meal, these
diplomats began to belch, chances are you would belch also. They were
providing you with valuable information. On the other hand, suppose
you were in the same home in the company of some rather rude and
brawny young men who were introduced to you as members of the
Freedonian Olympic heavyweight wrestling team. If these behemoths
belched after their meal, my guess is that you might not go along with
this behavior. That is, you would probably consider this an act of bad
manners and would avoid belching. However, if they glared at you for
your failure to follow suit, you might indeed belch too-not because of
the information they supplied but because you feared rejection or
reprisal for refusing to be a good sport by going along with their
boorish
behavior.
I would suggest that conformity resulting From the observation of
others for the purpose of gaining information about proper behavior
tends to have more powerful ramifications than conformity in the
interest of being accepted or of avoiding punishment. I would argue
that, if we find ourselves in an ambiguous situation wherein we must
use the behavior of other people as a template for our own behavior,
it is likely that we will repeat our newly learned behavior, without a
cue, on subsequent similar occasions. This would be the case unless,
of course, we later received clear evidence that our actions were
inappropriate or incorrect. Thus, to go back to our example, suppose
you are reinvited to the home of the Freedonian dignitary for dinner.
But this time you are the only guest. The question is: Do you or don't
you belch after the meal? A moment's reflection should make the answer
perfectly clear: If you had belched after the first meal at his home
because you realized it was the proper thing to do (as would have been
the case had you dined in the company of the diplomats), you would be
quite likely to belch when dining alone with the dignitary. However,
if you had belched the first time out of fear of rejection or
punishment (as would have been the case had you dined in the company
of the wrestlers), you would almost certainly not belch when you are
the lone guest. To go back to Sam and the political candidate on
television, you can now readily understand one of the many reasons why
it would be so difficult for us to predict how Sam would actually vote
in the election. If he had been merely going along with the group to
avoid punishment or to gain acceptance, he would be likely, in the
privacy of the polling booth, to vote in opposition to the view
expressed by his acquaintances. If, on the other hand, Sam had been
using the group as a source of information, he would almost certainly
vote against the candidate that he had initially preferred.
The Social Animal - Elliot Aronson - 8th Edition 1999
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716733129/
> Times Herald-Record ^ | October 30, 2007 | Jeremiah Horrigan
>
> Posted on 10/30/2007 8:18:12 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
>
> Vails Gate - Halloween is full of shocks. But the shocks Christine
> O'Connor experienced at a local party and costume shop were not of the
> traditional variety.
>
> Far from it.
>
> O'Connor and her 12-year-old son and 13-year-old stepson were
> strolling the aisles in the Party Stop in Vails Gate about two weeks
> ago.
>
> It was there she found a rack of costumes she could hardly believe. A
> pregnant nun. A costume depicting a Catholic priest with an erection.
>
> "It made me sick," O'Connor said.
>
> The sexual nature of the costumes was bad enough. The fact that they
> were visually available to anyone, including children, was worse. She
> got her kids out of the store, after complaining to a shop employee
> who, she said, just shrugged off her complaint.
>
It is sometimes suggested that we distinguish offending from harming.
But surely it is implausible to think that the giving of offense is
never harmful to the offended party. People may be deeply offended at
witnessing what they regard as immoral or obscene acts and behavior. A
deeply religious person may be significantly pained by seeing or
hearing about what he regards as a sacrilegious speech or play.
Virtually anyone in contemporary Western societies would be disgusted
by public defecation. In at least some such cases, the offense given
can be not only upsetting but can induce rage, affect health, and
perhaps even alter the course of a person's life, e.g., as when
someone makes it her or his life work to stamp out pornography.
Can the claim to liberty be reconciled with the claim to be safe from
constant offense? A first step at reconciliation would involve
distinguishing easily avoidable from unavoidable offensive acts. If
the act or behavior that is regarded as offensive can be avoided with
a minimum of effort, it is not unreasonable to expect those who object
to make the minimal effort required. Surely, liberty is of great
enough value to outweigh the minimal effort required to avoid offense.
Thus, having sexual relations on the subway during rush hour may be
legally prohibited. Sex between the proverbial consenting adults in
private should be beyond the scope of the law. Anyone should be free
to watch a pornographic movie if they so wish but such freedom should
not extend to lurid billboard advertisements that passers-by cannot
help but witness.
How exactly is the boundary between the avoidable and the unavoidable
to be drawn. It is doubtful if any precise formula can be constructed
that then can be applied to cases in a mechanical fashion. In
practice, the boundary should be established by democratically enacted
statute, as applied by the judiciary. However, there are limits on how
far democracy may go here. These limits are set by the value of
liberty itself. In view of the importance of individual liberty, the
burden of proof is on those who would limit it to show at least: (a)
that the allegedly offensive behavior cannot be easily avoided; (b)
that it is not feasible to provide a restricted area where the
behavior in question need not be witnessed by the general public; (c)
that the behavior is widely regarded as deeply offensive in the
community as a whole; and (d) that the allegedly offensive behavior is
not the expression of an ideology or ideal that ought to be protected
under the heading of free speech. We also should remember that since
any act may offend someone, we cannot prohibit all offensive behavior
without surrendering liberty entirely.
In practice, the courts often have appealed to the standard of what
the community in general finds offensive, obscene, or revolting. The
trick, which has not yet been performed satisfactorily, is to
characterize the relevant community properly. Presumably, one should
not define the community so narrowly that the showing of the very same
movie is allowed in one and prohibited in the other of two neighboring
suburbs. Yet one might not want to define the community so broadly
that what is permissible on 42nd Street in New York City must also be
permissible in an Amish community.
It is reasonable to conclude that the guidelines sketched above should
be interpreted as placing a heavy burden of proof on those who would
restrict liberty to minimize offense. This is a moral judgment
concerning the importance of liberty that we hope is warranted in view
of the arguments for liberty in Chapter Three, as developed in later
sections of this chapter.
The Individual & the Poliical Order
An Introduction to Social & Political Philosophy
-Norman E. Bowie & Robert L. Simon
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0847687805/
> But there was another aspect of the incident that upset her.
>
> "It seems it's open season on Catholics. What if it had been a rabbi
> or a Ku Klux Klan costume?" she asked.
>
> That concern was echoed by the pastor of her family's church, the Rev.
> Robert Hilkiker of St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in New Windsor.
>
> "Being anti-Catholic is the last acceptable prejudice," he said.
> "Imagine the outcry if this had been Muslims or blacks or Asians -
> there'd have been a storm of protest."
>
> Costumes like those O'Connor described seemed no less incendiary to
> him than symbolic nooses that have been used in the South and New York
> City to inflame racial tensions.
>
> Hilkiker said he understands the supposed humor is the result of some
> "very bad press" about factual circumstances involving sexually
> predatory priests.
>
> "But perhaps we didn't fight back as much as we should have as a group
> - I think it's foolish not using our clout, since we're a sizable part
> of the population," Hilkiker said.
>
The Bandwagon is a fallacy in which a threat of rejection by one's
peers (or peer pressure) is substituted for evidence in an
"argument."
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/bandwagon.html
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ad+populum
At this point in the article it would have seemed better if the author
would have created a list of criteria that might be used to determine
just what is obscene and what is acceptable.
> Alan Ortner, district manager of the three Party Stop shops in the
> region, said he had received no complaints at any of them.
>
> "Obviously, I didn't create these costumes. If I'd gotten a complaint,
> I would have thought it over," he said.
>
> Jennifer Holladay, a spokeswoman for Teaching Tolerance, a program of
> the Southern Poverty Law Center, encouraged people to ask "What makes
> this funny?" She said that when choosing a Halloween costume, for kids
> or adults, it's all about stereotypes.
>
> "If it's history, does it deal in caricatures?" she asked. "We have to
> guard against stereotypes in the name of humor. It's really that
> simple."
>
> Funny or obscene? New Paltz - You can't quite say that writer Mark
> Sherman makes his living as a humorist. But the retired SUNY New Paltz
> psychology professor, who writes a humor column for the local weekly
> here and performs comic songs, has been at it for a long time, and he
> knows obscene from funny.
>
> His brand of funny is informed by his understanding of people and
> psychology. But when it comes to the border where "funny" Halloween
> costumes flirt with disrespect or obscenity, he's not laughing.
>
> It's not funny, he said, if you're not asking to be confronted.
>
> "It's one thing if someone goes looking for something like that on the
> Web, but when it's right in your face, I've got a problem, especially
> where children are involved," he said.
>
> Sherman said he's sensitive to freedom of speech issues, but feels
> that, for example, if a controversial museum exhibit is being offered,
> people have a choice to see it or not.
>
> "But Halloween is supposed to be dedicated to kids, isn't it? Why do
> they have to be offensive? There's enough unhappiness out there."
Douglas Berry
<sound_of...@HotPOP.com> carved the following into the hard stone
of alt.atheism
>Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
>excited priest this Halloween]
I had two costumes this year.
For one party, I went as "Giants Fan From an Alternate Universe,
October 27, 2002." A friend worked for the company that made t-shirts
and caps for the World Series that year, and managed to snag a few
"World Champion Giants" sets before they were destroyed. I wore those,
along with a faked-up SF Chronicle front page declaring "GIANT
VICTORY!" and carried an empty champagne bottle.
For the other party, I went as a San Francisco Dodger. When the Giants
and Dodgers came west in 1957, Giants owner Horace Stoneham was given
first choice in cities. Never having been to either, he chose San
Francisco because it "sounded better." But what if he had chosen
differently. I took a basic Dodger's road uni, had a Dodger-blue "San
Francisco" put on the chest, and had a friend embroider a white "SF"
on a blue ball cap in the same style as the LA on a real Dodger's
uniform
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LA_Dodgers
For a feel for what I did.
Needless to say, both costumes were, well, big hits.
--
Douglas Berry Do the OBVIOUS thing to send e-mail
Atheist #2147, Atheist Vet #5
Jason Gastrich is praying for me on 8 January 2011
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the
source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a
stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as
good as dead: his eyes are closed." - Albert Einstein
raven1
<sound_of...@HotPOP.com> wrote:
>
>http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>
>Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
>excited priest this Halloween]
Sex is one of the most marvelous things the universe has to offer. You
might try it sometime.
---
"Faith may not move mountains, but you should see what it does to skyscrapers..."
les_on_usenet
<quotht...@nevermore.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:05:47 -0700, Sound of Trumpet
><sound_of...@HotPOP.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>>
>>Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
>>excited priest this Halloween]
>
>Sex is one of the most marvelous things the universe has to offer. You
>might try it sometime.
You are telling this to catholics?
Les Hellawell
Greetings from
YORKSHIRE - The White Rose County
mizlee
Payback's a bitch, ain't it?
clair_ap...@yahoo.com
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>
> Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
> excited priest this Halloween]
>
>
> Posted on 10/30/2007 8:18:12 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
>
> Vails Gate - Halloween is full of shocks. But the shocks Christine
> O'Connor experienced at a local party and costume shop were not of the
> traditional variety.
>
> Far from it.
>
> O'Connor and her 12-year-old son and 13-year-old stepson were
> strolling the aisles in the Party Stop in Vails Gate about two weeks
> ago.
>
> It was there she found a rack of costumes she could hardly believe. A
> pregnant nun. A costume depicting a Catholic priest with an erection.
>
> "It made me sick," O'Connor said.
>
> The sexual nature of the costumes was bad enough. The fact that they
> were visually available to anyone, including children, was worse. She
> got her kids out of the store, after complaining to a shop employee
> who, she said, just shrugged off her complaint.
>
>
> "It seems it's open season on Catholics. What if it had been a rabbi
> or a Ku Klux Klan costume?" she asked.
>
> That concern was echoed by the pastor of her family's church, the Rev.
> Robert Hilkiker of St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in New Windsor.
>
> "Being anti-Catholic is the last acceptable prejudice," he said.
> "Imagine the outcry if this had been Muslims or blacks or Asians -
> there'd have been a storm of protest."
>
> Costumes like those O'Connor described seemed no less incendiary to
> him than symbolic nooses that have been used in the South and New York
> City to inflame racial tensions.
>
> Hilkiker said he understands the supposed humor is the result of some
> "very bad press" about factual circumstances involving sexually
> predatory priests.
>
> "But perhaps we didn't fight back as much as we should have as a group
> - I think it's foolish not using our clout, since we're a sizable part
> of the population," Hilkiker said.
>
It sounds positively medieval...I love it. Look at these neo-
conservative "churchs", both Protestant and Catholic! What a laughing
stock they have made themselves with all the boy-buggary, gay public
bathroom sex, rubber underwear, weird cover-ups. And to top it off,
the hypocrisy of their insufferablely vicious and authoritarian
values. Such overly dramatic and macabre imagery...sacrificial blood,
sexual hysteria and guilt...
No wonder.
CApple
Wordsmith
> On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 13:40:10 -0700, Wordsmith
>
> >On Nov 2, 7:11 am, parsifa...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> On 2 nov, 14:05, Sound of Trumpet <sound_of_trum...@HotPOP.com> wrote:
>
> >> >http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>
> >> > Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
> >> > excited priest this Halloween]
>
> >> Fellow "christian", J Young, would say that this is only humor.
> >> Get a grip, repressed moron.
>
> >Would you accept, as "humor," a depiction of Mohammed submerged
> >in a glass of urine?
>
> Stupid, yes. But humorous?
To some, yes.
> > If it's OK to do that to things sacred to Christians, then
> >you must allow other religions to be mocked too.
>
> It's okay by me. As long as you don't mock any atheist beliefs.
Most self-respecitng atheists, I'm guessing, would object to the
term "atheist beliefs," but even they are open to ridicule as well.
W : )
Al Klein
Most atheists, especially those who have been reading my posts for
over a decade, would understand exactly what I said.
--
Al at Webdingers dot com
"Creationists are the best evidence we have that there is no intelligent design."
-Josef Balluch
Wordsmith
> On Sat, 03 Nov 2007 13:26:30 -0700, Wordsmith
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Nov 2, 8:47 pm, Al Klein <ruk...@pern.invalid> wrote:
> >> On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 13:40:10 -0700, Wordsmith
>
> >> <wordsm...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
> >> >On Nov 2, 7:11 am, parsifa...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> >> On 2 nov, 14:05, Sound of Trumpet <sound_of_trum...@HotPOP.com> wrote:
>
> >> >> >http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>
> >> >> > Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
> >> >> > excited priest this Halloween]
>
> >> >> Fellow "christian", J Young, would say that this is only humor.
> >> >> Get a grip, repressed moron.
>
> >> >Would you accept, as "humor," a depiction of Mohammed submerged
> >> >in a glass of urine?
>
> >> Stupid, yes. But humorous?
>
> >To some, yes.
>
> >> > If it's OK to do that to things sacred to Christians, then
> >> >you must allow other religions to be mocked too.
>
> >> It's okay by me. As long as you don't mock any atheist beliefs.
>
> >Most self-respecitng atheists, I'm guessing, would object to the
> >term "atheist beliefs,"
>
> Most atheists, especially those who have been reading my posts for
> over a decade, would understand exactly what I said.
More power to them!
W : )
> Al at Webdingers dot com
> "Creationists are the best evidence we have that there is no intelligent design."
> -Josef Balluch-
Ferd Farkel
wrote:
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1918396/posts
>
> Sex-related costumes infuriate mom [dress as a pregnant nun, or an
> excited priest this Halloween]
Ever seen 200 Motels?
Remember the Keith Moon scene?
Ferd Farkel
> A depiction of Mohammed in urine could be classed as humour, but not, in my
> opinion, half as funny as a depiction of Mohammed fucking a pig.
>
> The playing field level enough for you now, christer?
It's only level if the cartoon includes two rabbis eating bacon
uttering the punchline.
brique
Ferd Farkel <frd...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1194152673.5...@o3g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
I doubt there is much any of us could eat that would not offend some
religion or another, most of our clothing, particularily if female, will
certianly be offensive to one religion or another, most of our daily
language would offend, certain common hand gestures would offend, those with
beards might offend, those without might offend, bare heads might offend,
covered heads might offend.... fact is to some degree or another
_everything_ is offensive, it just depends where you do it and which
god-botherer gets bothered by it.
For some strange reason, the god-botherers seem most bothered by those who
feel no need to bother any god at all, rarely do they dispute bothersome
matters such as this with other sects of god-botherers, I mean, when was the
last time you saw a bunch of Jews picketing a hot-dog stall? Or Christians
picketing MacDonalds on a Friday? No, we don't, for they seem to have a
mutual not-bother -other god-botherers on these bothersome matters but
rather let's go moan at the atheists for not be as bothered as they are,
when, frankly, we don't give a rats arse for any of it.....
Ferd Farkel
> Ferd Farkel <frdf...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
They are most frightened of the non-god botherers because there's a
possibility that the non-god botherers just might be right.
Christopher A.Lee
wrote:
They see people getting on with their own business as actively dissing
the most important thing there is. Our very existence as people
offends them.
Ferd Farkel
> On Sun, 04 Nov 2007 11:59:09 -0800, Ferd Farkel <frdf...@yahoo.com>
Atheists don't believe in any sort an existence after death,
including Hell. Hell being *the* thing that keeps their
religion afloat, take it away, and down it goes like
the Titanic.
brique
Indeed, the ultimate kiss-off for the fearful god-botherer would be if their
god was not really bothered about them, this life or the next.......
Peacenik
news:1194008747.9...@o38g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>
> It was there she found a rack of costumes she could hardly believe. A
> pregnant nun. A costume depicting a Catholic priest with an erection.
>
> "It made me sick," O'Connor said.
Cry me a river.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com