{"id":9157,"date":"2006-02-07T08:38:18","date_gmt":"2006-02-07T15:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/02\/07\/sacred-cows-make-the-best-hamburger.html"},"modified":"2006-02-07T08:38:18","modified_gmt":"2006-02-07T15:38:18","slug":"sacred_cows_mak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/02\/07\/sacred_cows_mak.html","title":{"rendered":"“Sacred cows make the best hamburger”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shame on the Vatican for basically agreeing with<\/a> the Moslem cartoon rioters<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Vatican on Saturday condemned the publication of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad which have outraged the Muslim world, saying freedom of speech did not mean freedom to offend a person’s religion.<\/p>\n

Yes it does. Because without allowing the possibility of the latter, the former is meaningless. Practically anything anyone can say of some substance is likely to “offend a person’s religion.”<\/p>\n

“The freedom of thought and expression, confirmed in the Declaration of Human Rights, can not include the right to offend religious feelings of the faithful. That principle obviously applies to any religion,” the Vatican said.<\/p>\n

“Especially ours,” the Vatican said in subtext.<\/p>\n

Nobody is claiming a “right to offend.” Freedom of thought and expression simply means that the prospect of someone feeling offended(whether offense was intended or not) isn’t something that can be allowed to legally block freedom of thought\/expression. Otherwise, we better all shut up pretty damned quick.<\/p>\n

And why should there be a special exemption for “religion”? Should an atheist, offended by something, be able to ask for legal redress? How about someone who feels a deep, abiding passion for their nation — should their offense taken at the statements of a politician, journalist, or foreigner allow them to sue or ask for legal sanctions? <\/p>\n

I feel very deeply about freedom of expression. Indeed, there’s a religious component of that, because I believe God made us intelligent for a reason, and part of that intelligence, part of our mission, is to discern meaning. <\/em>The only way to do that is through free expression and the marketplace of ideas. <\/p>\n

So should my offense at the Vatican for claiming a special exemption for their brand of ideology mean that I should ask for their fax machines to be unplugged?<\/p>\n

“Any form of excessive criticism or derision of others denotes a lack of human sensitivity and can in some cases constitute an unacceptable provocation,” it said in a statement issued in response to media demands for the Church’s opinion.<\/p>\n

The weasel words of “excessive” and “in some cases” should be clues here. While I’m a huge believer in civil discourse and politeness and, in fact, in the value and even morality of not being offensive, any restrictions on expression need to be extraordinarily narrow in scope and reflect more than just people getting their knickers in a twist (or even, frankly, people feeling <\/em>sincerely hurt).<\/p>\n

Christ suggested turning the other cheek<\/a>, and forgiving <\/a>those who offend. One would think the Vatican would be more interested in preaching such forbearance and forgiveness (or trying to sway people into loving one another rather than hurting each other on body or spirit), than in trying to get Caesar to stop folks from saying bad things about them. One would think.<\/p>\n

(via DOF<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shame on the Vatican for basically agreeing with the Moslem cartoon rioters: The Vatican on Saturday condemned the publication of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad which have outraged the Muslim…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":21992,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/05\/the-vatican-rag.html","url_meta":{"origin":9157,"position":0},"title":"The Vatican Rag","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 5-Aug-11 9:49am","format":false,"excerpt":"Posting that link to Tom Lehrer yesterday brought to mind one my favorites of his tunes: Genius.","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-music"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51177,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/18\/visiting-the-virtual-vatican-library.html","url_meta":{"origin":9157,"position":1},"title":"Visiting the Virtual Vatican Library","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 18-May-15 4:11am","format":false,"excerpt":"The first scanned images from an effort that's expected to take some 15 years. Some amazing stuff there.(Of course, they won't be scanning the Super Secret Vatican Code Illuminati Templar Alien Visitor stuff ... but plenty of other cool manuscripts for them to share.) The First 500 Books From The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39822,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/11\/27\/obama-hates-catholics.html","url_meta":{"origin":9157,"position":2},"title":"OBAMA HATES CATHOLICS!!!!!!!!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 27-Nov-13 5:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Or at least that's what the National Republican Senatorial Committee wants you to think, clutching its pearls at the news that the Administration is SHUTTING DOWN ITS VATICAN EMBASSY!!!!!!!!!!Except, of course, it's not. It's consolidating it with its existing Italian embassy, right there in the same city (y'know, Rome). It'll\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16860,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/03\/07\/unblogged-bits-for-sun-7-mar-2010-705pm.html","url_meta":{"origin":9157,"position":3},"title":"Unblogged Bits for Sun, 7 Mar 2010, 7:05PM","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 7-Mar-10 5:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Obama's subtle message to congressional Dems - It's not too subtle if they have ears to hear it. In fact, it's just the message they should be welcoming. Mitt Romney Claims That President Obama\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27456,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/19\/women-keep-silent-in-our-churches.html","url_meta":{"origin":9157,"position":4},"title":"Women, keep silent in our churches","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 19-Apr-12 10:54am","format":false,"excerpt":"... unless, of course, you're toe-ing the offical party line.Other stories on the Vatican cracking down on crazy nuns who seem more interested in feeding the poor and healing the sick than condemning homosexuality and abortion can be found http:\/\/www.google.com\/hostednews\/ap\/article\/ALeqM5haZ_jyX3WGR_5xsbX-Nnuli1vsyw?docId=94585ce73a8b4f87945c0ae69e1f8a49 and http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/news\/religion\/story\/2012-04-18\/american-nuns-vatican\/54396560\/1 . But I'm sure it will all work\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9699,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/05\/08\/suing_for_respe.html","url_meta":{"origin":9157,"position":5},"title":"Suing for respect","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 8-May-06 11:23am","format":false,"excerpt":"As annoying as that whole Free Speech and Free Press thang in our Constituion is, there are times when I'm damned glad it's in there. Because it helps avoid most...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}