Originally published at: Danny Masterson convicted of drugging and raping women | Boing Boing
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Yet the organization still walks free…
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Has anyone seen DM lately? What ever happened with his subpoena situation?
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Yikes!
I’m not a lawyer, but based on my not insubstantial understanding of contract law, most of those seem unenforceable. Especially the “kidnap clause.” You can’t sign away your freedom. The contract might be sufficient to indemnify them from bad things that happen while you’re participating willingly, but as soon as you want to stop they’d have no legal basis to continue holding you.
Of course, fighting these would require you to go up against their army of lawyers, who are no doubt spawned directly from the furthest depths of hell.
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Is Danny Masterson the first “Celebrity” Scientologist to be convicted and led out of court in cuffs? If he’s not I bet it’s been a really, really long time since something like this happened.
Not that Scientology has been around all that long but they do have a reputation for undue influence in celebrity court cases and any cases brought forth regarding their religion and practices.
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Some Libertarians argue that you can. There’s a lot of affinity between them and the Cult of $cientology (aversion to paying taxes being another).
Anyhow, glad the Cult lost their fight to defend their slimeball celebrity endorser.
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A Queer and Pleasant Danger by Kate Bornstein is also a pretty enlightening expose of the practices of Scientology. Before she came out as trans and transitioned, Bornstein was very high up in the Church leadership, back when Hubbard was still alive. The book isn’t exclusively about that, but it covers a lot of it.
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Like so many unenforceable employment contract clauses – and like so much else in religion and employment – it’s about a power imbalance. These clauses don’t have to be enforceable; they just need to be scary enough to keep the subordinates in line.
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But I thought all those Scientology superstars had achieved “clear”?
Which, if I remember the pamphlets correctly, means “total freedom.”
/s
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He can’t even blame it all on the Thetans.
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Scientology’s arbitration contract is a tough nut to crack. It has all the horribleness of a corporate one, with the added defense of the 1st amendment separation clause. And the lawyers Scientology hires are masters of that playing field.
Previously:
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I am a lawyer, and was the in-house counsel for a spell to a major Scientologist celebrity. It was indeed an eye-opening job.
I can attest from personal experience that, a least in CA, it all really comes down to the arbitration clauses. They were obligatory in each contract, and the designated dispute-settler was always the “Ministry of Justice” of the local Scientology HQ. Courts give arbitration clauses GREAT sway, at they keep arcane matters off the docket - and it costs an enormous amount to even attempt to try to get it into a courtroom, so any disputes are essentially over before they begin. Adherents can’t even receive benefits like unemployment without going through the ‘church’.
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It’s reminiscent of the rabbinical courts that fundamentalist Orthodox Jewish leaders regularly abuse to force women to remain in marriages. I don’t think we’re off from the time when Xtianists take the lead of these other cults and establish their own “Ministries of Justice” as they march toward Gilead.
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It’s indeed the same mechanism.
Yes, and with this Supreme Court’s blessing. (Pun intended.)
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