Originally published at: Satanic Temple sues City of Chicago for right to perform city council invocations | Boing Boing
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Do you know how easy and boring things would have been if Chicago just would have said “Sure!” the first time they were asked? Nobody watches the invocations to city council meetings! It would have been a one-day news story, and that’s it. Now, some lawyers will get paid.
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Yes, better that people doing work never get paid… /s
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I quite like groups like this and what they are doing. Calling out the hypocrisies in the system and the constant casual disregard for the separation of church and state in the US is terrific. That said…
… is pretty much a giant red flag that whoever wrote that is a dick.
I support his right to be a dick, but we will not be friends.
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If an organization is going to engage freedom of speech seriously, as the Satanic Temple is doing, they need have a policy about offensive speech. This is where freedom gets difficult. They seem to have done well in such a concise statement of tenets. I have to infer that threatening and hate speech violates other peoples freedoms, and invokes the second part: “To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.” But, I can say something like “The only band worse than the Grateful Dead is the Eagles” and that should be fine.
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Offend, not harass or oppress. The oppressor always talks about how “offensive” their enemies are, think of the horrible dickheads that protest drag storytime events. Using “offense” as a way of shutting up your enemies might seem to work well if it’s antisemitic speech or racism, but fails badly when it’s “those degenerate homos” or “BLM/antifa terrorists”.
As mzed above notes, that second part, “To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.”, covers this. Racism / homophobia / antisemitism seeks to remove the rights of groups of people, whereas “offensive” speech on the other side offends people because it asks to be included.
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Yes exactly! That line about “freedom to offend” is generally a red flag that people don’t believe in things like commenting policies in forums, or behaviour policies at conferences.
Oh I know, I get it. They are referring to the tendency among certain Christian groups to treat clutching of pearls as a reason to silence others. This is why I explicitly said in my post that I support their right in this regard.
I was just pointing out that that sentiment swings the other way as well, and “freedom to offend” in today’s cultural context usually means “I get to say racist and queerphobic things to you and you can’t do anything about it even though it is actually oppressive”.
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In one of those “German in Venice” videos (or whatever it’s called), some old hippy in the desert had a sign saying “The Grateful Dead is country music for people who like LSD.”
Also:
Sorry to be off topic, but… “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Community Guidelines". Beelzebub has my back!
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It probably ended up on Lori’s desk to review and she blew it off to do one of her crazier things. It’s just sad how far she fell from expectations.
Good news for Johnson is he almost cannot do worse. Bad news for Chicago is we tend to pick really bad mayors.
My son tells me I’m wrong on Johnson though. I hope he’s right.
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Any mention of the Satanic Temple that doesn’t acknowledge that it was founded by, and is run by, scumbags is problematic. Yes, they’re doing good things, but they’re also fucking trash.
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Thank you for this context! I was not aware of it.
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The Satanic Temple is doing God’s work.
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They tried in Boston MA, USA as well:
https://www.universalhub.com/satanists
Everything after the first four stories relates to the Satanic Temple suing the city of Boston to give an invocation at city council meetings.
Definitely harrasment.
Yikes! That’s disappointing, to put it mildly. If you can’t trust satanists, who can you trust?
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Once again showing that organized religion of any kind is at best highly problematic.
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Oh look, racial and religious prejudice posing as secularism and contempt for religion in general.
Doug Misicko : Oh, I know recently in France, they were talking- they were trying to pass a law that nobody could wear any religious apparel at a school. No- no turbans, no goddamn little Jewish- (Shane Bugbee: Where was this at?) In France! No goddamn Jewish little frisbee caps on their heads.
Shane Bugbee : Well, I like that as long as it’s no religious stuff. Fucking none-
Doug Misicko : I’m with you. I’m all for it. I’m all for it.
Shane Bugbee : It’s like like smoking in public- it’s like smoking in restaurants wearing religious garb all over. It’s offensive to me. I don’t want to see that shit and smell your stinky fucking incense ass. Fucking take that shit to your house man and what you’re smoking cigarettes and everything else. Smoking in restaurants. I don’t like religion in fucking public, either.
Doug Misicko : God damn right. I would like to slap everybody’s fucking turban off their head, every goddamn Jewish frisbee off the back of somebody’s fucking skull.
They seem like lovely people.
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