Hundreds of intellectuals and artists are concerned about its implications for freedom of expression, while police, lawyers, and prosecutors consider it too imprecise.
I agree that their response - which itself is far more wrong than anything else here - doesn’t justify the law, but that’s not the argument I’m making. What I’m saying is that the burning of the Quran is done with harmful intent (to piss off Mulsims), rather than as a traditional protest against some oppressor. It makes sense for the law to recognise that harmful intent as something that is wrong - not because they’re desecrating a religious symbol, but because they’re doing it with malicious intent. However, the punishment should fit the crime, and there is no physical or direct harm. It really shouldn’t be much more than a court-mandated inclusivity course or something.
intent to piss off is not intent to harm. you are not being harmed by being pissed off. it is not harmful. in a civilized society, claiming harm from a book burning is called being a little piss baby. they should grow up
First off, harm isn’t just physical, it can be verbal or non-physical. The only question is what level of non-physical abuse constitutes harm in a legal setting.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, there isn’t really anything comparable in value for a non-religious person to how a religious person feels about their religious symbols. The closest example might be national symbols and war memorials, however those are protected by law - people have faced prison for peeing on war memorials, let alone destroying them. This is kind of taken for granted as the way things are, of course a nation is going to protect its own symbols. But just because we don’t agree with a religious person’s values towards a symbol doesn’t somehow make it ok to use those values to abuse them.
Like I say, I don’t think the symbols themselves should be protected, but it isn’t right to antagonise others, and developing a law to establish that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
I agree that their response - which itself is far more wrong than anything else here - doesn’t justify the law, but that’s not the argument I’m making. What I’m saying is that the burning of the Quran is done with harmful intent (to piss off Mulsims), rather than as a traditional protest against some oppressor. It makes sense for the law to recognise that harmful intent as something that is wrong - not because they’re desecrating a religious symbol, but because they’re doing it with malicious intent. However, the punishment should fit the crime, and there is no physical or direct harm. It really shouldn’t be much more than a court-mandated inclusivity course or something.
intent to piss off is not intent to harm. you are not being harmed by being pissed off. it is not harmful. in a civilized society, claiming harm from a book burning is called being a little piss baby. they should grow up
That’s debateable.
First off, harm isn’t just physical, it can be verbal or non-physical. The only question is what level of non-physical abuse constitutes harm in a legal setting.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, there isn’t really anything comparable in value for a non-religious person to how a religious person feels about their religious symbols. The closest example might be national symbols and war memorials, however those are protected by law - people have faced prison for peeing on war memorials, let alone destroying them. This is kind of taken for granted as the way things are, of course a nation is going to protect its own symbols. But just because we don’t agree with a religious person’s values towards a symbol doesn’t somehow make it ok to use those values to abuse them.
Like I say, I don’t think the symbols themselves should be protected, but it isn’t right to antagonise others, and developing a law to establish that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
This law sounds bad though.