Calif. Mall Forbids the Discussion of Religion and Politics
SACRAMENTO --- The California Court of Appeal is considering the constitutionality of a Sacramento-area shopping mall's attempt to prevent adult patrons from talking to each other about hot-button topics such as religion and politics.
The case arose after a youth pastor, Matthew Snatchko, was arrested at the Roseville Galleria Mall in 2007 for striking up a casual conversation with two other shoppers about faith. Although Snatchko had first obtained the shoppers' permission to broach the subject, a nearby store employee disapproved and called mall security guards, who arrested Snatchko. Criminal charges were later dropped, but attorneys with Pacific Justice Institute filed suit to challenge the mall's tight restrictions on speech.
Under the mall's rules, shoppers are not allowed to engage in conversations about potentially controversial topics like religion or politics, unless they already know the person they are talking to. Another mall rule bans the wearing of any clothing with religious or political messages.
After a Placer County Superior Court judge upheld the mall's rules in 2008, Pacific Justice Institute appealed to the Third Appellate District in Sacramento. Written briefing at the Court of Appeal concluded last week. The case is proceeding in state court and is based on state constitutional provisions because those provisions, unlike the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, extend free speech protections to some non-governmental settings like shopping malls.
PJI Staff Attorney Matthew McReynolds, who submitted the appellate briefs, has been mystified by the mall's adherence to its draconian rules. "It's surprising that mall owners think they can arrest patrons for engaging in casual conversations," he said. "While a 'don't talk to strangers' rule may be good for kids, enforcing it against adults is absurd, and we think it violates California’s free speech guarantees.”
PJI President Brad Dacus commented, "Singling out religious speech for punishment violates our most basic principles of free expression. If anyone can be arrested for wearing a Christian t-shirt or mentioning God in a shopping mall, we have lost not only our freedom, but our sanity as a society."
PJI affiliate attorney Timothy Smith, of the Sacramento firm McKinley & Smith, served pro bono as Snatchko’s lead counsel in the trial court and continues to serve as part of the appellate team.
OV Social
Last I checked, the majority of malls are owned by some corporation or another and are ALSO private property. They are not state or government owned public property and therefore the owners set the rules.
If one of those rules says don't discuss politics or religion then you have to follow it if you want to be ALLOWED on the premisis.
This is not an attack on free speech brought on by the government, this is the choice of the owners (or operators) of the mall who have probably chosen to enforce such a rule because sensitive/hot button topics like that have likely caused disruptions in the past.
These people are drastically overreacting. There is NO grand injustice here, if you don't like it, exercise your right to shop elsewhere.
If two people at a mall engage in POLITE conversation, and they are both clearly willing to do so, then what difference does it make WHAT they talk about? What you have here is a case of anti-religious activism interfering with peaceful discourse. The employee is most likely the sort of person who looks for christians to persecute. It's all too common nowadays that innocent christian behaviour is painted as something evil. Thank your television and public school brainwashing for that.
I really believe that this opposition to faith in Christ is of a spiritual origin itself, a malevolent one. These secularists and atheists and agnostics believe they serve no god at all, but every christian who has read his bible knows that the devil uses atheists and such as patsies to stifle the gospel of Jesus. Otherwise, why the hot, hateful reaction to anything Jesus. And why the cool tolerant reaction to buddhism and islam and such?
It's a war , and Christians are honest about why they share their faith(because they care about you), but the bad guys come from all angles, because Satan has no restrictions concerning honesty.
...and that we atheists are his/her tools? Gosh, I feel quite important and powerful now! And there I was thinking that we just didn't believe in a supernatural deity...
I don't suppose that the fact that less than 4% of Americans are Muslim or Buddhist has anything to do with the secularlist focus on Christianity, which comprises 78.5%? Nah...it must be the Devil.
I'm feeling the heat from your "secularist focus on christianity " ha, ha, ha!
Neither of your arguments really hit the mark for me, because no matter what you "believe", I assert that you "serve" satan unwittingly. That means that you are driven spiritually to "focus on" (silence) any mention of Christ. This is how I explain the employee going far out of her way to see that a rule intended only for keeping the peace was twisted into a way to silence any discourse concerning Jesus Christ. It's not enough to be an atheist yourself, you must silence those who believe. Without a spiritual impetus, there's just no logical reason for an intelligent atheist to go out of his way to do such a thing.
I do think that if people are being badgered or hounded, or detained beyond what common courtesy allows, that the owners ought to step in and ask the christians to stop it. Christians need to know that a horse can be shown the water , but they can't be made to drink it. Me an my brother tried that with a dog once when we were kids and nearly got bit. ha, ha!
So now, have I persecuted you with my opinions, and harmed you with my speech ? Am I entitled to express my beliefs, or must I also be silenced?
...is that you can make them up as you go along. For example, if I 'assert' that you are the reincarnation of Lord Vishnu, or that the Flying Spaghetti Monster has cast a spell over you making you think you are Chrisitan, how would you disprove me?
This is why the burden of proof relies on the person making the claim. You are claiming ('asserting') that I serve Satan, but you are not providing any evidence for that claim. Until you do, your claim is worthless.
As for your supernatural explanation for this employee's actions (he was serving Satan), I think I have a better naturalistic one: this employee did not like this gentleman proseltysing innocent shoppers. This simple explanation covers all of the facts, and does not need to invoke supernatural forces.
I am sure that if it were a Muslim or Buddhist proseltysing (seems unlikely) he/she would have done the same thing.
You claim that 'without a spiritual impetus' there is no logical reason for an atheist to 'go out of his way to do such a thing', but in fact there are a number: he saw the rules of the mall being broken and reported it (the logic of the law -abiding citizen); he saw shoppers being distracted from shopping (the logic of commerce); he saw shopper's privacy being disturbed so he stopped it (what we might ironically call the logic of the Good Samaritan). You say there's no logic, but perhaps you aren't thinking hard enough - ther's plenty, if you care to look.
Rather than wait until people are 'badgered or hounded' the mall instigated this very sensible pre-emptive rule.
Your opinions have not persecuted me and your speech has not harmed me (I'm not sure why you would think it had), but then this is a forum designed precisely for such an exchange of views - unlike, say, a shopping mall.
You are entitled to express your beliefs (I wasn't aware that anyone was trying to stop you), but you should not feel that your beliefs trump everyone else's - particularly when they are of the evidence-free variety.
I am always amazed at the depths people will go to to justify the actions of people they agree with. lol. So, let's see if I can picture this: The store employee looks up from from his horrible mall job and sees two people conversing peacefully in the mall. Then he's urged by his devotion to mall rules to call the police , ha,ha,ha. Oh my goodness! what a stretch! Have you ever been to a mall?
Or this one: Young capitalist working for 5 dollars an hour sees mall visitors doing something besides shopping. In moral outrage over the 2 minute pause in shopping, he telephones mall security ! Capitalism is saved! Whoa! Better save that tale for bedtime stories! ha,ha,ha!
And to put the icing on what passes for logic in the atheist mind, there's the good atheist samaritan, who protects the shopper's privacy by intruding it and discouraging it and stifling it!
Oh goodness! that really is quite funny! You should do stand up! Do they have stand up in Canada?
But Seriously friend, we both know what, or should I say who, encouraged this person to force his secularism onto those two people.
lol, the good atheist samaritan! That's a good one..
Suffice it to say that trying to ridicule something is not actually the same as explaining what's wrong with it.
I was merely pointing out that there are plenty of logical explanations - including ironic ones (glad you enjoyed my joke) - for this employee's behaviour, because you previously explained that you were unable to understand it without resorting to a 'spiritual impetus'.
And was the mall employee trying to 'force his secularism' onto those two people'? What evidence do you have for this? It sounds to me like the Christian was the one doing the forcing here.
I note that you have not addressed the problem of your evidence-free assertions, or the burden of proof, or the possibility of a naturalistic explanation for the mall employees behaviour.
Not only do we have excellent stand -up comedy in Canada, when debating we also require 'assertions' to be supported by 'evidence' or 'facts' - you have those down south don't you?
Q:And was the mall employee trying to 'force his secularism' onto those two people'? What evidence do you have for this? It sounds to me like the Christian was the one doing the forcing here.
A: Although Snatchko had first obtained the shoppers' permission to broach the subject, a nearby store employee disapproved and called mall security guards,
Checkmate. The only "force" in action here was that of the busybody employee who called in security to "force" them to stop talking about Jesus.
He LITERALLY used FORCE to SILENCE those he DISAPPROVED of.
I already showed how ridiculous your " atheist Samaritan" argument was, and how devoid of logic it was.
I already told you that my assertion was what I believe, and that I am entitled to it with or without proof, though the evidence here suggests an unreasonable hatred of the gospel by a secularist activist bent on using whatever means necessary to persecute christian activity at a mall.
No, I'm pretty sure I've heard all you have to say. Continuing would be fruitless, since you've already begun to repeat yourself.
You're done, sir. the point and the game go to me. Better luck next time.
Not only have you not won this debate, you have barely even had a coherent thought.
"I'm the winner because I say so" might be good enough within your circle of friends, but serious-minded people aren't impressed by puerile bluster and close-minded arrogance (well, some might be...).
All you have done is made a series of unsupported allegations and assertions (for example: how do you know that the employee who reported Snatchko was an atheist ? how do you know what his/her motivation was? how do you know god and satan exist? how do you know the bible is true?) You have also studiously ignored a number of my questions: how do you know that you are not being unwittingly controlled by the Flying Spaghetti Monster? how do you know that the employee wouldn't have reported someone trying to promote a non-Christian religion? why is my natural explanation for the employees behaviour not as good as your supernatural one? (I already made the point that trying to ridicule an argument is not the same as saying what's wrong with it)
You note that you are entitled to believe whatever you want without evidence, and of course you are. But that entitlement does not make it an informed or intelligent view, and neither does it require anyone else to take it seriously. A belief does not become a fact just because you believe it.
In addition, your insistence that the employee who reported Snatchko "LITERALLY used FORCE" only indicates that you don't know the meaning of 'literally' or 'force'.
For future reference you might want to be a bit more humble (that's a Christian value isn't it?). Holding a strong opinion with certainty and conviction and dispensing it with the lofty arrogance you affect should be reserved for situations where you are in possession of all of the facts, and this is not one of those occasions.
Of course, I don't know all the facts either, but the difference is that I know it and conduct myself accordingly.
Good day.
Don't you see CT, he has the ultimate argument winner...
The person disagrees with you
therefor the person must be an instrument of Ol' Scratch
therefor you win the argument
QED