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| Europe |
| German court sentences Lutheran to year in jail for supporting life |
| 2007-06-24 |
| Last week, a German court sentenced a 55-year old Lutheran pastor to one year in jail for “Volksverhetzung” (incitement of the people) because he compared the killing of the unborn in contemporary Germany to the holocaust. Next week, the Council of Europe is going to vote on a resolution imposing Darwinism as Europe’s official ideology. The European governments are asked to fight the expression of creationist opinions, such as young earth and intelligent design theories. According to the Council of Europe these theories are “undemocratic” and “a threat to human rights.” Without legalized abortion the number of German children would increase annually by at least 150,000 – which is the number of legal abortions in birth dearth Germany. Pastor Johannes Lerle compared the killing of the unborn to the killing of the Jews in Auschwitz during the Second World War. On 14 June, a court in Erlangen ruled that, in doing so, the pastor had “incited the people” because his statement was a denial of the holocaust of the Jews in Nazi-Germany. Hence, Herr Lerle was sentenced to one year in jail. Earlier, he had already spent eight months in jail for calling abortionists “professional killers” – an allegation which the court ruled to be slanderous because, according to the court, the unborn are not humans. I think we haven't quite convinced them of the value of free speech yet. Funny how Germans in the US can handle it but Germans in Germany can't. |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #10 Yeah, right, like you don't like media exposure. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2007-06-24 16:09 |
| #9 You know, Broadhead6, if we did that, I could finally get some relief from all these papparazzi chasing me. |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2007-06-24 14:15 |
| #8 "incited the people" - what an orwellian concept. Idiotic german courts; what a nefarious way to abuse the memory of the holocaust. They treat this like shouting "fire" in a crowded movie theater - how bleepin' retarded &/or insane is that. It would be like locking up moon bats in our own country for saying Bush was behind 9-11. Or, for believing that the lochness monster really exists. Who cares. |
| Posted by: Broadhead6 2007-06-24 14:11 |
| #7 "I think we haven't quite convinced them of the value of free speech yet." I thought East Germany fell... |
| Posted by: Thinemp Lumumba2215 2007-06-24 13:42 |
| #6 That's all very well, mrp, but in practice if the doctor doesn't sign off that he gave the counselling (the abortion clinics don't do the counselling, it has to be the woman's doctor), it isn't going to happen. That's exactly what happened to a girlfriend of mine; she got to the clinic, they wouldn't do the procedure because she didn't have the signed form from her doctor, he refused to fax it over, and when she went back to him he refused to write it for her. She had her second baby nine and a half months after the first. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-06-24 13:41 |
| #5 It's only legal over there with the written permission of the doctor. The only legal requirement is that the woman desiring a first-trimester abortion attend a counseling session at least 3 days before the procedure. About 500 German citizens reported having an abortion outside the country. Abortion stats for Germany |
| Posted by: mrp 2007-06-24 13:26 |
| #4 My normal reaction to a story like this would be "oh well, sucks for them". F the Germans. Unfortunately, I can't afford such an apathetic response, seeing that PC speak is now entrenched in the US, and draconian measures like this are only a few decades, perhaps even less time, from being enacted here in the US. Sucks for US. Sucks for the world. |
| Posted by: mcsegeek1 2007-06-24 13:04 |
| #3 Somebody over there is having a self-righteousness moment. Abortion is quite rare in Germany (150,000/year out of a female population of how many tens of millions?). It's only legal over there with the written permission of the doctor. But most doctors won't give permission, German Medicine's response to the forced abortions of the Nazi era. Some women take the train to the nearest country where abortions are freely available (Holland, perhaps, but I don't really know), and the rest just give up and have the child. As for choosing Darwinism as the State religion of the EU, what bloody nonsense. They're trying to show they're so much more advanced than the Americans, is all. Then too, which version of Darwinism do they intend to mandate? Charles D's original version as laid out in The Ascent of Man, or perhaps the punctured equilibrium model currently accepted... or even whatever further modifications come to be accepted in the future... They're setting themselves up for heresy, schism, and religious wars on the matter, just like they got when Christianity (in it's various flavours) was the State religion. Clearly the EUniks have learnt exactly the wrong things from their own history. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-06-24 12:58 |
| #2 By comparing one type of killing (approved kind) with another Kind (not-so-approved except by certain party officials), he was making a "denial of the holocaust of the Jews." Umm, yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense! |
| Posted by: Almost Anonymous5839 2007-06-24 10:42 |
| #1 God bless him! |
| Posted by: mrp 2007-06-24 08:35 |