stahrgazer wrote:Since the people the guy approached agreed to the conversation, the store clerk was just an anti-religious bigot to call security. If my friends and I are walking down the mall and decide to discuss whatever, and invite a stranger into the conversation, I guess the clerk would haul security out on us, too! (Because if you look how that's written, no one can talk religion, politics, or anything unrelated to shopping in those malls - with friends or strangers).
I'd probably have told the guy no, I don't want to discuss his religious beliefs because I was busy looking for lollipops for my lover for V-day. But if I'd said yes, I would resent a clerk sending a guard over to tell me I can't discuss what I'd said I was willing to discuss.
I'm not particularly religious, but I do have a thing against anti-religious bigotry. I think it's a shame that someone could scream, "f*ck you!" to a stranger in a mall, in a school, or wherever, and ppl don't bat an eye; but if he says, "God bless you!" he's subject to arrest or murder (see Columbine among others). Something highly wrong with that picture.
You are of course avoiding or forgetting the fact that it was not the discussion that was against the stores policy, but the congregation of the people in an area not designed for it. Further, just because the people in the conversation were not bothered, it does not mean that the store clerk was not losing business, as other patrons decided to pass the store by, simply because of this ill placed conversation about what many would consider an inappropriate discussion at the entry of a store.
If you and your friends were talking about your purses, your new dress, your hair or the surgery you might have to perform the next day, or whatever, and were doing so in a way so as to prevent people from comfortably entering the store, you indeed may have been asked to leave. Of course, you'd have probably...probably just left, and not forced them no alternative but to arrest you, because you simply refused to obey store policy and respect someone elses right to run their business effectively.
The only reason anyone defends this guy is BECAUSE he was preaching religion. The biased parties here are the religious ones. If this were a group of kids discussing the different drugs they tried over the weekend, I doubt very highly you'd be defending their god given right to scare people away from buying things from a store, that makes its living, from people, buying things in that store.
I also wonder if jay would have been as annoyed if they were discussing the problems of global warming, the many priests convicted of child abuse, or the acceptance of homosexuality in the world. I bet then, he wouldn't be as bothered, and would be right there on the jury yelling "GUILTY". It is this bias that affects peoples judgment in these cases. When anyone who is not biased, or at least looks at both sides, finds it very easy to see the reason in such an event. But then, its not like religious people would necessarily be the ones to look at both sides of a situation, and offer an unbiased opinion. That is actually contrary to the entire idea of a religion at its core.
Religion is bias. It essentially ignores all other possibilities, and preaches only one set of them, almost no matter what. In the dark ages they were the ones that arrested people for discussing ideas in public. Now we simply ask them to do so in a proper venue without endangering business, or even possibly customer safety.
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