Cutting out on the Cults

Posted on July 5, 2007 in Liberty Spirituality and Being

One thing that remains a problem for those wishing to expose the machinations of religious organizations is the threat of the Big Lawsuit. Witness, for example, what happened to [[Paulette Cooper]] who wrote a book about Scientology in the 1970s. She was not only hectored with lawsuits, but she was framed in bomb-threats against Arab embassies using some of her personal stationery. Cooper was indicted and ultimately exonerated, but at the cost of her mental health.

The First Amendment prevents Federal interference in religion and speech and I’d like to take that at its absolute word. As long as cults do not break laws (such as the time [[Synanon]] put a rattlesnake in the mailbox of lawyer Paul Morantz), then the government stays completely out. Which means when a religious group comes to court about a matter involving outside testimonies to its doctrines or practices, the court simply says “We don’t interfere in such matters. We don’t adjudicate cases which involve churches. You have to work that out in the free marketplace of ideas.” So say so long to nuisance suits. Say goodbye to copyrights of church testaments and holy texts. Come down only if churches are found to be guilty of harassment or if blackmail is involved.* If you want to maintain a secret covenant with your members about how aliens from strange planets blossomed up from the earth via the eardrums of gnats**, then you have to do your own policing to ensure that your esoterica doesn’t find its way to a web site. The courts of the United States will not help you.

Wouldn’t that be a rule of law worth enforcing?

* * * * *

*Write this carefully so that private persons other than religious leaders are protected.

**As far as I know, no religion believes in this so the example should be treated as spurious and merely hypothetical.