General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Should it be against the law, in the United States, to blaspheme or "insult a Deity"? [View all]NanceGreggs
(27,813 posts)... between something that shouldn't be done and something "not being allowed" to be done?
That's a rhetorical question - because apparently you don't know the difference.
Your First Amendment rights guarantee your freedom to be as verbally obnoxious as you want to be. That doesn't mean that you have to be obnoxious, does it?
If I said that you shouldn't point at overweight people and call them "disgusting fatties", does that mean I am saying that by law, you shouldn't be allowed to do so? Are people who choose not to be offensive somehow the victims of censorship?
I am free to say all kinds of offensive, hurtful, humiliating things to others. But as a decent human being, I choose not to offend others when they have done nothing to warrant it - and being a person of faith is not, IMO, something that, in and of itself, warrants ridicule.
In addition, if you have actually read and understood what I have been saying all along, I said nothing about mocking or criticizing a religion per se - I have spoken only about ridiculing and mocking individuals because they belong to a religion, and for no other reason beyond that fact.
This discussion is over. When I have to explain the difference between being prohibited by law from doing something and being respectful of others because it's the decent thing to do, I have to accept that the person requiring such an explanation does not have the intellectual capacity to understand that difference in the first place.