this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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Tbh, I kind of think it should be. Not de facto illegal, like if you accidentally burn it somehow, but if you intentionally do it to piss people off then that intention isn't exactly right itself. If you're putting on a public display purely to incite and antagonise people by destroying things they hold dear, then you're not merely exercising your freedoms but actively seeking to harm others.
It's all very grey area though, and any punishment should reflect that the harm is not physical and relatively low. This law almost definitely goes too far.
If i went into the street and condemned people for whatever choices they make, without harassing them, that would be legal. You're not harming anyone by burning a book and you wouldn't hurt anyone either by just pissing them off. The problem is a very vocal part of the world have been brainwashed to incite violence when this specific area of their feelings get hurt.
It's only made a gray area because you can't tell them that they can in fact just learn to ignore it and practice their religion in peace and expect it to work. Their beliefs are not built upon letting others express their views freely if they react with violence when someone burns their printed holy word. Their actions would be justified if there was only one copy or a building was burnt down, but it's a worthless material thing, and the disrespect it signifies will not go away just because you disallow people to express it.
Sorry, long rant to say I actually agree that this law goes too far.
I agree that their response - which itself is far more wrong than anything else here - doesn't justify the law, but that's not the argument I'm making. What I'm saying is that the burning of the Quran is done with harmful intent (to piss off Mulsims), rather than as a traditional protest against some oppressor. It makes sense for the law to recognise that harmful intent as something that is wrong - not because they're desecrating a religious symbol, but because they're doing it with malicious intent. However, the punishment should fit the crime, and there is no physical or direct harm. It really shouldn't be much more than a court-mandated inclusivity course or something.
intent to piss off is not intent to harm. you are not being harmed by being pissed off. it is not harmful. in a civilized society, claiming harm from a book burning is called being a little piss baby. they should grow up
That's debateable.
First off, harm isn't just physical, it can be verbal or non-physical. The only question is what level of non-physical abuse constitutes harm in a legal setting.
As I've mentioned elsewhere, there isn't really anything comparable in value for a non-religious person to how a religious person feels about their religious symbols. The closest example might be national symbols and war memorials, however those are protected by law - people have faced prison for peeing on war memorials, let alone destroying them. This is kind of taken for granted as the way things are, of course a nation is going to protect its own symbols. But just because we don't agree with a religious person's values towards a symbol doesn't somehow make it ok to use those values to abuse them.
Like I say, I don't think the symbols themselves should be protected, but it isn't right to antagonise others, and developing a law to establish that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
This law sounds bad though.