Likelihood of Success

Un-fabulous

Jul 10, 2008 Americana, Faith and Works, Lex scripta, O Mores!, Oppression

The thing about the nuts that fall from Obama’s tree, it seems, is you get a good luck* look at the unappetizing meat in ‘em when they crack open on the hard ground. Tales from the Unreality-Based Community:

A homosexual man who has a blog on Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign website is suing two major Christian publishers for violating his constitutional rights and causing emotional pain, because the Bible versions they publish refer to homosexuality as a sin. . . .

Fowler alleges both Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, with its King James Bible, manipulated Scripture without informing the public by using the term “homosexuals” in a New Testament passage, 1 Corinthians 6:9.

He told the Grand Rapids TV station in an interview he wants to “compensate for the past 20 years of emotional duress and mental instability.”

Zondervan, he contended, is misinterpreting the Bible.

“These are opinions based on the publishers,” Fowler said. “And they are being embedded in the religious structure as a way of life.” . . .

Fowler, who is representing himself in both lawsuits, says in his complaint against Zondervan that the publisher intended to design a religious, sacred document to reflect an individual opinion or a group’s conclusion to cause “me or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence … including murder.”

So much… so very, very much… that is so stupid, so nuts, so God – help – Michigan about this. Where to begin? How to say when?

First… if you want it… I’ve downloaded the insane, hand-written complaint here. Go ahead, you read it. Now, the bullet points:

• As Kevin D. over at Dean’s World points out, you can slice this seven ways to Sunday but 1 Corinthians 6:9 does not exactly have a monopoly on condemnation of homosexuality as sinful. After all, we Jews don’t have a Corinthians besides in our Plymouth Volares, but there’s the not-so-minor matter of Leviticus.

• This leads to the obvious conclusion that, accepting Fowler’s premise that the opinion of the Bible itself matters, he really should be suing God. After all, that’s what they do in Europe! And isn’t Europe where we look for moral guidance, if we’re guys like Fowler? (UPDATE: A-hah! Via Dean.)

• Then there’s the small matter of the facts, Jack: “A company spokesman [says] that Zondervan doesn’t translate the Bible or own the copyright for any of the translations but relies, instead, on the “scholarly judgment of credible translation committees.” All right, fair enough — that’s a fact question amenable to the litigation process, but a big one.

• Next there’s this Constitution thingy. God and Culture guy Paul Edwards frets, “Will a federal court actually go so far as to get involved in what words can be used in the translation of a sacred text?” Survey says: No, for two reasons: (1) The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, and (2) the First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Plus…

• Let’s drill down from “Constitution” to “justice.” The PACER federal court filing system reports that Fowler is asking for $9,999,000 in damages. I’m sure this number has some meaning. Still, we have a concept in the law called “proximate cause“: It is not enough to be a link in the causal chain between, say, your having adding fuel to a fire used to forged an anvil in Allentown, Pennsylvania and that anvil falling on some poor fellow’s head as he walks past 1407 Broadway; he has to prove your act was basically what we might call the “main reason” for his injury. No matter how wicked a version of the Bible I cook up, the law will not and cannot hold me responsible for some third party’s reading it and committing “verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence … including murder.”

• Especially because no one murdered Fowler, seeing as how he filed this lawsuit and stuff.

• There’s more to the story! “U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook Jr. refused Monday to appoint an attorney to represent Fowler in the Thomas Nelson case, saying the court “has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of these claims.” Huh? Yeah, he asked for a court-appointed lawyer — here’s the application. Civil plaintiffs do not get court-appointed attorneys, pretty much regardless of the merit or lack of merit of their claims. But evidently in the Eastern District of Michigan, the form for pro se litigants more or less invites them to try.** Can you blame him, especially considering, er, the other indicia of discretion?

Then, beyond bullet points, there’s the Obama issue. On one hand, this was the same day America’s Savior, engaged in a mad (dare we say heedless?) dash to the center as it is, got a public relations present from erstwhile gag candidate Jesse Jackson for being too damned reactionary. Jackson took time out from whatever it is he actually does to volunteer to perform a surgical procedure on Obama that actually would have done the Rev. Jesse some good on precisely the topic at hand. On the other hand, the same day the LORD taketh it away with this lunatic.

It’s obviously not reasonable to tar Obama with the brush of this nut … entirely. Is it?

Well, fair’s fair. No one should suggest that Obama agrees with this guy any more than he agrees with, I dunno, his former pastor for 20 years or something, who you’d think (depends when you look!) wouldn’t have all that much more use for Fowler’s way of life, and its militant style, than most black ministers do.

Well, okay, you’d be wrong about that.

But the point, once again, is this: What kind of people, trend-wise, do we find in Barack Obama’s tent, and on his website? The WorldNet article digs into Fowler’s blog posts, both on his Obama blog and his independent one. He’s a genuine meshugener of the lefty kind.

So which is a politically more helpful spin, and which is a more credible one?: That the Obama campaign didn’t bother reading “their” blogger’s published works as long as he cranked out what they needed for their purposes? Or that they did read them but, before Foamin’ Fowler stepped over the line this way and caused public embarrassment, they couldn’t tell the rantings of a a certifiable left-wing lunatic from the merely ordinary kind?

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* Hat tip for the pickup to S&M-classifieds-powered-shopper blog, the Village Voice.

** At page 3 of the pro se form: “Will the Court appoint a lawyer to represent me? If you would like an attorney, and cannot afford to hire one, the Court may appoint an attorney to represent you. To ask the Court to appoint a lawyer, please fill out an Application for Appointment of Counsel form, available in the Clerk