No More Muhammad Images in Tennessee?

Alternatively, can we request that churches be fined for putting religious images on their websites that causes us atheists emotional distress?

Ooh, I know… Let’s just make the internet text only. Then that way no one ever has to see anything that might offend.

1. Watch _____ horror movie on Netflix in a Starbucks over their ATT wifi
2. Sue Netflix, Starbucks, and ATT
3. ????????
4. Profit.

Does this mean that Google must pull out of Tennessee (gigiddy) or is there an exemption for ISP’s?

Does TN display current court documents like subpoenas on an official website?

Or this legislation? What if this legislation frightens me?

This law frightens, intimidates and emotionally distresses me. What is my legal recourse against the state of Tennessee?

This scares me. I live right outside of Tennessee and will be going to school in Memphis this fall. This crap better get struck down, and it better not come to Mississippi.

Are you kidding me? I’m from TN, and plan to move back to be close to family when we have kids, but I’m seriously starting to reconsider. What with this and the House of Representatives approving a bill to make teaching Creationism legal, this state is getting worse and worse.

If it stays can we use it against fundie anti-choicers who show photos on their websites of their parades with placards of dead fetuses?

(2)The offense described in subdivision (a)(4)shall not apply to an entity providing an electronic communications service to the public in the normal course of providing that service.

So AT&T, Google and Starbucks are safe.

You know, this is just amending an existing law to better define ‘communicate’ and to exempt carriers. If the exiting law deals with just being offended, then maybe this isn’t so bad? Yelling ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater isn’t protected speech, right?

Here’s the original law
http://www.lawserver.com/law/state/tennessee/tn-code/tennessee_code_39-17-308

Now, maybe the original law is overly broad, but this isn’t a ‘new’ law.

I didn’t know we were constitutionally guaranteed to not be frightened, intimidated or emotionally distressed. I have been all three many times in my life. Can I take it to court?? Let’s see…my ex-boyfriend, my boss, the news, George Bush, my brother, ……

I am SO gonna go lawsuit-crazy until this idiocy gets ripped off the books!

What if I’m shipped off to Iraq and my girlfriend uploads pictures of her naughty bits to send to me and they somehow get out and seen?

ultimate patriotic conundrum! lulz.

So does this mean you can’t show someone the blue maze game in Tennessee?

Do we know whether the intent behind this is solely/mainly to prevent offensive religious images?

I ask because, while I agree that it’s a stupid law, I’m reminded of the reactions to some other laws:

Hate speech legislation in Canada turns into Christians crying that if their pastor says it’s a sin he’ll be dragged away in handcuffs.
Bill C51 in Canada has woo-believing, anti-Big-Pharma moms crying that they’ll be arrested for giving their child blueberries for a snack.

The law looks okay to me, as long as the terms are being used in the way that they generally are the legal field in regards to harassment or civil charges for infliction of emotional distress. The sort of behavior that is generally considered legally actionable emotional distress does not include general offensive political speech. In the legal field, the term emotional distress has built into it that the action which caused it must be “extreme and outrageous” and (in the words of the Kansas Supreme court) “outrageous to the point that it goes beyond the bounds of decency and is utterly intolerable in a civilized society” (Roberts v. Saylor 637 P.2d 1175 (Kansas 1981). Lawyers are going to read a fairly high standard into that, and statutes are written for lawyers, not everyone else. The only way I can see this running into trouble is that it allows negligent or true statements against public figures to count, and the Supreme court has generally required that statements be false and at least reckless, false, and to have been done with “actual malice” for public figures to collect emotional distress damages (see Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988) – this case involved a joke printed in the magazine which stated Falwell had incestuous sex with his mother in an outhouse). Really though, as long as the prosecutors in Tennesee don’t start playing fast and loose with the way these terms traditionally are used, the law should be okay-and so should cartoons of Muhammed.

I suspect that this is the same language used in the harassment statute already and the amendment merely includes electronic contact/publication within its harassment rules. Again, it looks like you should be okay as long as you don’t use the internet to harass people.

I get emotionally distressed when I see crosses… does that mean I can Sue?

I can see this law being seriously abused before it gets thrown out. I can’t see this standing up as a law for long. I hope some atheist act childish and make claims that images of christian nature are “frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress”. I wonder what those that voted for it would have to say?

I suggest the a bunch of Tennessee citizens should tell their local law enforcement that they find the pictures of Governor Bill Haslam offensive and they want something done about it.

Surely if enough people do that then someone will realise the ridiculousness of the whole thing.

So those images of Jeebus being tortured to death should be banned.

I couldn’t agree more

I wonder if the Tennessee government can be prosecuted because of the visual representation of their new law (after all, that’s what text is, a visual representation of human language) causing me emotional distress?