More Jehovah's Witnesses

[mirrorshard]

This time, I took a different tack with a preemptive statement.

"I'm a Christian, and I believe in honesty, integrity, tolerance, complete equality, women in the workplace, evolution, and sex before gay marriage. If you think any of those things are incompatible with Christianity, there's no point our discussing things."

"Well, some of those, such as evolution, are difficult to reconcile with the Bible - "

"Not for me, they aren't."

"-but we won't keep you, and I hope you have a nice day."

I'm tickled to learn that they (or that one, at least, with the obligatory lurking sidekick) apparently think evolution is worse than gay sex/marriage.

Comments

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Ah, apparently Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe that those 'no solicitation' and 'no cold callers' signs apply to them, because they're not selling anything, just trying to bring you good news about how you can be saved, and who would turn that down out of hand?

It's a peculiar doublethink, but they've actually gone to court to argue this one in the US.

JWs are Trespassers

[(Anonymous)]

JWs have NO legal right to trespass on private property. The only court cases JWs have won are where governmental entities have tried to pass laws BLANKETLY barring JWs from door-knocking. Every private property owner retains the right to bar whomever they wish with certain exceptions such as police, etc.

The problem is that few owners and tenants ever have the guts to call the police, and of those who do, even fewer have the guts to prosecute the JW Trespassers.

Re: JWs are Trespassers

[(Anonymous)]

Trespass is a civil, not a criminal, offence. Therefore if the police are called they will (quite rightly) refuse to attend (or, if they attend, will do so in order to make sure that the landowner doesn't use unreasonable force in order to expel the trespasser).

S.

Re: JWs are Trespassers

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Oh, hello shouty anonymous person.

I did not say that Jehovah's Witnesses believed they had the legal right to trespass, just that they felt they had the moral right to ignore signs requesting no solicitation/cold calling. I cited their court cases in the US merely to illustrate that they were known for vigorously asserting this right.

Under English Common Law, these sort of signs, and indeed even signs stating 'No Trespassing', have absolutely no legal status. Trespass only occurs if a person is asked to leave by the property owner and refuses to do so.

I hope that's clear and won't lead to more random capitalisation on your part.

Re: JWs are Trespassers

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

Ooh, so that woman from an electricity company who refused to go away was technically trespassing? After saying, "I'm not interested," four times, I ended up having to close the door in my face, at which point she got really grouchy.

Is anyone wondering whether these two anonymice are in fact the same troll person

Re: JWs are Trespassers

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

The original anonymous is the same one who commented with the other rant; the one signing itself "S." is a different one, or at least posting from a different IP.

I've now turned on screening for anonymous comments, and won't be unscreening them unless they're actually useful. Which will be a rather higher bar than for signed ones.

Re: JWs are Trespassers

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

"Blanketly"?