Re: Spin Control Alert (LI Newsday, 2/12/96)

["E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU>]

From:	IN%"declan+@CMU.EDU"  "Declan B. McCullagh" 17-FEB-1996 18:07:51.71

>A lawsuit against the atheist would not be effective and could result in
>a countersuit for abuse of process.

	Huh? You seem to have misinterpreted what I said. The atheist, who has
a child that reads the net, sues a Christian Fundamentalist organization (say,
one of the Southern Baptist seminaries) for having a copy of the Bible - which
contains material that is among the "seven dirty words" or whatever - online,
where the child can read it. The CDA essentially says that a child reading
indecent materials is doing harm to the child (a nice bit of nonsense), which
gives the government the (undeserved) power to regulate such interactions.
A countersuit will be somewhat difficult, since the organization in question
(the one with the Bible online) is breaking the law; while there have been
burglar suing because of broken leg cases, I believe that such are generally
thrown out - possibly due to laws on the subject.
	Now, the jury won't find the seminary or whoever liable... but it would
create some publicity and tie the sued organization up for a while. It's
something that I'd encourage an atheist organization to sponsor.
	-Allen