Outlawing Dawkins hoax
21 July 2012
.. has been discovered and we’ve removed the post. As I observed, there was no link to the Mississippi law online, so this was a prank to stir up momentary fervour in the blogosphere.
In fact, religious sensitivities have a much more insidious role to play in lawmaking, as I discuss in my post on a recent Strasbourg Grand Chamber case on free speech.
“The courts will abstain from adjudicating on the truth, merits or sincerity of differences in religious doctrine or belief and on the correctness or accuracy of religious practice, custom or tradition”
Interesting for international lawyers, from a Tibetan perspective, as there are two ‘rivals’ to succeed the Dalai Lama , and both are ‘reincarnations’.
From Wiki: The government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has claimed the power to approve the naming of “high” reincarnations in Tibet, based on a precedent set by the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. The Qianlong Emperor instituted a system of selecting the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama by a lottery that used a golden urn with names wrapped in clumps of barley. This method was used a few times for both positions during the 19th century, but eventually fell into disuse. In 1995, the Dalai Lama chose to proceed with the selection of the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama without the use of the Golden Urn, while the Chinese government insisted that it must be used. This has led to two rival Panchen Lamas: Gyaincain Norbu as chosen by the Chinese government’s process, and Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as chosen by the Dalai Lama…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalai_Lama