Re: Australia Bans Prayers for Troons-- Up to 5 Years in Prison for Unauthorized Praying

On 2025-05-03 2:23 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

On May 3, 2025 at 10:32:38 AM PDT, "Rhino" <no_offline_contact@example.com>
wrote:
 

On 2025-05-03 12:40 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

  moviePig <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote:

  On 5/3/2025 1:29 AM, BTR1701 wrote:

    The scope of this law is so broad, you could probably make a prima facie
claim
  that I'm violating it right now by making this post if someone in New South
  Wales were to read it.

>
  "Conversion therapy" is outlawed in NSW.  And, apparently, someone there
  believes in the power of prayer to effect it.
>
  This is an argument about the material efficacy of religious belief.  To
  get a more balanced view, free of gender-identity distractions, consider
  how an open prayer for misfortune to befall Jews should be addressed.

    In any free society, it should be addressed the way it's addressed in the
  U.S., which is to say it's not addressed at all, given that such a thing is
  both protected speech and free exercise of religion.

>
Then the UK isn't a free society given that a woman was arrested for
praying silently near an abortion clinic.
>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Td5GHNQIgY [5 minutes]

 Yes, they have these "protected zones", mostly around abortion clinics, where
all free speech is suspended and you can be arrested for just existing there
if the police determine your presence is anti-abortion in nature. They've even
told people that they can be arrested in their own homes if their homes fall
within one of the zones and they do or say anything that can be considered
opposition to abortion.
 Regarding the clips I've seen of people who have been arrested for praying in
one of these zones, my question would be if they're doing it silently, how do
the police know if they're praying or just going over the week's grocery list
in their head? I don't know how burdens of proof work in England, but I would
assume they're at least similar to the U.S. in that the government has the
burden to prove its case, so how does the government prove the person was
engaged in anti-abortion prayer? Does the government now claim to have the
ability to read minds?
 

In the video I linked, the woman was asked by the police what she was doing there and she admitted she was praying in her head. I wonder what would have happened if she'd said she was trying to remember what to get at the market or when the #10 bus stopped there. I have to imagine they'd have let her go, although they may have forced her to go right to the bus stop or the market rather than lingering opposite the abortion clinic.
I can't imagine what they would have done if she'd insisted that what she was thinking was none of their business. I suspect that would have been all the "proof" the police needed that it was something against the law.
--
Rhino