Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

Joe. My. God.: Hate Crime Or Not?.

There’s an interesting discussion making the rounds of NYC news blogs regarding what happened at a Jewish wedding reception last week. A 23 year-old Christian-raised cater waiter, who for five years had worked for a catering company that specialized in Jewish weddings, decided to express his sympathy for Palestinians by using the Woodbury Jewish Center’s PA system to broadcast some chants he’d recorded with his cell phone at last week’s pro-Palestine rally in Times Square. The chants? “Allahu akbar.”

Isn’t that what they usually yell right before they detonate their bombs? In this context, this is akin to yelling, “NOBODY MOVE!” in a bank. The words themselves don’t constitute the crime – it is the context, and the meanings that are generally attributed to those words in that particular context – that make it a crime. Same as shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater. He could easily have created a stampede among the 700 guests, who likely had their lives flash before their eyes…

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