You’ve got two choices: Marry your Girlfriend or face 15 days in Jail...

[Kiryuu]

But the bottom line is, Jaynes was offered the choice between two sentences - one of which was an appropriate, non-violating jail time sentence - and he CHOSE to marry her.

Has I said before, whether they both agree to it or not, it's unconstitutional. A marriage is a contract. Coerced contracts are non binding, period.

Nobody cries foul when the Government oversteps it's bounds, but WHOOOO boy, when some judge in Texas tries to spare a man from prison based on the morality appeal made in the case, "Crucify Him."

There have been number of times when the Government do indeed get's out of hand. For instance, there was this one time a teacher got caught helping students to pass the standardized test 2 months ago. The judge wanted to give her 20 years in prison! 20 years!! A rapist get's like 3 years.

This is unacceptable, yes, the teacher should had been convicted but for 20 years? agree to disagree

People also fail to understand that Separation of Church and State is only arms-length in America these days.

This is a BIG deal because the judge is not following the US constitution. 2015 and we are still having judges do what the hell they want, breaking the laws them self...

Edited August 10, 2015 by Smok3iT

[Chase]

It's not just judges, but do keep in mind that nine of them interpret the Constitution as they see fit. It was indeed silly to offer an alternative punishment that was in reasonable doubt of being legal - but even MORE questionable that Jaynes took THAT punishment over the official sentence. There was stupidity across the board and the choice is the difference due to it not even being a story if the defendant did the time.

The other issue here is that people are immediately assuming there was a violation of the 1st Amendment in the enforcement of Bible verse copying - except, as I said before - nobody's religious freedoms were being suppressed as there was a choice, and there was no forced conversion.

The biggest loser here is the wife, who was completely innocent but is now pressured by her fiancee to marry her to avoid hard time, as well as voiding her right to a traditional marriage. Jaynes could have taken the time not only to avoid a constitutional dispute, but also to take all the fall instead of dragging her down with him.

[Deleted User]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States

Regardless of which penalty is worse. This man should be suspended and be made to understand the constitution of which he is supposed to be upholding. He's not supposed to let his personal beliefs dictate the outcome of a court case for better or worse.

[Chase]

"However, the Court has not always interpreted the constitutional principle as absolute, and the proper extent of separation between government and religion in the U.S. remains an ongoing subject of impassioned debate."

- that page of yours Mike

Him and a certain highest court of the land...

[Deleted User]

"However, the Court has not always interpreted the constitutional principle as absolute, and the proper extent of separation between government and religion in the U.S. remains an ongoing subject of impassioned debate."

- that page of yours Mike

Him and a certain highest court of the land...

Is this not a direct use of power to impose ones religious beliefs onto an individual? You raise a fair point regarding that page I posted. I've always been a firm believer of following the constitution to the letter. If something is widely believed to be the right thing in order to necessitate a change to the constitution, then so be it. Contrary to what you may believe, this doesn't have to do with my stance on religion but rather my support of the document on which this country has for so long based itself on.

[Doj]

Solid proof that America is one great cuck nation.

[Chase]

No. Imposing his beliefs would be sentencing a conversion itself.

[Anvilicious]

What the defendant believes and how he reacted is unimportant. The Judges actions are what need to be scrutinized. Religion should stay the hell out of an American court unless it is reasonably unavoidable (court cases over crimes against or by a church, things like that).

First, the Bible verses part. I'm going to ask you to pretend that this individual forced to write them was a devout believer of another religion; any other religion. Now our oh-so-wonderful Judge is forcing him to do something against his own beliefs. This now becomes a blatantly obvious violation of his freedom of religion. Something we Americans take great pride in; although this pride is mostly misplaced, as evidenced by this case.

Secondly, the marriage part. Forget about the religious aspect of marriage. Plenty of atheists get married, so marriage is not exclusive to religion.

Let's think about this bride for moment. If we consider this an alternative penalty for the man's crimes, doesn't that mean that his spouse-to-be is going to be penalized as well? And what crime is she being punished for?

Now, I'm going to correct one very important misunderstanding. The Judge COERCED them into marriage. We have laws against forced marriage, and these laws define forced marriage more than broadly enough to cover this. In other words, not only did the Judge over step his bounds in the murky gray area of American religious politics, he broke a well defined law.

Oh, I'm sorry. INTERNATIONAL LAW.

As in, a law defined by the UN which includes this sentence:

“No marriage shall be entered into without the free and full consent of the intending spouses.”

Would these two have married eventually? Maybe; they didn't seem opposed. But nothing was in order for them to be married at this point in time. They definitely weren't planning on it. If we assume they already had a date in mind for their wedding, it sure wasn't this soon. In other words, they are getting married sooner than they wanted because of a Judge's court ruling.

Simplified: they are getting married because of a Judge's court ruling.

Does that sound like "free and full consent" to you?

(Feel free to correct any mistakes I made. I only learned this stuff myself over the course of the past few hours, so if I said something you know is inaccurate, please set me straight.)

[TurboAura]

Wow, this is pretty messed up. I mean, like other people have brought up, this should be highly illegal.

As for it as a personal question... Does that mean she'd move where I am in the country? If so, I'd take it in a heartbeat.

[Caz]

I'm just going to come out saying from here, that guy just seems like a massive baboon. It's illegal and frankly kind of stupid. Please tell me it's not like that all over Texas...

[Guest]

i'll take 15 days in jail thanks

[Chase]

No, It's not like this all over the state.

Can't scrutinize the judge for giving an alternative sentence to a 15 days in prison sentence that completely acceptable. The bigger idiot in this scenario was the defendant.

With regard to the Bible verses issue, I fail to see how that would be a violation of anyone elses right ot religion if the sentence is simply "Copy these sentences". AGAIN, AGAIN, A-GAIN - There was no expectation for the defendant to convert to Christianity- and there is not another religion out there that prohibits interaction with "other scripture" that I am aware of... The only requirement was that sentences be copied and presented for the requirement to be checked off. With this in mind, the only argument you can posit is Separation, and that's made null simply by picking the sentence that was constitutionally ironclad -AND- offered to you.

Secondly, a marriage that was a CHOICE is not coerced. As a few of us have noted in this thread, the "fiancee" made the dumb decision to marry over the jail-time.

Forgive me if I'm a little testy, but as a Christian Texan, I would like to clear the air of bullshit here. I have already conceded that in itself, the alternative sentence was questionable and silly. However, this was an alternative sentence - and the defendant chose to put his wife-to-be in that situation for the sake of being able to go to work.

TL:DR? That was some idiocy across the entire courtroom - starting with the defendant.

[Kiroen]

Can't scrutinize the judge for giving an alternative sentence to a 15 days in prison sentence that completely acceptable. The bigger idiot in this scenario was the defendant.

The guy was like "...can I call my job to let them know I'm going to be in jail?"

Judge: "Nope..."

I don't know how things work over there, but in Spain, missing to go to work for a few days immediately means that you lose your job (unless you have a very valid reason AND a very good relation with the owner of the business), which can easily escalate into being evicted and socially excluded in a couple of months.

Thus,

Secondly, a marriage that was a CHOICE is not coerced. As a few of us have noted in this thread, the "fiancee" made the dumb decision to marry over the jail-time.

If he had been in a social or economic position that meant either taking the alternative penalty or falling further into poverty, he would have been indeed coerced. Had there been any kind of economic pressure, his girlfriend would have also been coerced, either by emotional or financial reasons.

With regard to the Bible verses issue, I fail to see how that would be a violation of anyone elses right ot religion if the sentence is simply "Copy these sentences". AGAIN, AGAIN, A-GAIN - There was no expectation for the defendant to convert to Christianity- and there is not another religion out there that prohibits interaction with "other scripture" that I am aware of... The only requirement was that sentences be copied and presented for the requirement to be checked off. With this in mind, the only argument you can posit is Separation, and that's made null simply by picking the sentence that was constitutionally ironclad -AND- offered to you.

1) The judge was giving his own religious beliefs enough value as to allow someone to avoid jail time If he writes them over and over in hand, as If he was a kid. He's perfectly free to give them such a value in his free time, but not when he's representing the state.

2) If he wanted the condemned to copy over and over on paper an ethical dogma (such as the bible verses), he could have made him copy parts of text of the criminal code - specifically the ones for which he was condemned guilty. It wouldn't have put any system of beliefs (or the lack of any) over another, the judge wouldn't have cleaned his balls using the Constitution, and the condemned would have learnt some criminal law. And it wouldn't have been a dogma the judge himself chose to believe in, but a pact of the society which could be changed If the society uses the required means to do so.

"However, the Court has not always interpreted the constitutional principle as absolute, and the proper extent of separation between government and religion in the U.S. remains an ongoing subject of impassioned debate."

- that page of yours Mike

Him and a certain highest court of the land...

Which totally kills the reason to be for a Constitution, which is to prevent the State (and its representatives) from making abuse of power.

TL:DR? That was some idiocy across the entire courtroom - starting with the defendant.

TL;DR: Calling the condemned an idiot when you don't know his personal circumstances nor why he took the choices he did is deeply disrespectful, specially If, by doing so, you shift the focus of the criticism from a representative of the State who is making abuse of power, doesn't respect the condemned's Constitutional rights and ignores the separation between Church and State, SPECIALLY when we are talking about a JUDGE, who is required to have studied all of this in order to get his position.

Edited August 20, 2015 by Kiroen