Nickolai

But homosexuality is not a matter of morality raping ones Daughter is

Common_Sense_Matters

To the ultra conservative homosexuality is a matter of morality, which much of these Trump supporters are ultra conservative.

Rose42

To Christians it is. Christians can be liberal or conservative.

Richard Rowland

Give it time!

Common_Sense_Matters

Many Christians do not have a problem with homosexuals/homosexuality. Many Christians leave it to god to judge those he feels are sinners.

Ridge Runner

There is not enough punishment for this horrible behavior. The immediate pain and suffering pales into comparison to the socially dysfunctional the young lady might suffer over her life.

Kazudy

Since the beginning.

Common_Sense_Matters

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

Funny, I could have sworn the Colonists brought Christianity to the Americas. Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps the native Americans brought it over, though I doubt even they were here in the beginning. I am pretty sure I heard something about how they likely migrated here across the Bering Strait.

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

Perhaps you mean from the beginning of a country called the United States of America governing that region. If that is the case then yes, you would be correct though what "looking away" might be done in some areas... It is rumored that incest runs rampant through the south/the bible belt, how true or false those rumors may be would be dependent on the area in question and it's "customs" I suspect.

Of course incest is not strictly limited to the South/bible belt (if it even really happens there with the frequency claimed), it occurs elsewhere in the world and in time throughout the ages. Kings and queens throughout the ages have been a product of the sport of "incest is best, put your sister to the test". It stems from the fact that royalty begets royalty. It was discouraged for royalty to wed outside of their "station". It was unheard of for royalty to marry non-royal blood and sometimes it was hard to find royal blood lines you had no relation to as travel was slow, tedious and somewhat dangerous in that time and so getting out beyond the reaches of where your ancestors got out to to find someone to marry that had absolutely no relation to you sometimes proved quite difficult. There was very much marrying cousins of varying degrees of distance. Even marrying of aunts and uncles even, again, of varying degrees of distance.

Incest even appears in the bible itself. The story of sodom and gomorrah, after the two cities were destroyed, when the family was traveling to find a new place to settle, after the wife was turned to a pillar of salt. The story claims that the daughters became lonely and wanted for the touch of a man and so they got their father drunk and seduced him. That is as the story goes, I have my own beliefs in what is more likely to have been the case. It is very well known that in that time frame, only men were to be believed as women were considered to be dishonest by nature so if the story of a man contradicted the story of a woman/women, the man was believed and the women scorned.



So yes, you are right, there ARE laws against incest even in the bible belt, just how well they are adhered to, that can only be left to speculation. Remember, Jerry Lee Lewis married his first cousin once removed even though in most states, you are not to marry anything closer than your second cousin. Yes, in most states it is legal to marry your second cousin, most don't but...

woodguru

A liberal would have given him life in prison you fool, only a god fearing judge would have gone light because of his "good works".

Use you brain and common sense.

Kazudy

Planned Parenthood and the L**T, two of Satan's great achievements in America with help from a political party.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Steven W. Sword is a judge for the Knox County Criminal Court in the 6th Judicial District, which presides over Knox County, Tennessee. He was appointed by Governor Bill Haslam and assumed office on August 1, 2011. Sword was then elected to the court in 2012, and re-elected on August 7, 2014. His current term ends in 2022.

Haslam is a republican..
Sword ran unopposed in the 2014 e******n and when you look at what he supposedly supports you would think he would have been Stronger in his Sentencing...

Common_Sense_Matters

That is kind of PeterS' point here. Yes, the judge IS a republican, yes, the judge gave out far too lenient of a sentence and yes, the reasoning for that far too lenient of a sentence was BECAUSE of the fact that he is an Evangelical Republican first and a judge second.

Many Republican judges judge their cases with their biases in the forefront and the law takes a back seat. The defendant was a church pastor so he MUST be a good guy, let's go lenient on him. In fact, when the judge passed sentence he made a point to point that out.



Fair and balanced reporting, stating only the facts of the matter. No editorializing, no emotion.



Biased reporting, stating the facts, but also adding opinion in the way of editorializing and attempting to trigger emotions. now let us examine the motives behind this emotional reporting.

"In a despicable miscarriage of justice" - would anybody reading https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2019/05/09/former-pastor-nets-12-year-prison-term-rape-adopted-daughter-david-lynn-richards/1143006001/ (a fair and balanced article) argue that what happened WASN'T a "despicable miscarriage of justice"? Probably not, but we don't need our thoughts or feelings fed to us, do we? Let us continue then.

"to only 12 years in prison" - While the use of the added word "only" in that statement is an extremely mild form of pushing emotions, the word was not needed to complete that statement nor to convey the message, it was added to pull on heart strings.

"severity and heinous nature of the crimes" - If these words were said in the actual courtroom, which I can not say with authority but I suspect they were, as is the nature of attorneys to pull heart strings to get their desired outcomes, then they most certainly belong in the article, otherwise, they should be left out.

"but Judge Steven Sword felt otherwise" - Very gray area here, we know by the content of the article that "the judge felt otherwise", did we need the reminder and in such a mild bias revealing way?v By the author writing it the way that he did, he is telling us that he doesn't agree with what the judge did. Some of us prefer the facts and would prefer that the editorializing be left to the Editorials/Opinions page.

"showing sympathy and empathy for the rapist, while minimizing the human suffering caused by" - Anyone feeling any tugs somewhere in or around the chest region here? We can see for ourselves by the sentence passed down that the judge was being sympathetic and empathetic towards pastor Richards here and in contrast, by and because of this, he was basically "minimizing the human suffering caused by" at the same time with that very same gesture, did we need it spelled out for us?

"the rapist and incestuous p*******e" - Did anyone not catch the fact that this man was a "rapist and incestuous p*******e" by the facts surrounding this case? Perhaps we didn't need this language here then.

There, that covers the Bias shown in that excerpt from the Patheos article. Does everyone agree that I dissected the bias properly? Was that bias necessary to convey the facts? Did that bias change how we should feel about the facts of the case or merely reinforce them? While all too often, some if not all media outlets will perhaps show a varying degree of bias in their reporting or in what they choose to report on, as ling as it doesn't change the WAY we feel about the facts being presented, it isn't usually causing much harm. If the bias CHANGES how we feel about the facts, that is spin and that IS harmful. Spin causes people to be mis-informed, their view points get skewed by the spin, they feel differently about the same facts as they might have if the spin were not applied.

Over all, do we feel that in this case on the limited quote that I pulled from the article that Patheos was attempting to spin or to merely boost what we were already likely to feel about the facts?


As the first quote, from the local paper in the area of that trial points out, the judge was biased by his Evangelical faith and favored the pastor, the defendant in that case, he gave him far too light of a sentence BECAUSE of his own bias. That was wrong, but as I pointed out earlier, it happens fairly frequently with religious judges, the more extreme the religion, the more extreme the bias and Evangelicals are one of the more extreme Christian faiths. Religion should be left in the office as soon as they don the robe, they can pick up their religion at the end of the day when they removed the robe and head home.

promilitary

Not because of Jesus. Because of the i***t judge.