I have contacted them through their website with just these concerns. I hope others here will join me in expressing these concerns.

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Never Forget to Pray!

“...prayer itself is an art which only the Holy Ghost can teach us. He is the giver of all prayer. Pray for prayer—pray till you can pray; pray to be helped to pray, and give not up praying because you cannot pray, for it is when you think you cannot pray that you are most praying. Sometimes when you have no sort of comfort in your supplications, it is then that your heart—all broken and cast down—is really wrestling and truly prevailing with the Most High.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, from the pamphlet, “Effective Prayer”

quote:

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Originally posted by Tallbill:
If the story is accurate, however, the new law also outlaws Christian witnessing, because it would make it illegal to be the instrument through which another experiences substantial emotional distress.

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How do you figure that? I'm sure people can accuse witnessing Christians of harassing them but it probably could be avoided to some extent.

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However, the Bible also says that the spirit of the world hates the Word. We should expect people to feel threatened by us, because we carry the message of Christ.

When laws are passed that limit what people can and can't say, those laws need to be carefully crafted so as not to put limits on the spreading of the Gospel.

That said, many Christians (myself included) see the end of the world as marked by a one-world government which outlaws Christianity, and see "Megan's Law" as a pre-cursor to such a government.

The Levitical laws would most-likely hold the woman who "posed" as a boyfriend accountable for the death of the girl, but not imprison her, or put her to death. Under the Levitical laws, the family of the deceased girl would receive financial compensation from the woman posing as a boyfriend. The woman posing as a boyfriend would also have to make a guilt offering (give an animal to a priest to sacrifice.) She would not be put to death because her intention was not to harm the girl, just to deceive her to get information out of her. However, she might be stoned to death or driven from the camp for posing as a man.

Under the laws of the U.S., the family of the dead girl has the right to sue the woman who expediated their daughter's suicide. But passing a law that no one can harrass anyone is unrealistic.

quote:

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A state lawmaker has questioned how state law could be altered without running afoul of First Amendment issues.

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So if state lawmakers are questioning the constitutionality of the issue, then it suggests that the law may not be legally strong. The real question is, will any high court uphold such a law as constitutional? It depends on how it is worded. There are laws against slander, libel, and defamation of character, but none of those violate our freedom of speech. They simply impose consequences for speech that causes damage and infringes on another person's right to the pursuit of happiness. Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom from consequence.

All that said, I think "substantial emotional distress" is not really quantifiable, and it would be rather difficult to prove it in any case but a suicide clearly related to harassment.

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The Life is in the Blood.

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[This message has been edited by blendenzo (edited November 26, 2007).]

quote:

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Originally posted by CPUFreak91:
How do you figure that? I'm sure people can accuse witnessing Christians of harassing them but it probably could be avoided to some extent.

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When I am witnessing online, I constantly get attacked and accused—usually by people that I am not even addressing. This says—at one and the same time—that I am not harassing them (since I am not even addressing them), and that they are experiencing substantial emotional distress (since they are even being driven to accuse someone who wasn't even talking to them). Megan's Law gives those accusers an avenue through which they might even incarcerate someone like me.

While such things are to be expected in the Christian life, the Bible does not say that we are not to make an effort to block such tactics if such blocking is legally available to us. Something needs to be done about this law before someone gets wrongly incarcerated.

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Never Forget to Pray!

“...prayer itself is an art which only the Holy Ghost can teach us. He is the giver of all prayer. Pray for prayer—pray till you can pray; pray to be helped to pray, and give not up praying because you cannot pray, for it is when you think you cannot pray that you are most praying. Sometimes when you have no sort of comfort in your supplications, it is then that your heart—all broken and cast down—is really wrestling and truly prevailing with the Most High.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, from the pamphlet, “Effective Prayer”

Of course I'm thinking what the heck is she doing on her cell phone entering a busy and potentially dangerous section of interstate!

Likewise, why does a 13 yr old need a myspace account and why would it be acceptable for her to be talking with a 16 yr old boy online who might 'like' her?

I'm not defending the mom down the street either, I think her twisted game was disgusting.

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