Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
From: dennis.l.erlich@support.com
Subject: 1st Amendment argument fr
Message-ID: <9507300929.0DCBW00@support.com>
References: <1995Jul30.105855.7220@schbbs.mot.com>
Organization: L.A. Valley College Public BBS (818)985-7150
X-Mailer: TBBS/PIMP v3.35
Distribution: world
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 95 09:29:51 -0700
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Brett6@ix.netcom.com (Brett)

>Here's a snippet from the June 23 hearing in which Dennis
>Erlich's attorney addresses the fundamental issue in this
>dispute:  the 1st Amendment right to criticize a powerful
>and vindictive organization who attempts to use its power to
>silence its critics through the legal devices of trade
>secrets, copyrights, and punishing court suits. It's so well
>expressed that I had to post it separately so that no one
>missed it as the length and complexity of this hearing could
>have put some off especially all of our Scientology friends
>here on ARS:

               +--------------------------------+

Harold McElhinny:
>	If you know that a fraud is being committed on
>people and you know that if you could show their internal
>documents and if you could show their diaries, if you could
>show  what is at the end of the road, what's the great
>secret, that  people would say, "God.  I am the not going to
>go near that  place." You would be exposing a fraud and
>certainly  doing a public service.  Many hundreds of people
>have tried to do the  same public service with this church,
>and Mr. Erlich feels very, very strongly, because of way he
>spent his life, that he has a duty to do that.  He is
>engaged in a mission.  And  under  the  First Amendment to
>the Constitution, he has a right to do that.
                 
    That's what they taught me in shool.  In the '60s I watched 
    what happened at Kent State and wondered.

>             We need him to do that.  Our society is  built
>on individuals expressing their First Amendment rights, and
>history teaches us, from the publishers in Boston, that the
>entrenched, the rich, the people who do not want criticism,
>consistently come forward and use, attempt to use, the
>courts of this country to stop that.
>
>            They call it libel, they call it copyright.
>They  take their collections and they copyright each
>individual page  so that somebody can say it's each
>individual page, not the  collection, and you're doing it.
>They come up with legal  strategies so that they will not be
>criticized.  That's inappropriate and it's inappropriate in
>this case.  If the church is what it is, it will survive
>Dennis  Erlich's criticism.
                       
    The cult knows it cannot survive in the light of day.  It 
    must destroy me.

>	But if Your Honor silences Dennis Erlich, if Your
>Honor enters injunctions against Netcom, if Your Honor cuts
>off the people who want to open the debate and leave the
>floor to the church, then free speech doesn't survive.

    I was really moved by Harold's words.  This is a correct
    characterization of what I'm doing on ars.  It was gratifying
    to hear it come from someone else's mouth.

    Thanks, Harold.

            +--------------------------------------+
           Rev. Dennis L Erlich  * * the inFormer * *
      dennis.l.erlich@support.com  +  inForm@primenet.com
                           "tar baby"