Having failed to convince a Florida judge that Bully is a public nuisance, controversial attorney Jack Thompson has a new tactic in what seems to be a never-ending crusade against the game.
Thompson's latest approach is that the game's boy-kissing scenes are essentially porn, thus making Bully illegal to sell to minors. Although Thompson does not use the P-word, the statute he cites would generally relate to such material.
In a letter sent yesterday to several major retailers, Thompson writes:
"It turns out that the school violence simulation game Bully also contains homosexual activity between the game’s hero, Jimmy Hopkins, and other male students."
"It is my legal opinion that the sale of this game to minors, which is presently occurring at your stores in Florida, violates Florida’s 'Sexual Material Harmful to Minors Statute,' Florida Statute 847.102. Each such sale to a minor constitutes a separate felony."
"Such sales are occurring to children of all ages because of the game’s wholly inappropriate “Teen” rating, as opposed to the 'Mature' rating it deserves..."
GP offers a couple of points here:
First, the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said that pornography is hard to define, "but I know it when I see it." We agree, and we're definitely not seeing it with Bully's silly boy-kissing scenes.
Next, the statute Thompson is referring to is 847.012, and this is what it says (GP has taken the liberty if adding "no" where Bully does not meet the statutory requirement):
"It is unlawful for any person knowingly to sell, rent, or loan for monetary consideration to a minor:
In case you are wondering, kissing doesn't qualify as "sexual conduct" under Florida law. For that definition, click here.
Comments
It is okay when two girls kiss....but two guys...that is disgusting and offensive!
"Mr. Thompson? You need to come out of the closet right now, sir!"
I think some old testament book in the Bible denounces homosexuality (or can be translated as such). IIRC, it also denounces things like rabbits in the same book.
Anyone got a link to that .gif that was in the forums a couple months ago?
Allowing schools to introduce homosexual topics in elementary school, or middle school, is just not the right place. Such children have no conception of what sexuality is, nor what the significance of it is. High School should introduce homosexuality into its sexual education courses, however.
Some people just don't want to acknowledge such behaviour as acceptable, which is their right, so long as it causes no harm to said persons.
http://objection.mrdictionary.net/go.php?n=1409764
*ahem* Aaaanywaaaaay...all this is a sign that Jack Thompson is getting desperate. The violence angle is falling flat rapidly with the press and official government censorship boards (like in Austrailia) are really seeing Bully for what it is, a satire on high school life where the characters are more caractures of high school than true to life characters. There's no blood in the game, and there's really nothing objectionable that requires an M rating for the game.
Jack is losing, and he's getting desperate.
Ummm hasn't Jack's other favorite game the Sims had same sex kissing since the Sims first came out years ago??? If Jack was so soncerned about "teh nekkedivity" in the Sims which was proven false, why wasn't he so concerned about about the kissing in the Sims?
Why wasn't he concerned when that episode of Rosanne had a woman kissing Rosanne -- on the public air waves!!!!! Or that time on Star Trek DS9 when Dax and a woman made out -- on the public airwaves!!!!!
Maybe, just maybe Jack is a bit biased against Bully and is grasping at straws in his attempt to get it censored??? My legal opinion says yes. (since the phrase "my legal opinion" is totally meaningless because it is legal for anyone to have an opinion, I'm going to use it whenever Jack is the topic of conversation.)
This reeks of desperate...
Does anybody else find it ironic that he himself is a bully?
We all know Guilty Gear does that.
An accusation of homophobia is not an assertion that that person suffers from mental illness, so your accusation of hypocrisy is entirely groundless. It's an accusation of irrational fear. Also, if you'll consult the dictionary you'll find that a phobia is also synonymous for a strong aversion or atavistic reaction to something...such as the "disgust" you mention. In any case, the key descriptor is -irrational-, the point being that people disapproving of or reacting with disgust, fear, or hatret to homosexuality are being accused of doing so without the backing of either rational or empirical evidence.
@Benji
Again, there isn't enough here for a successful charge of defamation. Due to our free speech protections the standards that have to be met to prove defamatory speech are very high, and there are a lot of exceptions. The simplest one that's relevant here is simply that you can't be guilty of libel or slander by stating your opinion. That Thompson -thinks- male-male kissing is harmful to minors is his opinion and is therefore protected. Now if he made specific factual claims about the nature of the homosexual content of the game (which he hasn't, he's simply stated that there's "homosexual activity" which is true, strictly speaking) and they were proved to be A) false and B) made with foreknowledge that they were false AND the intent to cause harm, then -maybe- he could be sued.
So I guess we should sue the various tv shows that have had male-on-male kissing...
Actually, that particular irony has been pointed out more than 5.7 billion times by about 200 million posters on this board over the last 4 millenia.
@brer:
Yup. One only needs to use this wonderful new site that just opened last week called "wikipedia" to both learn what homophobia means and learn that Jack Thompson is one. As Jack Thompson has said before "I may not be a smart man, but I know what homophobe means, and I sure as hell am one!".
I think it's just sad that he keeps on going after Bully when the battle has so clearly been lost. On the plus side, Jack refusing to give up and move on just means a greater chance of the Bully war destroying all credibility he has left with everyone, which just means less Jack for us in the future, and I think we can all agree that that's a good thing.
http://gaygamer.net/index.php?id=1689
And since JT usually associates himself with major left or right wingers like Hilary Clinton, I'm pretty sure that being anti-gay isn't going to help his case with these "allies"
So basically now JT has only one group of allies to fall back on... the religious right.
And considering that the amount of conservatives becoming moderates increases everyday, I would think his allies are going to be dwindling
I think like many others have said, Bully will be Thompson's undoing, because frankly he bit off more than he could chew. So he's searching for something...anything about Bully that will get it off the shelves. I believe that at the least when this is all said and done, Jack Thompson will come out of this sans-dignity.
-Auto
On a side note, if JT thinks MK having the ability to create him is bad, I wish One Piece grand adventure had it to. If for nothing else then the ability to hit JT with this move everytime he does something stupid. To see the move in question, go to Youtube, and search for Gum Gum Cannon. It should be the first thing it finds.I'd link, but my office doesn't allow youtube use. Anyway, Jt should be grateful all the gamers do to him is make digital versions of him to vent there anger on. Lord knows he's safer with that then if they actually chose to go after him themselves, least, if he belives the things he says, we should all be hyper violent murders.
So how is it that he's still alive if he's made hundreds of thousands of homicidal enemies? Bit of a hole in his logic, isn't it.
Some have speculated that perhaps JT was a victim of bullying when he was in school...personally I think it's more likely that his son is getting the brunt of it. How'd you like to get up every morning knowing that you have to go to a place where (figuratively) everyone there hates your dad? I bet that poor kid gets harassed and bullied on an hourly basis. I've always wondered how he really feels about his dad's bullshit, but I'll probably never know. Then again, maybe HE doesn't know, either.
Remember a while back how he railed against Postal 2? One of his arguments was that the game was anti-gay and prejudice against the homosexual community, due to the fact that one level had a gay bar you could go to (and rampage through, etc.). He raved about how the publishers of Postal 2 were targetting homosexuals for violence and inciting anti-gay behavior.
He really is just a whore who'll try anything to get his agenda carried out.
man this guy's an idiot...
I think the accusation he made was battery, not sexual assault.
If I remember correctly he was more concerned in trying to convince people that you could use The Sims to fulfill all your darkest pedophilic fantasies. Or was that Sims 2? Even if it wasn't an EA game (a company I have no interest in supporting anymore) I'm not much of a Sim* gamer (not since SimEarth was a new release, anyway) and so haven't followed the accusations there too closely.
If this isnt slander,defamation and libel all in one i seriously do not know what is at this point,im kinda also wishing someone just outrigth stab him ina back alley somewheres and end his miserable existance.
Sure being a uneducated bigot fundamantalist is one thing since most folks ignore them anyway but intentionaly harming others indirectly though his warped view of law is entirely another.I love freedom of speech but i hate those who intentionaly use it to cuase harm to others.will some drunk driver just hit jack and put him out of our hair already >.>.
ps:why is it we seem to have freedom of speeech and yet freedom of art doesnt exist >.> .
If said reason for "banning" this game is such acts..
What about loony toons? Bugs bunny probally kissed more men then jacks mind could even fathom. Daffy went as far as kissing even hitler.
If we end up banning Bully then loony toons must also be banned. (infact it is even more violent then most games out there now. )
This part seemed kind of interesting to me. Do video game companies and/or the ESRB usually inform retailers about what's in a game? I'm guessing at best the retailer looks at a brief description and the rating. Thompson uses the term "fraudulent" and "deceptive", neither of which are true, because no one ever claimed that Bully didn't have homosexual content.
“now that we know that it contains not only high levels of unpunished violence”
Whos We? Got a Turd in your Pocket?
That aside, I Thessalonians 5:26 allows this behavior, as it states "Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss."
Do video game companies and/or the ESRB usually inform retailers about what’s in a game?
Remember the rating did include "sexual content". That covers things like kissing. Even homosexual kissing. Some stuff you just assume people won't get anal retentive about. Does the ESRB inform retailers that you can see women's ankles in the game? No. Do they inform the retailers that the main character has a single parent? No. How about what religion the main character practices? Some stuff reaches the realm where it becomes absurd to detail on the back of the box.
Maybe it's a sign of the times that the ESRB can consider gay kissing as benign and commonplace as regular kissing, and it's also a sign that someone like JT just can't let it go. Cripes, is he the kind that marches in protest just because a teacher is of the homosexual persuasion? Judging by his past clashes with Reno, highly likely.
It just puts him more and more in the category of "out of touch". Doomed to be marginalised by those who come after him.
JACK THOMPSON IS NOTHING MORE THAN A HATE MONGER AND NEEDS TO STFU if someone can send me a link to where i can e-mail him, i know a ton of people over in san francisco that are gay rights activitst that'll tear him apart.
Well, isn't Jack lucky that he lives on the other side of the country from San Francisco.
"If this isnt slander,defamation and libel all in one"
That would be rather difficult. Slander and Libel are two different -types- of the broader category "defamation". Slander is -spoken- defamation (or more technically in any non-permanent media, I think) whereas Libel is in some more permanent form of media such as print, film, website, etc. I don't like to be pedantic but since the topic comes up about once every other thread we should be clear on what the words mean.
@Benji
In general, titles (specifically the precedents I'm finding refer to newspaper headlines) aren't considered sufficient grounds for a libel action. The defamatory claim has to be in the "meat" of the document in question. Even in the one or two cases where the court's found that the headline alone proves grounds (cf Kaelin v. Globe Communications Corp. in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals), if the claim is modified in the body (as it is in Thompson's letter) then that has to be taken into account as well.
In short I'll stand by my previous statement that there isn't enough here for a successful suit.