Just to clarify, are you asking for cases of implied contract violations?
Yes, cases where donors won in court, and got their donations back.
Oh, that?
Loads.
For one example, look up Vaughn Reeves.
He swindled massive amounts (10 or 13 million) of donations from elderly for building Churches and then pocketed the money.
This was a 2010 case.
Last I read, he was serving a 50 some-odd year sentence.
That’s not an implied contract as I was using it though.
Because mine is more challenging; there’s no exchange of money.
Most implied contracts are civil cases between folks like you and me.
I was piecing the legal logic together in an argument as to why I think the case could be made even in the absence of monetary exchange; though I don’t believe any such legal suit as of yet exists regarding religious institutions.
I think I’m misunderstanding you Jay. Reeves doesn’t fit my question. His is investment fraud.
What I’m wondering is if ordinary donors to a church have been able to get their donations back when they discover their donations were misused.
In Jim Bakkers case, 160,000 were unable to reclaim their donations.
I’m not aware of any such case, but that also wasn’t my intention.
That’s a monetary concern; I wasn’t looking at monetary exchange and return, but the absence of such.
For example of what I’m referring to in the argument that I’ve laid out, imagine that I’m a guy that lives in your town.
Now imagine that I’ve spent my own money, we’ll imagine that I’m well off, to put together a weekend trip for kids.
I go over everything with you and you decide that it sounds great, and there’s no cost, so why not let the kids have some fun.
I take your kids out and they get hurt because I didn’t take any precautions for their safety.
If you took me to court, you would likely win that case because there was an implied contract of good faith that I had your child’s safety in mind, and therefore my neglect of such presents an instance of unjust enrichment because I got what I wanted (your kids), but you did not get what you wanted (your kids safely taking a camping trip).
I was using this same form of legal logic and applying it to spiritual advisers and leaders.
Got it. Thanks …
What became of the suit against the Baptist fundies who picket funerals?
Weatboro Baptist won 1st amendment rights. The guy that brought suit owes them over $16,000 for legal fees.
Yep,
So we can picket Westboro Baptist Church 24/7 and they can’t do jack shit.
And we can picket their funerals too.
Ex-members will do more damage to this hate group than picketing them : Banished: Lauren Drain
Play the odds in your favor. Don’t listen, or give money, to anyone claiming to speak for God.
Well, yeah. But that’s easy for us to say.
Whether or not we perceive it as the individual’s responsibility or not, do we want to be surrounded by people that are naive enough to follow perverted religious leaders who don’t have the safety of their adherents in mind when giving out prescriptions or advice?
Wouldn’t it be better to have a legal way to show and document the harmful perversions where they accure so that the level of naivety lessens by familiarity through example?
It would be nice indeed. But because of our constitution – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” – the law is touchy about religion.
Can I write and distribute a diatribe accusing the WB church of being diabolical without being sued for slander?
It depends. If it draws nationwide or worldwide media attention to WBC, no. Would it stick? Would they win? Not likely since I think it would be easy to prove that they are diabolical … but on second thought, considering we’re talking religion, even if crazy, maybe not.
But would you really want to get tangled up in that web? Have you seen the legal section on WBC on wiki? What an ugly mess. Even Capital Hill got involved.
WBC has only about 50 members. How did they garner worldwide attention? I’ll tell you how, and frankly.
By calling those that have given their life for America fudge packers and cock suckers.
My big question is, where is WBC coming by funding?
Both mainstream Baptist conventions have denounced them. So conventional funding isn’t available. Maybe the funding of WBC is diabolical.
I haven’t been able to find out about funding yet. But I would think a thread about Religion and Commerce would want to know enough to look into it. Maybe not.
Why be interested in a bunch of crazies? If we have that attitude this thread would only be called “Commerce.”
There’s no prohibition taking place.
There’s a legal process existing for the complaint of harm.
I do think that it’s wrong for a society to protect religious institutions at the expense of individual harm; that equally violates the Constitution.
The 9th Amendment:
And the 5th Amendment, if for no other obvious inheritance, grants that without due process, no Citizen is to be denied life, liberty, or property.
Which means that if we permit religious institutions to openly hurt people without leverage available legally to file claim against them for harm, then we have forfeited one right for another, when such is expressly outlined as not being permitted by our Constitution.
We each have rights, up until we harm each other without justified merit.
And to determine that justice, we have courts.
And taking religious institution individuals to court over harm doesn’t actually address the religion; it addresses the individual actions, as Jefferson stated:
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”
Also, Ierrellus can write as much as he wants about how evil any Church is.
It doesn’t matter what he writes, he has the freedom of speech to talk slander about any organization; the President or any religion.
They can attempt to sue for slander, but if such took place, I would make a Supreme Court case out of it immediately and demand that the First Amendment is recognized over the reputation and pride of any organization or individual; as not one such entity is outlined as sacred and unavailable for slander in the Constitution, and further, most of the founders of these American States were openly against any individual or organization being beyond the mark of scorn through the letter or speech.
Take a few of their views into consideration.
“Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.” - Benjamin Franklin
“We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition … In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.” - George Washington
“What influence, in fact, have religious establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.” - James Madison
And one of my favorites on this sort of matter:
“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.” - Benjamin Franklin
And I don’t mean to call upon the founders as the authority on the matter.
Instead, I mean only to refer to the mindset of those involved in shaping the original leaning of our liberties and rights.
I think it’s pretty logical and reasonable for religion to be left alone unless it harms someone.
The donation system gets around the harm claim. I can’t claim someone is harming me when I freely give to them.
And I already showed how harm can be noted even without any money.
Your citation shows that you can’t get money back; it says nothing about harm.
For an easy example, had David Koresh lived, he would have been thrown in jail for the harm he had caused; even if there hadn’t been the fight.
Unless a life is physically taken or sexual permission violated, however, people seem to have this idea that any harm caused by a negligent or perverted institution or leader is unavailable for legal pursuit.
I challenge this perception and assert that this is really not the case. The only thing stopping anything, really, is the lack of people attempting to take such cases to court - not for money, but for damages and harm.
It only takes one case to set the example, and I believe such legal logic exists to permit the obvious violation of societal security and respect to be counter-checked against those who conduct such.
It would help if we also had license
How freely are donations given? There is coercion. Can that amount to extortion?
Yes Ierrellus when the collection plate is handed to you there’s social pressure to put something into it.
And to the Bible literalists the Bible puts pressure to give 10% of salary.
And 10% can add up.
Take Westboro Baptist for example. Wiki says their traveling expenses is around $200,000 per year. Well with only around 50 members how much donations per person would it take to cover these expenses?
Working the math reveals that each member would have to donate $77.00 per week. If each member is giving 10% of salary they would have to make $770.00 per week, or around $20.00 an hour, with a 40 hr week. How do they do it?
They do it because they are fanatics … so by hook and crook. These’s are their pressures for donations.
Here’s another form of finances for Westboro Baptist church :
Nate (son) says Fred Phelps saw an opportunity with the passing of the Civil Rights Act to cash in. “There was a lot of money, and a lot of opportunity,” he says. “And suddenly my father was the man to go to.”
However in private Fred Phelps called blacks DNs … or Dumb Niggers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9913463/My-father-the-hate-preacher-Nate-Phelps-on-escaping-Westboro-Baptist-Church.html