Atheist In Lakeland FL Arrested For Making Sex Noises

[GhostWriter16]

The part I live in is definltely more backward than other parts of the country, as evidenced by all the KKK, skinheads and assorted rednecks. But at least we don't have a dingbat sheriff with clearly faulty morals like Polk County or Maricopa County in Arizona have.

First off... I was obviously kidding about Florida never being backward. I used to live there, and I love the state, so I sometimes have to pretend its perfect for the fun of it

What county do you live in?

 

[metatron]

I don't get the basketball debate. Basketball is roughly the most annoying sport ever and outright banning it in residential areas would improve everybodys quality of life.
Why can't racist "Conservatives" do something useful every once in a while?

Woman being an idiot: -1
Sherriff being an idiot: +1
Net Score for Athiests: 0

There is a difference between being an idiot in ones free time and being an idiot instead of doing ones job abusing the powers provided to do that job.

So between that and basketball being such an incredible annoyance it is:
Woman being justified: +1
Sherriff being a fascist: +127^127
Net Score for Athiests: +127^127 ... +1

What are we discussing here?

That the atheists in these stories are nutty troublemakers who need to get a life?

Or that they are being harassed for being nutty troublemaking atheists?

Troublemakers?

Wow. Referring to people who face completely unproportional punishment and/or badly warrented incarceration as "troublemakers" is such an ... interesting concept.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

She's an atheist, she probably lives at the park, under a bench or overpass. There she lies in wait to simulate sex noises at unsuspecting christians.

I like to sit inside trash cans and wait for schoolchildren to walk by me, and that's when I leap out of the trash can, dressed in drag, with a pentagram on my head, screaming "Fellatio! Fellatio! Fellatio!". Of course, I only do this to the Christian children, because that is what offends God the most.

It's what all atheists do. And then at night I return to my trash can, where I have polygamous bestial relations with a rabid squirrel and a diseased canine.

 

[Yeekim]

Faking an orgasm is a sacred act between one woman and one man within the confines of a marriage.

Thread won by 2nd post!

 

[ParkCungHee]

I have a question: Everyone seems to be assuming that the basketball hoops from prison necessitated bringing down basketball hoops from the prison. The article does not tell us this, so why is everyone assuming it?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Not sure what you are trying to get at here. Did they remove everything, not just the hoops themselves? Apparently so:

Polk Sheriff strips jails' basketball hoops and donates them to local churches

Bartow, FL -- Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd announced his decision to remove a variety of outdoor recreational equipment from Central and South County jails beginning today, after determining that local houses of worship deserve it more than inmates.

"Going to jail is not fun and games. If you want to play basketball, stay out of jail." -Sheriff Grady Judd.

Basketball goals, including backboards, rims, nets, and posts will be taken from the jails and will be given and installed at local churches. The transition began at 1:30 p.m. today at Central County Jail, located at 2390 Bob Phillips Road, Bartow, Florida.

The same equipment was then delivered to Turning Point Worship Center in Bartow for use by their church community. Deputies will also be giving out basketballs to go along with the new hoops.

The Following Eight Churches, who have expressed a need for basketball equipment for youth programs, will be receiving donated basketball goals and equipment from the Polk County Sheriff's Office in the coming weeks:

Word of Life Christian Center, Bartow, Pastor Kris Andrews
Believers Fellowship Church, Lakeland, Pastor Wayne Friedt
St. Paul Holiness Church, Winter Haven, Bishop James Cochran
Spurgeon (Spanish Catholic), Mulberry, Father Franklin
Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church, Lakeland, Pastor Stafford
First Haitian Church of the Nazarene (Inwood), Winter Haven, Reverend Brutus
New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church (Florence Villa) Winter Haven, Reverend O'Harroll

I wonder if these churches "expressed a need" for this equipment in the past? Or did they miraculously decide quite recently that they had this overwhelming urge to provide basketball equipment for their parishioners?

I also wonder why the Sheriff picked on this particular form of "fun and games". What other forms of recreation are still available to the inmates? Chess? Parcheesi? Poker? Dominoes? Golf? Polo? Hopscotch? Or are all "fun and games" now banned? Can't they all be given to needy Christian churches once those organizations have properly filed a coincidental unofficial request?

While tracking down exactly what was removed, I ran into this interesting editorial:

Does the Sun-Sentinel Hate Atheists?

Could the Sun-Sentinel's corporate overlords at Tribune Co. please explain why Barbara Hijek has a job? Could they please explain why a paper at which honest-to-goodness investigative reporters and serious editorialists were not long ago pressured into accepting a series of increasingly crappy buyouts is still ceding valuable front-page real estate to Hijek's odious blog, "FloriDUH," which exists to trivialize and make unfunny punch lines about serious and/or tragic news stories?

And why the hell is Hijek making snide comments about atheists? To my knowledge, atheists haven't made any snide comments about overemployed, undertalented bloggers. It seems unfair.

Today, the title of Hijek's blog was "Atheist woman charged with simulating sex act." Its target was Lakelander Ellenbeth Wachs. Wachs is legal coordinator of Atheists of Florida, and she was arrested Sunday for, ahem, "simulating sex acts in the presence of a 10-year-old boy." Which sounds bad, right?

Actually: Ellenbeth Wachs was inside her house. The kid was outside. He was playing basketball -- noisily, I assume -- and she wanted him to stop. So she made sex noises.

This is a weird tactic and not the one I'd employ. (I subscribe to the "Keep it down out there or I'll thump you" school of noisy basketball management.) But what if Ellenbeth had been having actual sex and just happened to be a screamer? Have you, dear reader, ever been with a screamer? Before consummating, did you scan the area around your home for errant 10-year-olds?

Probably not. (Most partners are scared off when a prospective lover initiates a precoital scan for prepubescents. It's a mood killer.) And since nobody does so, I assume this charge is almost certain to be dropped, just like the charge on which Wachs was arrested in March.

This twist in the story is one that Barbara Hijek elides -- she's just after a quick larf -- but let's go into it anyway. Ellenbeth Wachs is an attorney. As legal coordinator of Atheists of Florida, she has to write lots of letters. She is apparently in the habit of signing these letters "Esq.," as attorneys are wont to do.

Still, that "Esq." led to Wachs' arrest for impersonating an attorney. Why? Because she's retired.

Now Wachs has been arrested twice in three months -- the first time for appending her correspondence with three particular letters, the second time for having what sounded like sex in her own home. Which would be merely tragic and weird if it weren't for this complicating factor: For over a year, Wachs has been spearheading Atheists of Florida's efforts to moderate the overly cozy relationship between the churches and the governments of Polk County. (You can read about these battles here.) Suffice it to say: Wachs is profoundly unpopular in Lakeland and even less popular with the local fuzz.

So: Presented with a fair amount of circumstantial evidence that a Floridian is being targeted because of her civic activism and lack of religion and presented with a very clear case of law enforcement rudely violating a woman's right to sexual privacy, what does Barbara Hijek write?

FloriDUH's Headquarter's [sic] burning question: Do atheists ever gasp 'Oh God!' during sex?

Yes, Barbara Hijek, we do. Thanks for asking! Since we're on the subject, what do you gasp during sex?

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Not sure what you are trying to get at here. Did they remove everything, not just the hoops themselves? Apparently so:

Polk Sheriff strips jails' basketball hoops and donates them to local churches

I wonder if these churches "expressed a need" for this equipment in the past? Or did they miraculously decide quite recently that they had this overwhelming urge to provide basketball equipment for their parishioners?

I also wonder why the Sheriff picked on this particular form of "fun and games". What other forms of recreation are still available to the inmates? Chess? Parcheesi? Poker? Dominoes? Golf? Polo? Hopscotch? Or are all "fun and games" now banned? Can't they all be given to needy Christian churches once those organizations have properly filed a coincidental unofficial request?

While tracking down exactly what was removed, I ran into this interesting editorial:

Does the Sun-Sentinel Hate Atheists?

Great write up and an excellent response to those who keep asking why her being an atheist is being discussed in this thread. The reason it's being discussed is because it's relevant and the reason it's relevant is because it appears this woman is being directly targeted as a result of it. Being arrested and charged with "crimes" that would almost certainly get a warning, if that, were anyone else doing them.