Violation of the basic Constitution and Human Rights

[Ranma Tardis]

As a elected and sworn member of the 19 Representational Assembly do object to the elimination of the Mosque in Locus Amoenus. It is a clear violation of the PREAMBLE of our Constitution.

All branches of the government are bound to serve the public before themselves and to uphold the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, Founding Philosophy, Constitution, local laws, the SL ToS, and Community Standards without exception. Since it servers are location within the United States of America, a violation of the civil rights act of 1964. Also Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act) prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of dwellings based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Title VIII was amended in 1988 (effective March 12, 1989) by the Fair Housing Amendments Act, which:

The right to practice ones own religion without restraint is a guaranteed right. The fact that there were no Muslims during that time is nonsense. That it does not fit into the Covenants is more rubbish. We are a group of people who live for the people and government and not who has the most pretty sim. Picture how a Muslim would perceive such a ruling? What has been done is a very old trick used by racists throughout time. Yet I think it was a misunderstanding on the part of the officials and no malice was intended.

How this relates to me? Well I was effected by the fact it happened. I is very distressful to me as a person.

I am asking for a hearing of the Science council at the first opportunity.

Very Respectfully Submitted

Miss Ranma Tardis
Member 19th Representational Assembly
Confederation of Democratic Simulators

[Sudane Erato]

Whew! All of a sudden this post appears all over our forum. And I'm reading it and thinking... oh my, is the advanced age of my RL body causing a deterioration of my memory already?? Or is somehow the collective memory of the community being altered by repeated appearance of a modification of our experiences? It's all very muddlesome...

1) A fervent discussion was being held about the appearance and building standards in LA.

2) Note was made that among those buildings was one which was apparently a mosque, but which was equipped with a bell-tower (a standard Christian item) rather than a minaret (the appropriate Muslim item).

3) Note was made that indeed, quite understandably, Muslim people might object to a replica of one of their sacred buildings being equipped with such a prototypical Christian symbol.

4) Call was made for the building's removal, on the grounds that it might offend Muslims.

5) Before any action could be taken, the owner and creator of the build removed it.

Have I forgotten already the sequence of events here? Is my memory decaying? If not, where is the violation of human rights? Where is the violation of our Constitution, of the LL TOS, of Community Standards, of the laws of California, of seemingly every standard of human decency conceived in human culture? Unless my memory has vanished beyond retrieve, it seems to me that we have here a concern and respect for differing cultures and religions, a civilized discourse, and a resulting adjusting action which involved no action of our authorities whatsoever.

What is the issue here?

Sudane.....................................

[Callipygian]

Whew! All of a sudden this post appears all over our forum. And I'm reading it and thinking... oh my, is the advanced age of my RL body causing a deterioration of my memory already?? Or is somehow the collective memory of the community being altered by repeated appearance of a modification of our experiences? It's all very muddlesome...

Speaking as Calli, the reason Ranma posted twice - here and in the RA Discussion - was because I left her a note pointing out that if her intent was to invite comment from the populace it should be posted somewhere other than RA Discussion, which is a closed Forum.

Speaking as the Dean of the SC: I believe, as I explain in the SC Discussion thread, that this petition should go to the RA, not the SC. If that happens the members of the RA may want to discuss the petition amongst themselves so the double posting may end up being useful. While it is not for me to tell members of RA how to do their job, if this petition is presented to them I hope they DO discuss the petition here before taking it to a RA meeting since this will give them an opportunity to explore the issue and options transparently, and with time to consider and debate fully.

I would also encourage citizens to comment here, as you have, so that the members of the RA can form a clear picture of what occurred and consider all viewpoints; the challenges of meetings in SL due to time zones, chat lag, typing time, crashes and the distraction that occurs when citizens in attendance become disruptive, are not conducive to reasoned debate and decision making regarding this sort of issue.

Calli

[Ranma Tardis]

Whew! All of a sudden this post appears all over our forum. And I'm reading it and thinking... oh my, is the advanced age of my RL body causing a deterioration of my memory already?? Or is somehow the collective memory of the community being altered by repeated appearance of a modification of our experiences? It's all very muddlesome...

1) A fervent discussion was being held about the appearance and building standards in LA.

2) Note was made that among those buildings was one which was apparently a mosque, but which was equipped with a bell-tower (a standard Christian item) rather than a minaret (the appropriate Muslim item).

3) Note was made that indeed, quite understandably, Muslim people might object to a replica of one of their sacred buildings being equipped with such a prototypical Christian symbol.

4) Call was made for the building's removal, on the grounds that it might offend Muslims.

5) Before any action could be taken, the owner and creator of the build removed it.

Have I forgotten already the sequence of events here? Is my memory decaying? If not, where is the violation of human rights? Where is the violation of our Constitution, of the LL TOS, of Community Standards, of the laws of California, of seemingly every standard of human decency conceived in human culture? Unless my memory has vanished beyond retrieve, it seems to me that we have here a concern and respect for differing cultures and religions, a civilized discourse, and a resulting adjusting action which involved no action of our authorities whatsoever.

What is the issue here?

Sudane.....................................

Sundane it is a violation because it was targeted because it was a Mosque. As pointed out by the creator it is a normal type found on the Med. While it may not have been target because it is a Mosque it has that appearance. As for which laws were broken am a Civil Engineer and not a Civil Rights Lawyler. Lately the code enforcement people have gotten out of hand. We are a democracy and not a dictatorship of building critics. Again I brought this up of percieved prejudged in the demise of that Mosque.

[Rosie Gray]

Sundane it is a violation because it was targeted because it was a Mosque. As pointed out by the creator it is a normal type found on the Med. While it may not have been target because it is a Mosque it has that appearance. As for which laws were broken am a Civil Engineer and not a Civil Rights Lawyler. Lately the code enforcement people have gotten out of hand. We are a democracy and not a dictatorship of building critics. Again I brought this up of percieved prejudged in the demise of that Mosque.

The mosque was 'targeted' (removed) because it was out of covenant, nothing to do with religion. Indeed, we have other out of covenant issues all over the sims, and some extremely dated builds that have not been 'targeted', because someone hasn't decided to take them up as an issue.

As to the complaint about the minaret/tower - that was completely ungrounded, as we've seen, but isn't why the build was removed in the end.

All this squabbling about petty issues is really not helpful, and especially squabbling about what is on the LA sim since we are at the very same time deciding how to remake that very same sim. I am not pointing a finger at any one person here... just hoping that we can settle down and behave like adults in a cooperative manner.

Thanks!

[Ranma Tardis]

Sundane it is a violation because it was targeted because it was a Mosque. As pointed out by the creator it is a normal type found on the Med. While it may not have been target because it is a Mosque it has that appearance. As for which laws were broken am a Civil Engineer and not a Civil Rights Lawyler. Lately the code enforcement people have gotten out of hand. We are a democracy and not a dictatorship of building critics. Again I brought this up of percieved prejudged in the demise of that Mosque.

The mosque was 'targeted' (removed) because it was out of covenant, nothing to do with religion. Indeed, we have other out of covenant issues all over the sims, and some extremely dated builds that have not been 'targeted', because someone hasn't decided to take them up as an issue.

As to the complaint about the minaret/tower - that was completely ungrounded, as we've seen, but isn't why the build was removed in the end.

All this squabbling about petty issues is really not helpful, and especially squabbling about what is on the LA sim since we are at the very same time deciding how to remake that very same sim. I am not pointing a finger at any one person here... just hoping that we can settle down and behave like adults in a cooperative manner.

Thanks!

So why was it removed? Other than being perfect LA it fit the vast majority of the guildlines. Your insistence that the builds have to be perfect is destroying the CDS. I just back from Dallas after 8 hours of treatment to my skin and am not at all feeling dipomatic. Being too difucult for most people and it is losing money. I am going to propose returning LA to Linden Labs. Relocate residents to the other sims. Your rules have made building there for most people impossible. While being impressed with yourselfs. I can design (all aspects) of a good size dam or weir. Has do do with structual loads, loads on the surface plus a lot more. However I SUCK at making SL objects.

[Rosie Gray]

So why was it removed? Other than being perfect LA it fit the vast majority of the guildlines. Your insistence that the builds have to be perfect is destroying the CDS. I just back from Dallas after 8 hours of treatment to my skin and am not at all feeling dipomatic. Being too difucult for most people and it is losing money. I am going to propose returning LA to Linden Labs. Relocate residents to the other sims. Your rules have made building there for most people impossible. While being impressed with yourselfs. I can design (all aspects) of a good size dam or weir. Has do do with structual loads, loads on the surface plus a lot more. However I SUCK at making SL objects.

Dear Ranma, I'm so sorry to hear that you've had such problems with your health and I hope you feel better now.

I really do want you to understand why the mosque was removed - it was removed because it didn't fit the restrictive time parameters of the existing covenants in LA. Simply put, there was no Islam in ancient Roman times, so therefore there couldn't have been a mosque (the very first mosque built was the one in Mecca, in 622 AD). To me the removal of the mosque illustrates the very reason that we have all agreed to remake LA, and that includes changing the covenants to make them more flexible. Ancient Roman is just not that interesting for non-roleplaying people.

As to making builds perfect... well we must keep up somewhat with the way that the rest of Second Life has become. Many sims now you can go to have extraordinarily realistic buildings that rival the very best of 3D gaming. These are very attractive to people who want to immerse themselves in the SL world. I believe if we don't make efforts to do the best that we can, we will become smaller and smaller as a community, until there are only a tiny handful left. It's certainly not all about what the buildings look like, but the beauty of the sims is a big part of why a lot of people are there.

If you can't build what you want Ranma (certainly not everyone is a builder, and certainly most builders buy textures, or sculpties, or mesh components, or other things for their SL lives), there are many fine merchants that sell amazing things these days. Or, you could ask the guild to help you with refinements on a building you have, as I'm sure someone would be happy to assist. There are also some very nice buildings here and there in the sims for sale so there must be something that suits your taste, and most of them can be modified if you don't like the colour schemes etc.

For a project, if you feel like doing it, I for one would think it very interesting to have a weir somewhere in the CDS - a small one that would fit the scale of the riverlets etc. Maybe you could design one and I could build it with your guidance? Might be fun to do and make something interesting for the CDS. There might be someone else you'd rather work with that would be good too. Projects done together make SL much more enjoyable. I leave that idea with you.