I’m agnostic most of the time, and atheist a couple of times a month, but I retain some old Catholic School training.
If a nun should attack me now, I would block her, but not counter-punch. I think that’s more than fair. I’ll protect myself, but assaulting religious people seems wrong and I have hope I could reason with them.
It’s an old-fashioned approach to life. Maybe the new way is to whack a priest with a tire iron if you don’t like the way he looks. At least, that’s the impression I get from reading the statements of a marine-reservist’s lawyer. The marine badly beat up a Greek Orthodox priest who asked him for directions.
The offensive– in more than one sense of the word-legal defense strategy seems in some ways even worse than the physical violence. The accused marine might not have been in his right mind. He seems to have some emotional, and possibly drug problems. Maybe no one ever taught him how to block, so when the priest tapped him on the shoulder he went on the attack.
I don’t know about the lawyer. Because he’s doing the verbal equivalent of a tire-iron job. He says the priest sexually assaulted the marine while screaming slogans and acting like a terrorist. I think when a sobered-up ex-marine sits in the courtroom he will have second thoughts about who he chose to represent him.
This incident started in a parking garage. Maybe they had cameras. That would be interesting.
Recurring Nightmare 
That is one strange story.
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Nancy,
I just heard about this, so perhaps I’m a bit late to join the conversation but maybe the guy has PTSD. Kate wonders if the Greek Orthodox priest was wearing a funny hat and so gave the impression of being a terrorist. I feel old and think have we as a species really evolved?
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Mary, the Marine was never deployed, which is not to say he couldn’t have PTSD, because a lot of things happen right here. My impression is that he was mentally troubled.
If you are on such a tight leash that you will put a guy in the hospital for asking directions then you should be in some kind of custody.
I’m more bothered by his lawyer, who is presumably sane. He’s calling the priest, who was a guest in our country, a terrorist, a sexual predator and an assailant.
If you read the article, the priest in his hospital bed was willing to forgive, but totally astounded by the things he was accused of by the guy who bashed his head in.
In the sixties you could get your head bashed in for wearing a funny hat, or growing a beard. Is that the America we want to be?
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I agree that he is mentally unstable. I took away the same thoughts as Ninjanurse.
Our country is becoming very scary. As far as the lawyer…well, many of the litigators are far reaching and some are great story plotters like Attorney/author Andrew McAleer.
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