Talk:United States Supreme Court cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses

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This article was nominated for deletion on 26 October 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

A fact from United States Supreme Court cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on October 31, 2007.

Contents 1 Question for the Author 2 Nomination of this article for deletion 2.1 AFD process 3 Speedy deletion of this article 4 Need for an expert 5 POV

[edit] Question for the Author

Hmm...could you please explain how what you intend to put here is different from the contents of this article? Would you consider adding this content there instead? --jonny-mt(t)(c) 06:32, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I can see why you would think that there would be overlap between this article and [[Controversies_regarding_Jehovah's_Witnesses. I envision that this article will talk about the legal struggles of the JW's in the US and other countries to protect their religious freedoms. To be sure, every Supreme Court case involving the JWs involved discussion of one or more of the Beliefs and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses but this article isn't primarily about the beliefs and practices of the JWs. It is about the civil liberties (freedom of religion, press and speech) that were at issue in the Supreme Court cases. Thus, these cases were brought by the JWs but they are about liberties for everyone, not just the JWs. This is why the ACLU often joined forces with the JWs in many of these cases. I am already thinking that this article should be renamed to Jehovah's Witnesses and civil liberties so as to cover all civil liberties, not just religious freedom.

--Richard 07:07, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I just found the article on Jehovah's Witnesses and governments. I guess this article could fit in there except that the structure of that article doesn't lend itself to what I have in mind. I think my vision of this article is to expand on the "United States" section of the [[Jehovah's Witnesses and governments article. This article could be a subsidiary article of that one.

--Richard 07:14, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

There's also Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses and Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States to consider.

There's also Supreme Court cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses which is an article whose scope I don't particularly like. However, we need somehow to figure out how to integrate all these as seamlessly as possible.

--Richard 08:11, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nomination of this article for deletion

• I strongly feel that the intention of creating this non-notable item, as a separate page (WP:NNC) meant for some other reason. The article may be redirected to any other Jehovah witness related pages under a special sub-category and also an expert may look into it. I therefore am suggesting this for deletion or re-directed in accordance. We don’t need this page anymore. Thank you. --Avinesh Jose 08:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

• • So... we disagree. Are you planning to take your AFD nomination any further? At this point, it is stalled out because you have not created a page on which to have the AFD discussion. Until you do so, the AFD process is stalled out. Consult WP:AFD for instructions on how to complete the AFD process. It's a fairly simple 3-step process and the AFD template that you inserted at the top of the article also tells you what to do. I would do it but I think it's more educational for you if you learn how to do it.
  • As for notability, Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone wrote, "The Jehovah's Witnesses ought to have an endowment in view of the aid which they give in solving the legal problems of civil liberties."
  • It is my intent to change the title of this article to Jehovah's Witnesses and civil liberties in the United Statess. However, it is considered bad form to rename an article while it is under AFD so I'm waiting for the AFD process to complete. However, it cannot complete because you haven't finished the startup process.
  • --Richard 14:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AFD process

• The three steps already done:WP:AFDTo list a single article for deletion for the first time, follow this three-step process:

Step 1) Put the deletion tag on the article, Status: Done

Step 2) Create the article's deletion discussion page : Status: Done (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_and_civil_liberties check here)

Step 3) Notify users who monitor AfD discussion.: Status: Done that part is available in the article discussion page,

then tell me where else I am wrong?...--Avinesh Jose 06:26, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, the first thing that you have done wrong is that you have failed to read the article again as I requested of you on your Talk Page or, if you have done so, you have failed to recognize that this is actually an indisputably encyclopedic and notable topic.

Without disparaging the fact that you are from India, I would like to point out that being from India makes you less competent to determine what is a notable topic from the perspective of U.S. law than a resident of the United States such as myself. To make clear that this is not an attack on your being Indian, I readily admit that you are probably more competent to determine notability about a topic of U.S. law than I am to determine notability of a topic of Indian law. That having been said, you should perhaps have a bit of humility about asserting the notability or non-notability of a topic related to U.S. law.

However, that's not where your procedural failing is. You seem to be having trouble understanding the procedure for nominating an article for deletion. I'll explain the details on your --Talk Page .

--Richard 06:39, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

• • The signature of wikipedia is “anyone can edit”. It doesn’t mean that an American only can edit stuff related to American laws. An expert can edit it, no matter where he from. I attacked your subject because you created this as a separate page See: (WP:NNC) which you not suppose to do. Again I am saying that you should place this under any other “jw” pages, not here. This is not the right place. --Avinesh Jose 08:28, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Richard has more patience than I: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jehovah's Witnesses and civil liberties.--chaser - t 08:31, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

To Avinesh Jose, in case it isn't obvious, you can monitor the progress of the AFD discussion at the discussion page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richardshusr (talk • contribs) 09:00, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

To Chaser, thanks, I guess. I was hoping that AvineshJose would take this opportunity to learn how to nominate an article for deletion but I guess that will have to wait for another time.

To Avinesh Jose, I am not saying that only an American can edit stuff related to American laws. I am saying that a non-American who is not an expert in U.S. law should be a little more humble about asserting what is and is not notable. I am not an expert in U.S. law either and I would gladly defer to such an expert as long as his username is not Essjay. (inside joke)

I also point out that you have not been part of this community very long and have fewer than 500 edits, many of which were image uploads which were later challenged. In contrast, I have been here over a year and a half and have made over 11,000 edits. I am also an admin so I think I can safely say that I understand notability and Wikipedia policy at least as well as you do, maybe even a little bit more than you.

I think you are misinterpreting WP:NNC. I don't think it says what you think it says. There are quite a number of articles on Jehovah's Witnesses. Just look at Category:Jehovah's Witnesses and Category:Beliefs and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't see the basis by which you argue that the contents of this article should be merged into another article. This article would give almost any other article indigestion.

Now, I do confess that there may be some issues with this article and its current title. I am puzzling over how to reconcile this article against Jehovah's Witnesses and governments and Supreme Court cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses. If you look at those two articles, you will see that there is no easy way to merge this article into either of those. But you will probably see that there is overlapping scope amongst the three. I'm open to suggestions on how to resolve this problem.

If you think that this article should be merged into another article, you are welcome to make that proposal via Wikipedia:Proposed mergers which is the appropriate process for proposing a merger of two or more articles. Nominating an article for deletion via WP:AFD is not the appropriate process. I know this may seem like a lot of extra bureaucracy but that's the way things are done here and you'll be less frustrated if you take the time to learn how to get things done.

Hope this helps. Feel free to ask me for more help either her or on my Talk page. --Richard 08:55, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

• To Richard, I have thoroughly checked your user page before I had got nearer to this controversy and even just now. You have plenty of user boxes, but nowhere could I found that ‘you are an administrator’. (Just now in the category I found a hint, but that doesn’t say any meaning, I guess) I was mistaken you as a person who is starting an article with wrong intention. If you had introduced yourself as an admin, I would not have much got into this. Anyway, best wishes for your future edits.--Avinesh Jose 09:36, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deletion of this article

The nomination of this article for speedy deletion gave the following as a reason: "The page has been created for a wrong intention and it may be included at jehovah's witness after an expert reviewed it."

This is not one of the speedy deletion criteria. Please review WP:CSD.

--Richard 07:03, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need for an expert

Well, I think every article could benefit from an expert's involvement. However, I don't feel a strong need for an expert at least not more than in any other article that I've edit.

For this reason, I think it would be useful if User:Crtrue would list the areas in which he/she feels an expert's advice is needed.

--Richard 17:47, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV

This article is heavily biased towards its subject, and needs much rewriting... It also convienently leaves out "the other side of the story" everywhere it possibly can. And if that weren't enough, it makes a lot of rather strong (and certainly disputable) claims with no citations. While I'm no fan of citations, a lot of this article should be removed if they can't be found. I'll leave actually doing this to someone with more interest in the subject matter, as my knowledge might bias it another way. Bushytails 05:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what other side of the story could be conveniently left out of favorable supreme court decisions... Would you care to elaborate? Duffer 06:33, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

As the creator and primary author of this article so far, I'll jump in here, if I may. The first "other side of the story" is that, in the 1930s and 1940s, the JWs were very vitriolic in their attacks on other religions, in particular against the Catholic church. Their style of door-to-door proselytization was considered objectionable especially given their non-orthodox beliefs. Cities that wished to limit or prohibit such proselytization were very likely implementing the "will of the majority". So, the JWs weren't quite the "poor, persecuted saints" that this current revision makes them out to be.

The second "other side of the story" is that the JWs lost 1/3 or 25 of the 72 cases that they brought to the Supreme Court. These included a case in which the Supremes decided that you could be arrested for "fighting words" like calling a sheriff a "God-damned racketeer" and "a damned fascist" and that claiming freedom of religion won't keep you out of jail. (Personally, I disagree with the Supreme Court on this one but what the hey.) Another such case had the Supremes decide that child labor laws trumped freedom of religion and parental prerogative. (Can't take your child out to sell JW literature on the street corner if there's a law against it. Freedom of religion don't cut it here.)

A third "other side of the story" is that JWs expect to meet opposition to their message. They take it as a good sign that they are persecuted because it means they are doing the will of God. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richardshusr (talk • contribs) 08:38, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, believe it or not, most of the sources out there on the Internet are favorable to the JWs. That's why this article is canted towards the pro-JW POV. The few anti-JW POV sources that I found tended to be less reliable sources and so it's hard to hit the NPOV "sweet spot" while staying on firm ground wrt WP:V and WP:RS.

I'm planning to work on the NPOV problem but please understand that I only learned about this topic 5 days ago. I've done quite a bit of research and writing in the last 5 days. (Take a look at my contribs history)

My major accomplishment tonight has been to find a near complete list (I haven't counted yet) of what I hope are all the JW related Supreme Court cases. Up until now, I've been quoting other sources saying 72 Supreme Court cases brought by the JWs while having only a partial list (16!) of the cases. The next problem is figuring out what the newly found 56 cases were about.

--Richard 08:02, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't the thing about vitriol against catholicism once in the article? I think I recall reading it but it appears to be gone now; anyways the Fighting Words doctrine is still in the article. It seems to me that you do provide "the other side of the story", or at least, are trying to. I guess I'm just surprised that this article is not 4 days old and has already seen an AFD, and now an NPOV tag with accusations of willful deceit. Also, is that list you found available via internet? I would very much like to sift through it. Duffer 08:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you're probably correct that the "vitriol against Christendom in general and Catholicism in particular" used to be in this article. I'm still struggling with the best organization of the multiple articles about this general topic. At the moment, that text is in Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States and probably should remain there. The question, in my mind, is how much of it to mention here. It's not exactly on topic but it does provide a balancing POV to provide context for the pro-JW POV in this article.

I will try to develop "the other side of the story" more as time goes on. As I said, it takes time and quite frankly, good reliable sources about "the other side of the story" are hard to find.

As for the AFD, I wouldn't worry too much about that one. It was slapped on this article when it was about a paragraph or two long. The editor thought that it was too short and should be merged with another JW article. If he'd asked me first, I would have explained my vision to him as I did to the other editor who asked at the top of this page. The AFD was eventually SNOW'ed with a "Keep".

You can find the "complete" list of Supreme Court cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses here. I'll add it to the Sources section.

Thanks for the moral support. If you and/or Bushytails want to help work on this and related articles, I would much appreciate the assistance.

--Richard 16:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)