Legal Commentary

Not Mentioning the Religious Group Involved

By Eugene Volokh

In the comments to my ?Some Religious Leaders Urging People to Delay Going to the Police with Child Sex Abuse Allegations?? post, a commenter asked:

Is there any reason you went to such effort to avoid mentioning which religion was involved?

Absolutely. I was hoping that people would do one of two things: (1) They would first think about the issue in the abstract, without letting their initial sympathies or hostilities towards the religious group influence their judgment. (2) If they did begin by making an assumption about which religious group was involved ? an assumption that I suspect would have been inaccurate ? and then read the story, they would see their assumption was mistaken, which might make them more cautious about such assumptions in the future.

Manipulative, I realize. But that?s just my dark inner nature. Bwahahaha.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on August 25, 2010 (boomark / email).