NationStates

My God, Sionis has a magnet for trouble! I wonder if I intended to cause trouble... probably I (the player) would be DOS'd in less than one hour!

Well, this draft, has caused a lot of ruckus. Here's the thread.

Charlotte Ryberg wrote:

Nowhere there is a definition of “adequate meals”. This can lead to situations where a person is fed meals which are social or religious taboos, such as cockroaches or other various insects, observant Catholics being fed meat on Easter, or Jews and Muslims being fed pork, on grounds those are nutritiously adequate meals. On extreme situations, this can effectively be a death sentence by starvation;

Honored ambassador to Sionis Prioratus, I think these are RL references, which aren't allowed even in repeals.

Yours etc,

Sionis Prioratus wrote:OOC: Heck, Sionis Prioratus itself is played as a "Jewish Kingdom", and there's a lot of Catholic, Jewish and Muslim Nations and Regions across NS.

Bob, can we get an official ruling about this? If ruled illegal, please remove it from the queue, so SP can submit a denomination-neutral text.

Thank you.

So, is this permissible/legal or not? If not, my sincere apologies, and I would ask it be removed as soon as practicable, so SP can submit a demonination-neutral text.

Thank you

My non-modly opinion is that "Jewish" and "Catholic" are OK, whereas "Pope Benedict XVI", "St. Peter's Basilica" or "The Rabbinical Assembly" wouldn't be. The religions exist in NS in a generic form.

"Catholic" and "Muslim" are proper nouns and therefore illegal as far as I am concerned. Describing RL beliefs and ideologies should be limited to the abstract, like "fundamentalist," "theocratic," "socialist," "capitalist," etc. In my non-modly opinion.

My modly opinion agrees with Kenny's non-modly one. It has been ruled before that most major RL religions have an NS counterpart -- we've even had a couple of Popes -- and therefore they're not automatically RW references. But these are unduly specific: the NS religions' practices may be different. Nor is it central to your argument; you're simply talking about dietary restrictions.

Because NS legislation has to cover such a broad field, its authors should err on the side of discretion. It's easy enough to rewrite that clause in abstract terms.

I won't delete the proposal immediately, though, in case Flib or one of the other mods wants to weigh in.

"Catholic" and "Jewish" seemed like pretty generic terms to me but if you think they're too specific that's understandable too. The clause in question could be rewritten without those terms and still get the point across.