The Evangelical ministry Breakpoint made Mormonism the topic of their daily broadcast. The topic in question is a British criminal charge of fraud against Thomas Monson. Breakpoint comes out strongly on the side of the LDS church that this is a slippery slope to the erosion of religious liberty.
I largely agree with Breakpoint’s assessment of the situation with one caveat. A fraud charge is not solely based on whether or not the beliefs in question are falsifiable, it hangs on whether or not the perpetrators of the belief know it to be false. How this can be proven to be the case for Thomas Monson seems like a herculean task.
In one more Evangelical connection to this case, wasn’t the plot of “The Godmakers” about a guy who wants to sue the LDS church for fraud and deception? {video queued to relevant scene}
LDS & Evangelical Conversations 
In the UK, private citizens can initiate criminal lawsuits (which the government can subsequently dismiss). There’s no actual erosion of religious liberty involved because the case doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of proceeding.
Knowing less about UK law than I do about US law, my question is what choices did the magistrate have when Tom Phillips brought his case?
Is this a matter of simply waiting for the proper procedures to be followed before a perfunctory dismissal?
Has anything happened in this case to lead us to believe the UK courts are taking this case seriously?
I won’t even pretend to have any half-a$$ed musings on the law.
That’s kind of what I’m getting at. If this was a US case, I would point out that anyone who can scrape together the filing fee and scrawl out a complaint on a piece of paper can file a lawsuit for absolutely any bogus reason, requiring the other party to respond. But it’s not a bona fide erosion of your liberty of any kind until the court rules against you.
A lot of these “facts” in the video, aren’t correct.
enlighten us!
Please!
Brittany, RUN FROM THEM, they aim to steal your testimony!!!!!! (Just say “Get thee hence”)
(If you do wish to engage, at least find out what they are offering to replace it with before you start playing this game.)
Has there been any more news on this? The court date was supposed to be March 14.
Still March 14, no news that I’ve seen. Though you can hear an extensive interview with Tom Philips here: http://infantsonthrones.com/the-summons-tom-phillips-vs-thomas-s-monson-part-1/
I saw a lot of chatter about that interview on Postmormon.org, but frankly I’m not at all interested in hearing a complainant’s opinion about the merits of his own case, basically ever (in either my personal or professional life).
Isn’t there something about a man who serves as his own attorney?
The case was dismissed:
Click to access 1319054.pdf
I FOR ONE AM SHOCKED.
Yeah, it was a real nail biter. Steve Benson can be very convincing.