Submitted by ahende, Sep 3, 2007 22:07

Why on earth should a court trial on smuggling of a banned substance into this country be delving into wild life conservation in Africa? What posessed that judge to allow the trial to stray from the facts of whether the accused did or did not have justification to be exempted from breaking the law on smuggling? ( The story implies that she admits to breaking the law but claims exemption on religious grounds.)

And speaking of religious grounds, frankly, I couldn't disagree more with the juidge's idea that he needs to look at how integral monkey meat is to the practice of her religion. I couldn't care less. For me, the risk of harm from spreading incurable diseases to the general population obviously should trump her right to practice her religion involving unsafe meat. Wasn't the ban on importing such meat driven by that same risk of harm in the first place?

Hasn't our court system gone bonkers in a major way when the focus goes as far into left field as this trial is going? I'd certainly say yeah, or am I missing something?

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