this matter comes before the court on the temporary motions docket, the bourbon street mosque represented by counsel mommar ratsazzi, upon plaintiff’s motion for a temporary restraining order, asking this court to temporarily enjoin certain picturesque local social rituals, featuring naked female breasts and lewd drunken louts shouting “show me your tits” and throwing beads at young ladies entreating such wanton and licentious displays.
the court is ready to rule upon plaintiff’s motion for the temporary order, no need to take the matter under advisement.
first, a little factual background for the record.
certain representatives of a saudi prince bought a derelict church on the upper end of bourbon street via a “straw man” sale & purchase arrangement, and then petitioned the city for certain variances in local codes so that a rather substantial mosque could be built in place of the existing church. a muslim cleric, an imam, has installed himself in the building pending the wending of these applications for building permit through the bureaucratic morass that has built up in this city since the days of some napoleon or another, well before the purchase.
be that as it may, counselor ratsazzi has petitioned this court to issue warrants/writs of mandate against the city of new orleans and the mardi gras board to enforce new orlean’s anti-nudity statutes during those pre-lenten festivities known as the madri gras. under the local civil rule governing the issuance of temporary orders pending the disposition of the case proper, lawyer ratsazzi alleges that his client, imam al-awaki in particular and islam in general will suffer irreparable injury & permanent injury (seems redundant, doesn’t it?) if the temporary order is not granted, in the form of humiliation, embarrassment, and perhaps death if the good imam should feel constrained to kill himself upon seeing bare naked infidel female breasts. well, i suppose people have died for more frivolous reasons, somewhere.
lawyer ratsazzi cites islamic scripture and sharia in support of his contention, that such harm will occur to the good imam and islam if relief is not granted as requested. this court takes no recourse to disposition of this case of either the koran or sharia law. they are neither the domestic law of this jurisdiction, nor are they to be used in deciding the standards for issuance of tro's under the rubric of "irreparable damage." so much for that.
motion denied.
my clerk and the clerk of the court are ordered to put this matter on the summary adjudications calendar, two weeks from the end of mardi gras, when my stint with the preservation hall jazz ensemble should be ended, and i get back from vacation. sit down, counsel, your associate counsel upon your special appearance has practiced before me for 25 years, and also sat second trumpet to my first clarinet in the ensemble for as many years, and such knowledge via association is imputed to you, and you filed no timely notice of objection to my hearing the case.
now, i don’t ordinarily don’t have to make findings and conclusions on a motion of this nature, but, for the record i will.
the good imam, heretofore known as buzzard jones before his conversion to islam doing 15 to 25 in state prison for armed robbery, was a habitué of bourbon street before he went to the slammer, doing six years before released to a work program on intensive supervision, if and when a parole officer gets hired.
he has long known of the social rituals that islam would proscribe, yet was instrumental in placing the proposed mosque right in bourbon street. i take this on judicial notice, because years ago when i was a public defender, i represented buzz, as he was then known, i represented him on lewd & lascivious charges, and fraud, when he tried to get tourists throwing beads to his girls, for whom he pimped, to pay money for seeing infidel bare breasts.
this knowledge is also imputed to counsel, and islam, in my view of law and equity. now, now, counsel, sit down, it doesn’t make any difference now that i am ruling as to what your views on law and equity are, this court has as much authority to be wrong in its premises as it does to be right, a peculiarity of the courtroom often lost on young lawyers. somebody give him a pill, to calm him down, o.k.
now, based on this background, i rule against issuing the temporary order because i believe plaintiff estopped from asserting irreparable & permanent harm at the hands of bare breasted infidels, on the ground of primary and absolute assumption of the risk. i would no more restrain a kegger from serving beer and associated libation upon counsel’s assertion that a good muslim might drink alcohol and therefore suffer irreparable harm, upon a showing that the muslim injected himself into that social setting, than i would issue such an order here, upon substantially identical facts.
in short, i find plaintiff’s request to restrain certain established social mores as being groundless, and somewhat offensive to this jurist and swing clarinetist.
now, in a related motion, al hirt enterprises has brought a counter motion seeking leave to play al hirt’s greatest hits over a very large speaker system at precisely the same time that imam al-awaki plays the islamic call to prayer at all times in the morning, mostly during hours when any decent person is still fast asleep.
motion granted. free speech is free speech, and in this court’s eyes it doesn’t make any difference whether the speech is a call to prayer, or a call to dixie land. defendant hirt asks for permission to exceed the ear splitting decibel level of the call to prayer broadcast, but that is not necessary. sound meters will be issued to hirt, and he may play his “greatest hits” albums as just the same sound level. no more, no less.
one final aside. heretofore, the citizens of new orleans have established their own religious and social mores without recourse to government intervention, indeed, for the most part, they have sought to shun government intervention into matters pertaining to the use of beads and the display of breasts. i have had my clerk, a bright graduate of tulane university law school, night program, and not coincidentally my nephew, to search the law on display of breasts, as governed by new orleans statute and louisiana code. he has found no litigation on whether a woman is obligated to bare almost all in exchange for a non sought proffer of beads, nor any litigation on whether a man is obligated to proffer beads when shouting, “show me your breasts.” these matters have been settled by the participants, or nonparticipants, in such shenanigans, as the case may be.
nor have we found the slightest insinuation that the catholic church, or the local bourbon street synagogues, nor the jehovah’s witnesses nor the adventists, a litigious group in such issues as free speech and social legislation if ever there was one, has sought to intervene and regulate this nonsense that goes on before lent. they have apparently had the good sense to pick up business on saturday and sunday, and to absolve the repentant and penitent, and to forgive the unrepentant, and to get on with the business of tending the flock the rest of the year.
one final observation.—
this court notes that counsel for the city of new orleans was mostly somnolent throughout the court’s ordeal in listening to chapter and verse from mommar ratsazzi, and offered little by way of observation or argument against the relief sought by plaintiffs.
no evidence came this court’s way by the good efforts of the city of new orleans.
nonetheless, this court is not without resource, and when the city doesn’t have the native wit to argue for its citizens or to present evidence germane to the issue, this court has the inherent authority to take notice of history, and the ways of the world, and things that happen in the world.
attorney ratsazzi makes much of the demonic hold and influence of the female infidels breasts upon the males of islam who witness them, when not married to them, and the horrible fates to befall islamic males who view such a horrible sight, as a luscious pair of female breasts. well, forgive me, I day dream and digress. back to business.
i take notice of certain historical and sociological facts such as render this contention pure bunkum.
since the influx of muslims into europe, everywhere they have gone, sexual assault and rapine have surged and the primary victims are infidel females. as far as i can determine, no muslim male has ever died or committed suicide nor thrown out of his faith for the rape of an infidel woman, clothed, naked or otherwise.
i can find no incident in recorded islam history where islamic on the march and in active conquest, have ever suffered incidents of suicide, death or ex-communication from islam for their rapine and slaughter.
i take it on judicial notice that islam countries have among the highest requests from google and other search engines for pornography, involving men, women, boys, animals, bare breasted or otherwise, and that no resultant harm has ever been recorded or established.
and, i take note that iran exports many of its excess woman and girls as prostitutes to europe, south america and other middle eastern countries, and that flourishing prostitution rings are established there employing arab and infidel woman, primarily from eastern europe and russia, and that no hard has befallen islam from seeing these women naked.
and, finally, i take note that middle eastern and Indonesian potentate and lesser nabobs have long trafficked in european mistresses, and presumably no harm has befallen them or islam from this practice.
for these reasons, i find that plaintiff imam al-awaki has established no irreparable harm occurring to him or islam should the mardi gras go forward, replete with all its customs, including bead barter for bare breast viewing. again, motion denied.
oh, and for the benefit of counsel and plaintiff imam. this matter will be heard for summary adjudication after my vacation and mardi gras activities, as noted. counsel, should the imam or any other muslim die from being exposed to bare naked infidel breasts during the mardi gras, don’t waste your time asking this court to change it analysis in the matter.
you live, and life exposes you to the risk of exposure to infidel breasts. and, by living, you assume the risk. get used to it.
court adjourned. and, somebody get ratsazzi a glass of water, before he chokes. hey, and somebody fish up my clarinet for me, i gotta practice “saints.”
john jay @ 04.21.2011
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