So here in Atlanta, a Hindu temple filed for bankruptcy. This means that creditors are supposed to be allowed to do an inventory of all the temple’s assets.
But the Hindus at the temple are in the middle of a “216-day period of ritual cleansing” in which non-Hindus aren’t supposed to enter the temple.
So the judge ordered that the creditors send Hindus to do the inventory.
This is interesting on all sorts of levels:
1. It’s common sense over legal/constitutional anguish.
2. It’s forcing the creditors to choose its agents based on religion. Will non-Hindus miss out on something because they can’t do this job?
3. If a non-Hindu DID appear on the premises, would that be some kind of desecration that lowers the value of the temple?
[Link and these questions and more discussion at the law blog The Volokh Conspiracy]
This is a bad decision at multiple levels.
Simply, there is NOTHING like a 216-day cleansing at any hindu temple. The owner of this temple, an INDICTED CHILD MOLESTOR called ANNAMALAI ANNAMALAI (Dr commander Selvam Siddhar Swamiji) cooked this up to fend off investigators, and the judge took the bait. THIS IS THE USA – we have ONLY ONE LAW here for all citizens.
But the thing is that the judge made sure that the auditors get in there.
In a way, maybe he didn’t bother finding out whether the guy is lying or not, because he figured he’d just work around it.
Like when my high school teachers didn’t argue with me about whether I’d really left my paper at home (as opposed to not having written it). They just gave me permission to go get it. If I was bluffing (I wasn’t) then I was screwed, but they avoided the argument.