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<span style="font-style: italic">Hypocrisy to take money from hotel while criticising it, says lawyer</span>
Sunday, October 25, 2009
SUPERCLUBS chairman, John Issa admitted he did not stop nude weddings at his hotel after the practice was criticised by Roman Catholic priest, Fr Richard Ho Lung.
Issa, who is also a Roman Catholic, was giving a follow-up deposition in the Circuit Court of the 11th Judicial Circuit in and for Miami-Dade County, Florida, in pursuance of a lawsuit he filed in the US, claiming that he was defamed by e-mails traced to computers originating in that US state.
Ho Lung is widely known as the ghetto priest for his vast work among the poor and destitute of Kingston's sprawling slums.
Attorney Reginald Clyne of Clyne and Associates, representing the defendants in the lawsuit, asked Issa if after speaking with Ho Lung on a radio talk show he had stopped the highly publicised nude weddings which triggered protest demonstrations by some clergymen. The hotel boss responded 'no'.
Clyne: "Do you think your reputation was damaged when you were having nude weddings at your hotel?"
Issa: "No."
Clyne: "You don't think that the public, at least some members of the clergy, and the people who marched on your hotel, that they were disapproving of what you had done?"
Joe DeMaria (Issa's attorney): Which is this group of people, the marchers, some of the clergy, some of the people? It's compound, don't you think?
Clyne: "Okay, I'll try to break it down. Do you think the clergy, some members of the clergy, like Fr Ho Lung and pastors in New York and pastors in Jamaica found it."
Issa: "Hold on. Fr Ho Lung. you're saying pastors here, pastors there. You have identified Pastor Ho Lung. Can we stick to that one to start?"
Clyne: "All right. That's fine."
Issa: "Fr Ho Lung wrote a number of articles in the paper criticising me and the nude wedding. When I was called by a talk show host. No, he was on the talk show and he said he had spoken to Mr Issa. I think the talk show host asked him why didn't you call Mr Issa instead of talking to him through the press. And he said. 'I just happened to be listening. I mean, it was purely by accident. I don't listen to the talk shows of the day'.
Clyne: "Uh-huh."
Issa: "I tried to get him and I couldn't get him, so I called the talk show and I said 'I have no message from him?', and he put both of us on, and the interviewer, this host, asked him, 'did you really try to get him', and he admitted on that call that he never tried to contact me."
Clyne: "After he spoke to you on that talk show, did you stop the nude weddings?"
Issa: "No."
Clyne: "You don't see anything immoral and wrong about people being naked while they are having the sacred ceremony of marriage?"
DeMaria objected.
Issa: First of all, if you looked at my first deposition. I stated clearly there is nothing immoral about nudity, and I objected to you earlier calling weddings sacred. That is a prejudiced, bigoted remark. There are many people getting married who are atheists. There are many people who. and you referred to the Bible. Now, only one religion, the Christian religion, uses the Bible. The Jewish religion uses the Tora. The Muslims use the Koran. Confucius used something else. How could you exhibit your prejudices like that? A marriage is a legal thing. So nothing is wrong for those people who are naturists and want to marry in the nude. Nudity is not immoral and I'm not going to legislate morality."
Clyne: "But the question which you seem to have skirted, you don't think it damaged your reputation in Jamaica when people were criticising you for being immoral for having these weddings?"
DeMaria: "Objection. He didn't skirt anything. He already answered. He said, no, he didn't think it hurt his reputation."
Clyne: "It didn't hurt your reputation?"
Issa: "No, because others defended me."
Clyne: "Didn't others defend you regarding these e-mails?"
Issa: "Not in the media."
Clyne: "Didn't you run articles in the paper about you fighting the e-mails?"
Issa: "I didn't run any articles."
Clyne: "Or The Gleaner had an article about it, didn't it?"
Issa: "The Gleaner may have reported on the lawsuit."
Clyne: "Well, isn't that defending you?"
Issa: "No, no, no. That is reporting the facts of the lawsuit. It didn't prejudge the lawsuit."
Later, Clyne asked Issa if he had seen newspaper articles, one titled "This is the naked truth" and he said he did not recall.
Clyne: "Do you see the second article 'Issa blasts Ho Lung. Defends nude weddings'. Do you remember that one?"
Issa: "Yeah."
Clyne: "It says 'John Issa last night stopped short of declaring Richard Ho Lung a hypocrite for denouncing yesterday's nude weddings at Hedonism III hotel yet having in the past taken money for his charities from Issa's SuperClubs hotel chain'."
DeMaria: "The court may take judicial notice. It does sound like hypocrisy to me to take money from SuperClubs while you criticise them, but we will wait and see."
Clyne: "Did you criticise Fr Ho Lung?"
Issa: "My statement could be considered criticism. I just stated the facts."
Clyne: "Do you recognise the next article, 'Nakedness at weddings is illegal' by Devon Dick?"
Issa: "I may have seen it, but a lot of these things, if it doesn't directly defame, I look at the first part and I put it aside."
<span style="font-style: italic">To be continued</span>
how dis relate to the case again? the lawyer cross examining issa doesn't seem to be totally on the ball.
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