PARRIS: This is a clear attack upon the court!
HALE: Is every defense an attack upon the court? Can no one – ?
PARRIS: All innocent and Christian people are happy for the courts in Salem!
– Arthur Miller
The Crucible, Act 3. Puritan intolerance is on full view in the witch trials courtroom, where any defense or appeal to reason on behalf of the accused is labeled an "attack upon the court." Ninety-one people have signed a petition that the accused Rebecca Nurse, Elizabeth Proctor and Martha Corey are not witches. But Parris insists that all 91 should be hauled into court and questioned. When Hale speaks up as the voice of reason, Parris make the highly ironic comment that all innocent people are happy with the courts in Salem. The audience knows that the women charged with witchcraft are innocent and have been accused as the result of the wicked and personal motives of other people. Parris’s attempt to stop evidence for the defense being presented has echoes in the way Senator Joe McCarthy saw resistance to his crusade against left-wing individuals as being un-American.