On the other hand, gag rules are typically defended on the ground that they help preserve consensus by placing potentially divisive controversies "off the table" of debate.

Synod of Dort - National Synod held in Dordrecht in 1618-1619, by the Dutch Reformed Church, to settle a divisive controversy initiated by the rise of Arminianism.

In many parts of the world there is prominent and divisive public controversy over the ethical and legal issues of abortion.

A divisive controversy with Pierre Du Moulin broke out in 1612.

The massacre, charges that it had been covered up, and the conviction of Lieutenant Calley but nobody else, became a divisive controversy that badly hurt the Army's reputation and affected the public's view of the war.

In religious maters, despite early evidence of image veneation, he adopted iconoclasm, this precipitating the second phase of the divisive controversy (814-842).

It lasted only six hours, and the Greek Government's decision to allow it provoked a divisive political controversy then.

What can we learn from the fact that the false allegations in this case resulted in such divisive controversy and required such an enormous expenditure of time and money to investigate?

The findings of the historians' commission about President Kurt Waldheim's war record appeared to confirm what most Austrians had feared, that an end to the punishing and divisive controversy has come no nearer.

Red Jacket recognized that the white settlors' religion was beset with divisive controversies, unlike his peoples' own faith.