The land of the free?

[Alondro]

Ok, this more than crosses the line. 

http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=179528

This is a balatantly biased attack on the freedom of speech and opinion of individuals.  Everything not directly supporting homosexuality is now hate speech?  Less than 10% of the population can now dictate the freedom of expression of everyone else?  The article notes that the homosexual groups could use the same email system that these women plaintiffs wanted to use to announce a group simply supporting a traditional family to send messages quite clearly attacking Christianity.

Freedom of speech is freedom of speech, end of story.  If we're going to start stomping all over the rights of people simply because their beliefs and values aren't 'trendy',we might as well toss the Constition out entirely.  This type of suppression of speech and opinion was what the Constitution was made to prevent!  This 9th Circuit ruling is a disgrace and a travesty. 

To put it in perspective, imagine that this ruling had been to prevent a public employee from posting a message promoting a group for African-American equality in a peaceful setting.  Imagine it had been made to prevent Martin Luther King from posting his words. 

Perhaps ironically, the party that would have suppressed those things is the very party now suppressing these women's rights (who are African-American, by the way) to forward a lifestyle, the practitioners of which are increasingly vicious in their attacks and feel no shame in silencing the speech of people who don't agree with them. 

Two wrongs don't make a right.  They're becoming just as guilty of the suppression they once endured.

[Turnsky]

Freedom of speech works three ways, as far as i'm concerned.

Freedom to say what you like.
Freedom to ignore what others say
and the freedom to tell other folks who express the first one, where exactly to shove it.

[Paladin Sheppard]

Freedom of speech works three ways, as far as i'm concerned.

Freedom to say what you like.
Freedom to ignore what others say
and the freedom to tell other folks who express the first one, where exactly to shove it.

Not that we have "true" freedom of speech down here but I very much agree with this sentiment...

[Ryudo Lee]

It's one thing to say that someone else's viewpoint is wrong.  It's another thing to censor them because you don't like what they say.  As one of the comments on that said, it's a good thing that the 9th is the most overturned court in the country.

I could understand it if they were trying to censor an extremist group (the ones who come out to protest, with signs that say "God hates gays").  But this is literally jumping down someone's throat because they wanted to gather people who shared an opposite opinion.

There is such a thing as abusing your freedom...

[thegayhare]

first off  I've been dieing to use this



The courts decision in and of itself in't a bad one.  Employers have always had the ability to curtail, to a degree,  free speech of there employees in order to create an effenciant, and safe work envoroment.

However it needs to be applied in an even handed yes the gay group was realy out of line but then again we don't know what the christian groups posted to defend there point of veiw.  The artical doesn't mention that at all It could have been just as vile and nasty.  Hell we don't know what gay groups e-mails said either just that they refured to "Christian values as antiquated, and to refer to Bible-believing Christians as hateful" How many people is wide spread?  One, or two realy obnoxous person can seem to be a lot bigger then they are (I mean on anouther board I go to there is this one guy who turns every single thread into an argument about how every evil in the world is the capitalists fault,  The shere volume of his posts can be overwhelming at times),  We don't know what was said exactly could the artical be exagerating the invective?  could there have been one or two posts that said some christains used there religion as a shield for hate?  and that gets pictup and turned into all christians are hate mongering jerks? 

I agree that this artical seems to show the employer is atfault and there is nothing homophobic about the terms family, marriage and the like... though the term natural family pisses me off because there are lots of family structures in nature you know, but Ehh.  The Gay group if it's behavor was as bad as this artical says should have been reprimanded

How ever the source of this artical isn't exactly unbiased so I'm not exactly sure we are getting the whole story.  With out knowing exactly what was said on each sidethis is a hard one to judge

[ardaron]

All I can say is; is this a joke?  What thinking person would take this seriously?  How can 'marriage,' 'family values,' and 'natural family,' be considered hate speech when there's so much /real/ hate speech that goes on without anyone doing anything about it?

And what's next?  Are terms like 'husband' and 'father' anti-feminist?  Or is 'caucasian' racist?  Seriously, those things aren't that much more far-fetched than this.

[Brunhidden]

the greatest problems with free speech is it carries with it the freedom to offend, which people use freely, the power to BE offended, which people are shocked to hear goes hand in hand with the first, and the freedom to have complete strangers disagree with you, which people cannot comprehend.

how exactly is this different from living in a world where anytime an African American or a woman feels it would benefit them they scream "RACIST" or "SEXUAL HARASSMENT" to see everyone around them scatter leaving them to do whatever they please? a few people abuse their civil rights and use them as a shield. an example a coworker of mine told me about was where a factory manager came down and told everyone not on line production to sweep up and clean because an inspector was coming... an African American woman who was included in this group of about 20 workers told to sweep started to scream "I AM NOT YOUR N----- MAID!" and refused to sweep like the rest, and the boss wasn't able to raise a finger to make her work. hmmm, ive been fired for working 'not as fast as we would hope' often, i wouldn't last five minutes if i REFUSED to work.

or how about every Christmas? oh, excuse me, by law i am required to call it 'the holidays' now. in order to avoid offending those who do not celebrate Christmas we tell those who DO celebrate Christmas that they CANNOT celebrate it in public or display their decorations. how is that fair? unless we tell people they cannot have Kwanzaa and Hanukas decorations up either, meaning nobody can celebrate their yule holiday, which would actually be fair in the "you can do what you want in your own home" kind of way.

America lives in a society where overreaction is the only acceptable response, for we are afraid of the few and ignore the many instead of coming to an agreement.

"Fear" he used to say, "Fear is the most valuable commodity in the universe." That blew me away. "Turn on the TV," he'd say. "What are you seeing? people selling their products? No. People selling the fear of you having to live without their products." He was right. Fear of aging, fear of loneliness, fear of poverty, fear of failure. Fear is the most basic emotion we have. Fear is primal. Fear sells.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

...there is this one guy ...  The shere volume of his posts can be overwhelming at times...

*shifty look* Uh... Yeah, sorry about that...

*grin*

[Turnsky]

It's one thing to say that someone else's viewpoint is wrong.  It's another thing to censor them because you don't like what they say.  As one of the comments on that said, it's a good thing that the 9th is the most overturned court in the country.

I could understand it if they were trying to censor an extremist group (the ones who come out to protest, with signs that say "God hates gays").  But this is literally jumping down someone's throat because they wanted to gather people who shared an opposite opinion.

There is such a thing as abusing your freedom...

Censorship's such a gray area, though.

Freedom to express yourself, worship, blah blah blah. most of the "Freedoms" displayed as part of many human rights papers and constitutions also tend to intersect upon eachother, and fail to take into account the human condition.

Freedom of speech is all good and fine, but you have to be careful HOW exactly one expresses that right.
a lot of folks who cry foul over supposedly having their "freedom" infringed upon doesn't take into account the fact that others are also quite entitled to do so under that very same right.

[thegayhare]

Brun
there is no law... that I know of that says you can't say merry christmass in public or display christmass decorations on your own property.  Some employers might ask there empolyees to say happy holidays but thats simply to show there customers that the understand this is a diverse culture (and to hopefully rake in those customers that might apreciate that)  it's not an attack against christmass and the yearly "war on christmass" is just silly.

frankly I'm not offended if some one wishes me a merry christmass but I know alot of folks who get miffed when I say happy holidays or merry solstice...  Why they want to force some one who doesn't follow there faith to pay lip service to it is beyond me.


And Llearch I doubt its you... you simply anr't vemenent enough he says everything from racisim to international terrorism is a complicated and convoluted consperiacy to keep the workers down and if we just got rid of them and the government everyone would be shiney happy people dancing

[ardaron]

It's one thing to say that someone else's viewpoint is wrong.  It's another thing to censor them because you don't like what they say.  As one of the comments on that said, it's a good thing that the 9th is the most overturned court in the country.

I could understand it if they were trying to censor an extremist group (the ones who come out to protest, with signs that say "God hates gays").  But this is literally jumping down someone's throat because they wanted to gather people who shared an opposite opinion.

There is such a thing as abusing your freedom...

Censorship's such a gray area, though.

Freedom to express yourself, worship, blah blah blah. most of the "Freedoms" displayed as part of many human rights papers and constitutions also tend to intersect upon eachother, and fail to take into account the human condition.

Freedom of speech is all good and fine, but you have to be careful HOW exactly one expresses that right.
a lot of folks who cry foul over supposedly having their "freedom" infringed upon doesn't take into account the fact that others are also quite entitled to do so under that very same right.

I've got to add my two cents to this point.  I agree that freedom of speech is an incredibly grey area, and very few people see it that way.  Most people see black-and-white; "I should be able to say whatever I want!" or "Help help I'm being oppressed!"

My psychology teacher once made the analogy of a person yelling 'fire!' in a crowded theatre.  You're not allowed to do that.  Know why?  Because people could get hurt.  Your freedom of speech is protected up until the point where it can hurt people.  In a lot of ways, censorship is a similar concept.  Hate-speech can, in fact, hurt people.  Just not physically.  So many people seem to overlook this in their mad rush to defend the constitution.

Of course, as has already been pointed out, there's plenty of people at the opposite extreme, who get so totally miffed by the slightest percieved instances of racism and whatnot that they want to encroach on others' freedom of speech, even when what they're saying is pretty much harmless.  And, of course, free speech is a right protected by our constitution, and one that obviously shouldn't be torn down at the first sight of someone whose feelings are ridiculously delicate.

So it's a difficult issue, and I'm not pretending to know the answer.  If there even /is/ an answer.  All I know is that everything would be so much easier if there weren't so many inconsiderate jerks on both sides of every issue!

[Brunhidden]

actually fuzzbunz, not too long ago the city of new york had banned any 'overly christian' holiday decorations in public- this included nativities, primroses (apperantly they're a christian symbol, i had an extensive christian education and played cards with nuns for years and i never new this), candy canes (okay, i knew this one, a German candy maker made mint sticks in the shape of the wise mens staffs for christmas), anything with the colour red on it (again they claim its a christian symbol, Sister Mary Gorgina just shrugged at that one when i asked and raised me two cashews and a walnut. i lost that hand, but i hate cashews) meaning that THE FAT MAN was classified as offensive religious decorations. thats just wrong. imagine a year where no mall could have a santa clause in its store displays, where no shop window could feature a tree containing either candy canes or red ornaments, and a shocking absence of picketing christians making dicks of themselves.

all of this was because of ONE PERSON complaining to city hall feeling there were so many others who would surely feel offended. that ONE PERSON was actually a christian so figure that one out.

and this is why stores like halmark have a rapidly diminishing number of 'merry christmas' cards which have been replaced by 'happy holidays', they don't want angry people showing up with informative pamphlets and long speaches.

what boggles me is somehow they forgot that the christmas tree was a christian symbol, heralding back to the time of a missionary who went to Germany and met a tribe that worshiped an oak tree. he cut it down and right before being chopped to little bits by angry Germans he told them that the tree was rotten inside while his god was 'ever green'. admiring the nards of steel this guy had the Germans decided not to kill him and spent the next twenty years or so worshiping a fir tree proving this missionary needed better oratory skills. you got a lot of this in Germany and Scandinavia- if a missionary could 'prove' that their god was stronger and not piss themselves when angry vikings chased them everyone 'converted'....kinda, theres about three centuries of Norsemen wearing both a Mjolnir and a crucifix at the same time and often were clever enough to combine the two.

Praise Wodin!

*waits for reaction to praise*

It's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease

[thegayhare]

well as I said hon that I know of.

and that law is stupid,  how ever I can see why some folks would want goverment own property and buildings to be religously nutral

[GabrielsThoughts]

it's ridiculous you can't even say the word black, or fag,  but when people find out your last name is Latino they assume you're mexican.

Actual Conversation time:

"OMG! YOU'RE MEXICAN!"

"No, I'm American" Let's completely ignore the fact that I am not even of mexican decent for right now.

"Of Course, We're All American." (OK, then why did you just call me a Mexican?) "You don't look Mexican."

"That is probably because I'm not."

"so you're half mexican?"

"No, I'm GermanDutchIrishPuertoricanCherokee American" That's right people, I'm the result of many generations of unprotected American Sex.

"Cool, All the party countries" (what Party?)

[thegayhare]

it's ridiculous you can't even say the word black, or fag,  but when people find out your last name is Latino they assume you're mexican.

well for one you can say black it's a legitimate racial designation as is latino,  some one calling you mexican sorry thats there problem I mean thats not a racial designation to begin with realy.

but I would take offense that your associciating Fag with beign words, fag is more in line with spic, gook or the like

[Sirios Skywolf]

Well, unfortunately, the link is not working for me, could someone PM me the article? I'm chomping at the bit, conservative that I am, but I don't want to go into full debate mode without actually knowing what's going on.....


I would however, like to make one point: gay people seem to have a tendancy as thinking of the Church as being this big, powerful, mean entity. While it may seem that way to you, us being the majority, it isn't. Being gay is widely accepted in popular culture, makes one seem more "edgy" when their open about it, and all that jazz. Being christian (Bible believing, evangelical) is not. It's downright unpopular, it makes one seem boorish at fancy dinner parties, and when speaking actively about it, it tends to get oneself downright booed.

So please, step back and take a look at it from that angle.


Note: I wrote this in response to that pic thegayhare put up. If I'm wide of the mark, I'm sorry, but it gets kind of boring getting construed as "Big mean ole' antiquated mother church", and I wanted to adress that. I'll have a much better, more comprehensive argument once someone actually sends me a transcription of the news thing, and then we'll have something respectable up here, rather than just my little blip of blather.

[Ryudo Lee]

I'm reminded of a particular quote, I forget who said it...
"My right to throw a punch ends where the other man's nose begins."

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Well, unfortunately, the link is not working for me, could someone PM me the article? I'm chomping at the bit, conservative that I am, but I don't want to go into full debate mode without actually knowing what's going on.....

Try http://llearch.net/misc/libertypostdotorg.html ...

[Sirios Skywolf]

I think, after reading that, that it would be better to keep my mouth shut. Too bad I'm not good at listening to my own advice.


Honestly, this is an offense. And it's not even a suprising offense: I've seen things like this happen time and time again, and everytime, an astonishingly small amount of people not of the faith are offended. This is a slap in the face to a face too often slapped.


Like it was said before, good thing the 9th is the most overturned in the country. And truthfully, if it isn't overturned within the month, I'll be shocked. But this is a deep and abiding wrong, one that only confirms traditional christian attitudes towards homosexuality. to qoute a friend of mine, "It builds no bridges".

I'm personally not one for some future "Aww" moment, when all of christianity agrees with the lifestyle choices of some. What I do want is equality for every American, for the freedom to speak and say what they believe, to live their lifestyles as they desire. I will become a member of the military for that cause...though if people like the 9th Circuit Court keep doing things like that, why bother? If I and my brother (he's a marine) are fighting for freedom in the middle east, who are these people to steal freedom in America.

I see this as an insult to decency and human standard. The members of that local gay alliance were allowed to shield themselves by the traditional "We are a minority, so we are favored by the PC portions of government", and that just rubs salt in the wound. If one is censured, than both should be censored, or else it is not equality but favoritism you are engendering, and that is something that minority political groups have been fighting for years. But now that they've reached the top of the pile, instead of encouraging true social and political harmony, they've decided to take the seat of the despot they rightfully overthrew and make them despots themselves! Yet they may still (And I am going after a specific sub-set of individuals here, not any of those noble movements as a whole) use their minority status as a shield to protect themselves from critique and responsibility.

In the end, I think it's safe to say that no one is going to see a happy end to this, and the 9th Circuit Court has just added alot more fuel to both sides fire.

[thegayhare]

Sirios like I said before the courts decision is fairly sound it's the employers application of it thats not.  yes if all the facts in this artical are correct then the gay group should have also been reprimanded. 

but you also have to agree that we are not seeing this from an unbiased source so we don't know the actual level of offensiveness of the messages.  I've seem all to often people take what is a  fair statment "some christians use there religoin in a hateful way" and then they turn around and claim thats an attack on all people of faith.  We also don't know how many people participated in this "widespread attack" on christians as one or two loud idots can seem bigger then they realy are.  and finaly we don't know the level of civility if any that was used in the christians groups defense of there faith,  and like I said before one or two loud idots can ruin things for every body

I see this as an insult to decency and human standard. The members of that local gay alliance were allowed to shield themselves by the traditional "We are a minority, so we are favored by the PC portions of government",

How about the insult to decency when some christians use there faith to try and shield there own hateful attitudes.  I've actualy heard cases where people will come out and say that there right to call people faggots and to threaten people is protected since its a deep rooted part of there christian faith

(bites my tounge to keep from going off on a rant about all the "lifestyle" crap thats comming up)

[Sirios Skywolf]

Your first point is the one that I'm trying to get at, that both groups should have been reprimanded. Favoritism towards any group is inexcusable.

[Aridas]

Back to the first point of the topic, I think I have enough knowledge on the subject to say freedom of speech NEVER existed, and never will. As it's defined right now, freedom of speech only goes as far as they want to let you go.

On the subject of minorities, they have a boot stuck up their ass most of the time, so... Don't know what to say. But most of them kinda remind me of furries, except they're not screaming FURSECUTION, but instead...

[Azlan]

I'm reminded of a particular quote, I forget who said it...
"My right to throw a punch ends where the other man's nose begins."

If you remember, I would love to know.  I've been using this line in my political "science" lectures from Berkley to Miramar Junior College.

[Boog]

While things like traditional family values have been used as excuses for homophobia, they don't in and of themselves mean that. People will latch onto anything that they see as an excuse for whatever they say. Yes, this stops those using it as an excuse, but what about the rest? Censorship is wrong in any direction.

[superluser]

I found what appears to be the initial District Court ruling (it does come from WorldNutDaily, so I don't put too much stock in it).  The Good News agency had filed suit alleging that their constitutional rights had been violated, and the court dismissed the case sua sponte.  What this is supposed to mean is that the jury would not have anything to do if it ever made it to court; there are no matters of fact to be decided.

The way I read it, the court dismissed the case because they sued the wrong people.

[Brunhidden]

Anyone here remember a show called "time squad"?

taken off the air cause they made fun of president bush.

correct me if i am wrong, but was not the first amendment originally put in place for the SPECIFIC purpose of allowing the public to criticize their government without fear of having their innards  suddenly become outards?

Ooh, one of the little cream filled kinds

[thegayhare]

Time squad made fun of Bush?

I must have missed that ep

[bill]

If shows that made fun of Bush were taken off the air, there'd be nothing on TV except the Home Shopping Network.

[Boog]

Oh no! Somebody, quick, get Jon Stewart to edit every episode of the Daily Show he's churned out for the past couple presidential terms!

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I'm reminded of a particular quote, I forget who said it...
"My right to throw a punch ends where the other man's nose begins."

If you remember, I would love to know.  I've been using this line in my political "science" lectures from Berkley to Miramar Junior College.

According to http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/1524 - Oliver Wendell Holmes.

You may wish to check that somewhere - the actual quote is, apparently, "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."