Right Side of the Rainbow

Things like this leave me (as I now realize, on more than one level) speechless.

I am ashamed of my homo brethren when they resort to using state power to erase the voices of people who oppose us. The only reason we can seem to find to justify this truly effeminate behavior is to cry that we are victims, our feelings are hurt, or some such crap. Perhaps I am a dinosaur. I, for example, thank that Pat Robertson is one of the most loathesome men in America, but it would never occur to me to ask the state to shut him up.

Take the case of JF Buckley at Ohio State Mansfield as the paradigm of this shameful girly cowardice. A recommended book on a reading list made him feel harrassed (sp?) and threatened.

It’s people like him who threaten my gay self-esteem,not people who oppose us.

Criminy!

What neither the Volokh post, nor any of its commenters, mention is the right of GAY CHRISTIANS to freedom of speech. The same ignorant and narrow-minded assumption — that it is somehow a metaphysical impossibility for someone to be simultaneously gay and Christian — is being made yet again.

Can my kid go to class with a “Anti-Gay Bigotry is Sinful” shirt on? I suppose that taking free speech to this sort of limit would be opposed as a menace to the public health. At the very sight of a shirt like that, narrow-minded heads would be exploding all over the place.

The very fact that we’re supposed to be content with such limited, black-and-white, coddle-the-ignorant options is a sign of just how far from a free-speech-respecting society we really are.

Lori,

As a public high school teacher whose religious views are well hidden from students (simply because it’s none of their business), I would love to see that shirt in class. But I would expect phone calls would come in to the administrators that night. It really is a shame that a shirt like that has to be seen as controversial/objectionable by some people.

And now that I have read the article at Volokh, I can say that I am not surprised at the way this played out. Teachers, parents, and administrators are terrified that somebody will offend someone. There is even the horrible possibility that the somebody and the someone would “discuss” the issue - with teenagers, that usually means shouting and insults, or worse.

Kids fight. Kids are passionate, and they come to blows over issues like these. As much as I hate to say it, I understand why schools try to keep religious and polticial issues off campus.

“It really is a shame that a shirt like that has to be seen as controversial/objectionable by some people.”

Not sure which shirt you mean, Wulf. I happen to agree all views should be expressable without “official” repercussions. But though I don’t have the right to squelch anyone’s opinion, I certainly have the right to object to it. Free speech does not mean insulation from criticism. There are just as many on the Left as there are on the Right who believe that freedom of speech means freedom from criticism.

If a student wants to wear a shirt to school insulting other people — and he’s got the guts to realize that he might get his clock cleaned for it — then fine. The problem with so many on the Religious Right is that they expect to be able to say whatever they want and then punish anybody who disagrees with them.

They caterwaul about freedom of speech for themselves — then do everything they can to eliminate it for everybody else. As a gay Christian, I have what is generally considered a minority view. If these folks get their way, only those with the most-popular religious beliefs will see their expression protected.

When will people ever learn that if they destroy a freedom for someone else, they have also destroyed it for themselves? I suppose about the same time pigs start flying.

I shouldn’t have said “objectionable”, but “needing to be banned”. I agree with your comments here.