A Modest Proposal

What’s more annoying than her, her half-wit silicone-implanted intellect, and her arrogance that we should care what she thinks, is that this story is still being dragged out in the news. (Ummmm …..but not your blog, ….of course ….)

You have just secured a very nice place in my “people who are really really cool” category. Just so you know.

Seriously, though, I think it really takes people like you who are married with children saying exactly what you did in this post: that gay marriage in no shape or form threatens heterosexual marriage. We in the LGBTQ community can say it until we are blue in the face, but the people who are going to get the most mileage with their words are our allies. Thank you.

Wow, I get to tweak you twice in one post, but I heard a few weeks ago on NPR a neat little story on this. They took two quotes, which were nearly identical in wording and complete harmonized in meaning and had two actors read each quote. The first was from your hated beauty queen and the other was from President Obama. It seems that we hate the message unless we love the messenger, then we go through what psychologists call cognitive dissonance.

I await the flaming replies.

I have a problem with Prejean and her defenders citing the First Amendment, demonstrating a clear misunderstanding as to what the First Amendment protects with respect to freedom of speech… the amendment only states that the government won’t pass laws abridging free speech, not that you have the right to say whatever you want…

Tommyboy – was that to me? I’m not judging her speech offensive or inoffensive. I’m only pointing out that the first amendment does not give individual citizens freedom of speech, be what they say offensive or inoffensive. The first amendment states that “[c]ongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Nowhere in that text does it say anything about our individual right to say whatever, whenever; the first amendment just says that Congress can’t pass a law saying we can’t say whatever we want, whenever. I am not supporting her position or condemning it. I’m calling her and Palin out on incorrectly using the Constitution to defend it.

Nikki – at the risk of ending up in a discussion over what the definition of “is” is, I think you are parsing the argument a little too finely. Perhaps you learned this in law school, but for the rest of us poor slobs who stumble through life without a law degree it would seem that the constitution’s inclusion of a prohibition on Congress enacting laws to limit free speech, would appear to be protecting free speech. Kind of like if mom says “don’t go outside” one can assume that she means “stay inside” even if she didn’t say “stay inside.” Does it only count if the constitution covers the idea from all angles like Monty Python reading the biblical instructions for use of the holy hand grenade?

Others write that the freedom of speech is protected by the constitution with certain well established exceptions “Among the more obvious restrictions on the freedom to say just what one likes where one likes are laws regulating incitement, sedition, defamation, slander and libel, blasphemy, the expression of racial hatred, and conspiracy.” Where does Ms. Prejean’s offense rise to the level of any of these exceptions?

If offensive speech is not “covered” by the constitution then every stand up comedian should live in fear of the politically correct police knocking on her door in the middle of the night.

I can only guess that your argument is some purist Borkian interpretation of the musty old document.