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Permalink Reply by Matteo Masiello on 9th mo. 3, 2012 at 8:10pm

Which I admit lead me to questioning whether anyone is right and God does not exist.

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Permalink Reply by David Nelson Seaman on 9th mo. 14, 2012 at 4:34pm

Another parrallel case has been spawned by the ACLU, which is representing the Klu Klux Klan in Georgia after the state of Georgia refused a application from the Klu Klux Klan to participate in their "adopt-a-highway" program, which would enable the Klu Klux Klan to do road side clean up and assist with maintaining a section of Georgia highways.    I think all of us here are sensitive to the use of words and the inflammatory outcomes which they produce.    The ACLU, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, are privately funded organizations which place constitutional protections on free speech as one of their missions, and here we  have both organizations taking somewhat opposite supporting stances for issues that intersect free speech and civil rights.    My fear is allowing government to set standards for limitations on free speech, and while such speech is offensive and unwelcome to others, laws enacted at the behest of one group seeking to silence the views of another takes us on a path with outcomes neither group would desire placed upon themselves.   I opt for the protection of free speech and the civil liberties associated with the free exchange of ideas.   While me may not like the ideas of others and the words used to express them, something more sinister is more certain to come about when these rights are taken away.

 

In Peace and Love- David
 

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Permalink Reply by Sophia Shapira on 9th mo. 20, 2012 at 12:33pm

As a woman who was born transsexual, and who therefore knows that it's like to really be forced into the margins of society by prevalence of religious fundamentalism -- I probably find Dan Cathy's remarks a bit more threatening than some others here do.

I'm not saying that Dan Cathy's freedom of speech should be taken away, no matter how much I disagree with it -- because I know what doing that would open the door to -- I know that doing so would tread upon a slippery slope. It would mean that someone would have to be given the power to arbitrate what speech is "acceptable" and what speech is "unacceptable" -- and the power I give such a person today to prevent Dan Cathy from making his anti-LGBT remarks can tomorrow be turned against me, preventing me from renouncing them as a blatant distortion of scripture.

If a government agency is given the power to stop Dan Cathy's remarks today --- how do I know that tomorrow the same government agency won't stop *me* from quoting the Bible where Jesus reprimands the Pharisees for placing burdens on the people that they themselves don't face --- and pointing out how they give gays and lesbans the burden of being unable to marry the gender they can actually be attracted to while they as straight people don't have that burden -- or give transfolk the burden of having to live in a gender-role that is psychologically destructive to them when they themselves (as cis-gendered people) live comfortably in a gender-role that fits them? Frankly, if Dan Cathy is prevented from saying what he has to say -- I might tomorrow be prevented from saying this response of mine.

I agree with Adria that I have much to be nervous of if Dan Cathy's freedom of speech is taken away. But to make the leap and say that Dan Cathy's speech itself shouldn't be a cause for me to be nervous? I wouldn't go that far. Because frankly, his speech *does* make me nervous.

Dan Cathy's speech makes me nervous because it makes it invokes every time that I was just starting to make friends --- only to have that derailed because venue-of-choice of the social circle I was starting to make headways into decided not to give me safe restroom access.

It calls to mind every time that I was prevented from forming normal female-to-female friendships on the basis of religious reasons.

It recalls how I was unable to even go to school during the five years of my transition -- because the school administration wouldn't allow me safe restroom access.

Also --- I'm sure there are gay and lesbians out there who read Dan Cathy's remarks, and remember their life-partners dying in the hospital, and being unable to spend their last minutes together because of the attitudes that he declares the intent to perpetuate.

So sorry - but Dan Cathy's comments *do* make me nervous. Very nervous.  And they are nothing short of an all-out assault on the brothers and sisters of Jesus based on a blatant distortion of the Bible.

However --- I don't trust the government to the the arbitrator of this fact that I just mentioned. And that is the reason - the *only* reason - why restricting Dan Cathy's freedom of speech makes me nervous too.

I do not find his view to be at all respectable - not in the least bit. I just don't want some government Department of Censorship to be the one to determine this.

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Permalink Reply by Matteo Masiello on 9th mo. 20, 2012 at 12:53pm

Sophia I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying. No one wants a Department of Censorship. No one wants a tyranny of the majority either. I don't think those who reacted to Cathy's statement were implying that he couldn't say what he said. I'm am happy to see that public sentiment will change in favor of the LGBT community and those who oppose it will have to accept it. It won't stop them from being homophobic just as civil rights legislation and public sentiment has not made people less racist, but it tells them that there will be consequences to their actions and perhaps the words behind those actions in some cases. It may not be censor airship but it might mean you might lose business or that your opinion will be less valued in the conversation. I think that too many people (mostly conservatives) have deluded themselves into thinking that they have a right to be hateful toward people because God says it's okay. They may have a Biblically valid argument but they need to work on their proper exegesis of that biblical source when it comes to acting in the face of the supposed sin they see in others. Simply saying that the Bible says so and so isn't enough.

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Permalink Reply by Howard Brod on 9th mo. 20, 2012 at 1:41pm

I'm not sure anyone here, including me, thinks the government should "punish"
Mr. Cathy for his remarks. All I'm saying is that a decent politician, as any decent American, has a right to exercise his/her freedom of speech by condemning the hypocrisy of Mr. Cathy who welcomes gay patrons in order to make money off of them so he is able to financially support organizations that would persecute them. And if you don't think forbidding a gay couple from marrying is persecution, you should live in their shoes before you decide that.

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