The Triumph of the First Ammendment
Okay. I promised not to make my next entry about sex (Which is why I'm not going to tell you the story of what happened to me this past Friday -- except to say that I won Suicide Karaoke again), so I'll choose a nice safe topic. Religion.
This is already making the rounds, but hey, every little bit helps. I was just handed this link about an exceptional incident on the subway.
If you're too lazy to read the article yourself, here's a quick precis: Subway Evangelist decries the inherent satanism of homosexuality (The Dark Prince is a little light in the hooves, it seems. Come on, folks. It doesn't count as gay sex if satan shoves a red-hot poker up your ass. Unless you like it.). Author responds with show-tunes. And then it happens again, with the new preacher claiming that "Gay devils are controlling New York" (And here, I thought it was the five jew bankers [2 points]).
And this, in my opinion, is a victory for freedom of speech. At this point, you're probably asking yourself: What's this guy smoking? But though this be madness, there's method in it.
A lot of people, in their outrage at the hatemongers, would go as far as to say that the racists, the homophobes, and the religious nutcases (I want to make it absolutely clear that "religious" does not imply "nutcase". If it did, I wouldn't have to use both words) should not be allowed to espouse their beliefs. There's some merit to this argument (There are several European countries where they've decided that the need to protect the public from hate speech outweighs the freedom of expression, and have banned, for example, Nazi propaganda), but it's not one I support. I just have a problem with the fact that the people who preach tolerance and acceptance have so much trouble tolerating and accepting those who don't share those views -- It's wrong to oppress someone's beliefs, unless their belief is that it's okay to oppress someone's beliefs. Maybe even more importantly, your friendly neighborhood hatemongering evangelist often comes armed with an unfounded persecution complex -- thinking that a mostly-atheistic world is trying to crush and oppress the word of God (And ban the bible). The most important thing about this belief is that it's unfounded. The last thing I want if for them to be right.
So, the first triumph of Freedom of Speech here is that, as much as we may disapprove of what our Urban Apostle was saying, we accept her right to say it.
But that doesn't mean we have to just sit back and take it. Now, you're probably thinking that a rational discourse and debate would be a more mature way to deal with this situation. The problem is that you're dealing with someone who believes that the world is run by a conspiracy of sub-human homosexuals who actively engage in servitude to the source of all evil, and that the perfect and omnipotent creator of the universe has personally chosen them to decry this evil, and, despite the weight of biblical evidence, sanctions their righteous hate of those who disagree with them. This is not an argument within the domain of logical discourse. Their argument isn't based on logic and reason, and to respond with it isn't just ineffective -- it's not really apropriate. So the second triumph of free speech is that the author responded in kind to what was, in essence, an attack as logically absurd as, to give a totally random example, singing showtunes.
And when you've got rhythm, and you've got subway fare, who can ask for anything more?
--------
This is already making the rounds, but hey, every little bit helps. I was just handed this link about an exceptional incident on the subway.
If you're too lazy to read the article yourself, here's a quick precis: Subway Evangelist decries the inherent satanism of homosexuality (The Dark Prince is a little light in the hooves, it seems. Come on, folks. It doesn't count as gay sex if satan shoves a red-hot poker up your ass. Unless you like it.). Author responds with show-tunes. And then it happens again, with the new preacher claiming that "Gay devils are controlling New York" (And here, I thought it was the five jew bankers [2 points]).
And this, in my opinion, is a victory for freedom of speech. At this point, you're probably asking yourself: What's this guy smoking? But though this be madness, there's method in it.
A lot of people, in their outrage at the hatemongers, would go as far as to say that the racists, the homophobes, and the religious nutcases (I want to make it absolutely clear that "religious" does not imply "nutcase". If it did, I wouldn't have to use both words) should not be allowed to espouse their beliefs. There's some merit to this argument (There are several European countries where they've decided that the need to protect the public from hate speech outweighs the freedom of expression, and have banned, for example, Nazi propaganda), but it's not one I support. I just have a problem with the fact that the people who preach tolerance and acceptance have so much trouble tolerating and accepting those who don't share those views -- It's wrong to oppress someone's beliefs, unless their belief is that it's okay to oppress someone's beliefs. Maybe even more importantly, your friendly neighborhood hatemongering evangelist often comes armed with an unfounded persecution complex -- thinking that a mostly-atheistic world is trying to crush and oppress the word of God (And ban the bible). The most important thing about this belief is that it's unfounded. The last thing I want if for them to be right.
So, the first triumph of Freedom of Speech here is that, as much as we may disapprove of what our Urban Apostle was saying, we accept her right to say it.
But that doesn't mean we have to just sit back and take it. Now, you're probably thinking that a rational discourse and debate would be a more mature way to deal with this situation. The problem is that you're dealing with someone who believes that the world is run by a conspiracy of sub-human homosexuals who actively engage in servitude to the source of all evil, and that the perfect and omnipotent creator of the universe has personally chosen them to decry this evil, and, despite the weight of biblical evidence, sanctions their righteous hate of those who disagree with them. This is not an argument within the domain of logical discourse. Their argument isn't based on logic and reason, and to respond with it isn't just ineffective -- it's not really apropriate. So the second triumph of free speech is that the author responded in kind to what was, in essence, an attack as logically absurd as, to give a totally random example, singing showtunes.
And when you've got rhythm, and you've got subway fare, who can ask for anything more?
--------
