3/12/07

I keep being late with these weekend posts, mostly because we have no internet connection at the Cape when the folks aren't up. Anyway, my tardiness means I can once again link to DU's Top Ten, but it won't be my whole post this time.

This week I want to talk about something that appeared at the top of last week's list. For those of you who didn't hear, our good buddy Ann Coulter more or less called Democratic Presidential Candidate and former Senator John Edwards a "faggot."

Now, I promised long ago that I would not use this blog to respond to the hateful rants of Conservative blowhards like Coulter. And indeed, I will not be responding to these comments myself. What I do want to write about is a few people who have.

Specifically, newspapers that used to carry Ann Coulter's syndicated column. I say "used to" because these publications have decided, in the time period since Coulter used the slur, to discontinue to publish her work. It's a noble gesture, and this happening is something I find encouraging, yet at the same time somewhat lacking.

Homosexual rights have come along slowly. Unlike African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Native Americans, women, etc., which have legal, if not actual, equality, homosexuals are on an uneven ground with the rest of Americans, even legally. And socially, they are far behind. The word faggot - or fag, queer, etc. - os just as offensive and hatfeul as any racial slur, yet many people who would never be caught dead using the word nigger have no problem using these words in public. It is satisfying, therefore, to see that these papers are leading the charge to stamp out this form of hateful language in polite society.

Please note, those of you who are already screaming "Freedom of Speech" at your computer monitors, that this is not a 1st Ammendmant issue. The Constitution of the United States declares that "Congress shall pass no law... abridging the freedom of speech." If Ann Coulter were to be arrested over her remarks I would be as outraged as the most homophobic paranoid right-wing militia member. What the 1st Ammendmant does not protect us, or Ms. Coulter, from is the ramifications inflicted upon her by a private entity such as a newspaper. When you use hate speech, it is the newspaper's right to dissasociate themselves from you if they so choose, just as it is their right, if they so choose, to print said speech.

I would march for Ann Coulter's right to use words like faggot in the provacy of her own home, or even at a speech in a public rally on the capitol steps, if she had the proper permit to conduct such a rally, but there is no reason any paper should be forced to carry anything written by someone it feels is a bigot.

That all being said, I find it to be a sad commentary that many papers have not chosen, at least thus far, to follow suit and also remove Ms. Coulter's columns from their pages. Like I said before, "faggot" is just as hateful as any racial or ethnic slur, yet had Ms. Coulter called anyone a nigger or a kike or a spic, surely many more newspapers than 7 would consider that a removable offense. I look forward to the day when the word faggot takes its place among the words not to be used where others might hear them.

I'll do my personal blog later today, probably in the afternoon. Till then...