This post comes from a radio show I was listening to on the way home from work Monday. I was listening to Michelangelo Signorele on XM radio. His topic was columnist and self-proclaimed “faggy editor” of Vanity Fair.com Brett Berk. He writes a column called “The Gay Guide to Glee.” In one of his recent offerings, Berk called two characters “cartwheeling, foam party fags.”
Bring in the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation or GLAAD. GLAAD, offended by Berk’s use of the word fag, demanded he and Vanity Fair apologize immediately, and they did. Instead of standing up and saying “No, I have a right to free speech and freedom of the press,” they folded.
It is amazing to me how groups concerned with civil rights, tolerance and acceptance of a certain group are the first to take those away from others. To demand they apologize for exercising their Constitutional rights because the words they used were offensive. The First Amendment does exclude offensive speech from its protections. In fact, I believe offensive speech is the most important speech it protects.
Westboro Baptist Church does not apologize to those they offend because they do not have to. Other hate groups do not apologize to those they offend because they do not have to. Rappers do not apologize to those they offend because they do not have to. Get the point.
GLAAD was out of line to demand an apology from Brett Berk. It doesn’t even matter if he is gay or straight. He has the Constituionally guaranteed right to use the word fag as an insult, a descriptor, etc.
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