Marriage is the foundation of the natural family and sustains family values. That sentence is inflammatory, perhaps even a hate crime.
At least it is in Oakland, Calif. That city’s government says those words italicized here constitute something akin to hate speech, and can be proscribed from the government’s open e-mail system and employee bulletin board.
When the McCain-Feingold law empowered government to regulate the quantity, content and timing of political campaign speech about government, it was predictable that the right of free speech would increasingly be sacrificed to various social objectives that free speech supposedly impedes. And it was predictable that speech suppression would become an instrument of cultural combat, used to settle ideological scores and advance political agendas by silencing adversaries.
That has happened in Oakland. And, predictably, the ineffable 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ratified this abridgement of First Amendment protections. Fortunately, overturning the 9th Circuit is steady work for the U.S. Supreme Court.
perhaps a current Bay Area resident can comment on my question – has everything gone to hell in a handbasket in the last ten years or was I not paying enough attention when I lived there in the mid 90s?
Silencing those with opposing views is normal and acceptable in the region that brought us the :Free Speech Movement”. Now at the universities it is morally correct to shout down speakers who present undesirable views.
And grades for papers are understood to be based on shared politics. After all, that is how those with the same politics become qualified for advancement.
Notice that the 9th Circuit denied this case for an appeal on grounds that “the GNEA’s speech interest — the flier — is ‘vanishingly small.’ ”
But this is the same 9th Circuit that accepted and reversed the lower court ruling in the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case. Now the 9th Circuit decision was just reversed by the US Supreme Court.
Folks, this is scary. This is exactly in line with the “gay agenda.” Our TEC hierchy does this all the time, by referring to reasserters as homophobic, if we raise any objections. But this is the first time I’ve seen government call “marriage” hate speech. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
[blockquote]perhaps a current Bay Area resident can comment on my question – has everything gone to hell in a handbasket in the last ten years or was I not paying enough attention when I lived there in the mid 90s?[/blockquote]
I guess it depends on where you lived. Things certainly aren’t any different than when I lived in the People’s Republic of Berkeley in the Seventies, and that’s right down Telegraph Ave. from Oakland–though the two are light years apart in terms of income and ethnic makeup, whatever the protestations of Berzerkleyans may be about third-world solidarity. As I remember, when I lived there was an ordinance banning the flying of the American flag, and Jimmy Carter was referred to as a “Nazi.” They also used to discipline Berkeley police if they ever made a drug arrest, which resulted in Telegraph being the drug supermarket of the Bay Area. You couldn’t walk more than ten yards without someone trying to sell you dope, heroin, speed, LSD and the like.
When I lived in that area, over the hills in Walnut Creek or across the pond in Benicia, they were a world apart from Berlkley, Oakland or SF.
The farther you get from the above 3 liberal compounds, the more normal people are %-P