Tied to the Whipping Post?
Words.
For Your Consideration...
"I want the next Supreme Court justice to share my views on the Constitution. I don't care how she looks in a bathing suit, or halfway out of one. Miss California is a different story. Her qualifications, as a general rule, should be up to the people of California. Here in the state of Washington, we expect our beauty-contest winners to be able to split a log and appreciate good coffee. But Miss California's views on gay marriage have nothing to do with her qualifications for the job and shouldn't disqualify her for it.
This is really Liberalism 101, and it's amazing that so many liberals don't get it. Yes, yes, the Bill of Rights protects individuals against oppression by the government, not by other private individuals or organizations. But the values and logic behind our constitutional rights don't disappear when the oppressor is in the private sector. They may not have the force of law in that situation, but they ought to have the force of understanding and of habit. The logic behind freedom of speech is that "bad" speech does not need to be suppressed as long as "good" speech is free to counter it. Or at least that letting the good and bad do battle is more likely to allow the good speech to triumph than giving anyone the power to choose between them. Congratulations to Donald Trump for making the right decision in this case. But we can't count on every employer to be as sensitive and understanding as The Donald.
In Hollywood, especially, they ought to know better than to try to destroy the career of a professional beauty contestant because she spoke out -- ever so politely and tentatively, and only when asked -- against gay marriage. During the blacklist period, people's careers were destroyed because, as members of the Communist Party, they had admired Stalin's Soviet Union and wished -- or, occasionally, worked -- to see some of its finer features established here. Not every blacklist victim was communist, and even fewer had kept the faith, but we now recognize that even those who were believers had a right to their views. Maybe some people don't recognize this even today. But liberals ought to."
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