UN-AMERICAN TO THE CORE
ANTI-GAY SPEECH NOT ALLOWED HERE!
ANTI-GAY SPEECH NOT ALLOWED HERE!
"HOW TO DISCUSS LGBT ISSUES":
SEE: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2015/03/how_to_discuss_lgbt_issues_on.html; excerpt quoted below:PROHIBITED SPEECH:
1) Comparing homosexuality to illegal acts.
2) Graphic sexual descriptions.
3) Slurs and personal attacks.
4) Religious damnation.
5) Stating homosexuality is a mental disorder.
"But what about Gender Identity Disorder, the diagnosis given to transgender people? The current medical treatment for GID is to support the transgender people in transitioning their physical body with their psychological gender identity. To call a transgender person "sick" or "crazy" because they are openly transitioning would be out of line."
PENN LIVE: "THE SUPREMES GOT IT RIGHT":
http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2015/06/gay_marriage_anthony_kennedy_o.html
POLITICALLY CORRECT FASCIST GESTAPO GATEKEEPERS REGULATE SPEECH TO PROTECT GAYS FROM TRUTH COMING FROM "RELIGIOUS TERRORISTS" & OTHER TRUTH TELLERS
NEWSPAPER CENSORSHIP VIOLATES FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH
PL/PN EDITOR: "SPACE FOR CIVIL DISCUSSION" MEANS BANNING "INVECTIVE" SPEECH & OPPOSING OPINIONS ABOUT GAYS & SAME SEX MARRIAGE; COMPARED SUCH TO THAT COMING FROM BIGOTS, ANTI-SEMITES & RACISTS
THE SILENCING:
Paper Will Limit Anti-Gay Marriage Op-Eds
SEE: http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/26/the-silencing-paper-will-limit-anti-gay-marriage-op-eds/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
The editorial board of PennLive/The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. is taking a hardcore stance against those who disagree with the Supreme Court ruling to legalize gay marriage.
“As a result of Friday’s ruling, PennLive/The Patriot-News will no longer accept, nor will it print, op-Eds and letters to the editor in opposition to same-sex marriage,” they declared.
After receiving strong pushback, the newspaper’s editorial board, which is overseen by Editorial Page Editor John Micek, quickly revised its policy. Freedom of speech will be allowed — but only for a “limited” period of time.
Micek explained on Twitter: “Clarification: We will not foreclose discussion of the high court’s decision, but arguments that gay marriage is wrong/unnatural are out.”
Before that, there was this: “From the edit: ‘PL/PN will no longer accept, nor will it print, op-Eds and letters to the editor in opposition to same-sex marriage.’ …This is not hard: We would not print racist, sexist or anti-Semitc letters. To that, we add homophobic ones. Pretty simple.”
The notice at the top of the editorial page of the website now reads: “12:58 p.m. This post has been updated to further elaborate PennLive’s policy for accepting letters and op-Eds on same-sex marriage.”
A wealth of commenters were not pleased.
- “Big Jasper” opposes the policy: “Nice to see strict speech codes will be enforced by a ‘free’ press,” he wrote. “No need to worry about that messy ‘freedom of expression’ thing anymore.”
- “Motown” remarked, “God has the real say not some loony editorial board.”
- And “hgunwilltravel0″ said this: “In layman’s terms, any Christian view on anything will not be tolerated on this liberal website. Say it like it is and cut to the chase, and add my statement above to your manifesto.”
- “Chappedunderkee” focused on his bottom line and saw the glass half full. “I don’t mind who’s marrying who. It’s a good day to be a divorce lawyer.”
The editorial heavily praised the Supreme Court ruling, saying, “[Justice Anthony] Kennedy nailed it: There are no rights more fundamental than due process and equal treatment under the law.”
The board explained the newspaper’s policy to allow limited freedom of speech on the matter. (Bolded emphasis, mine.)
“In the more than four decades since, a union that was viewed as unnatural and even a hideous provocation to violence is now commonplace and celebrated. On Friday, the United States crossed a similar threshold, continuing a long road to acceptance of same-sex unions. And this news organization now crosses another threshold. As a result of Friday’s ruling, PennLive/The Patriot-News will very strictly limit op-Eds and letters to the editor in opposition to same-sex marriage.”
The editorial went on to compare a stance against gay marriage to an intolerance to interracial marriage or women being treated as inferior to men. The board will not be tolerate any of the above.
“These unions are now the law of the land. And we would not entertain such criticisms that these unions are morally wrong or unnatural any more than we would entertain criticisms of interracial marriage or those claiming that women are less equal than men in the eyes of the law. We will, however, for a limited time, accept letters and op-Eds critical of the high court’s decision and its legal merits.“
The Mirror sought comment from Micek. He explained his views in a lengthy response, which I am running in its entirety:
Main points:
*The online comment section will not be shut down.
*He regrets not being clearer in the initial posting.
*“Certain forms of speech do not advance the discussion in a civil society.”
*Some letters critiquing the Supreme Court decision will be accepted.
“No one’s talking about limiting free speech on PennLive,” he wrote by email. “Nor is anyone talking about shutting down our online comments. That would be contrary to our mission as a news organization. And I certainly don’t think it’s a good idea at all.
“As PennLive’s Opinion Editor, I’m fully aware that a healthy debate is vital to a free society. And if the takeaway from our editorial on today’s decision is that we’re somehow trying to stifle free speech, then I regret not being clear enough in our initial posting.
“As you’ve likely noticed, the editorial has been revised to provide further clarity and specificity in response to the concerns voiced by our readers.
“With that in mind, I think we can all recognize that there are certain forms of speech that, while Constitutionally permissible, really do nothing to advance the discussion in a civil society.
“As I noted in the comments section of the editorial, no reasonable person would publish anti-Semitic speech, racist speech or sexist speech. It seems entirely reasonable to me to specifically add homophobic speech to that list.
“While that sort of speech has long been banned under our community guidelines for commenting, the Opinion page had never explicitly stated such a policy. Today’s decision seemed like an opportunity to provide that clarity.
“As the last week as has shown us, hate can have a terribly destructive effect when it is allowed to flourish. I’m trying to combat it by limiting its corrosive effect on our dialog. As I note, PennLive/The Patriot-News will accept letters and op-Eds critical of the Supreme Court’s decision on its merits or legal grounds.
“But we will not accept letters/op-Eds that use the Court’s ruling as a pretext to engage in hate speech.
“As to how long we’ll accept such submissions, I can’t really say. But there comes a point where matters are simply settled — as is the case in Loving v. Virginia. I guess we’ll just recognize that point when we’ve hit it.”
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PENNLIVE WALKS BACK NO PRO-TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE COMMENTS POLICY, PLAYS VICTIM
SEE: http://conservativejunction.com/pennlive-walks-back-no-pro-traditional-marriage-comments-policy-plays-victim/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
On Friday, Curtis Houck at NewsBusters reported that “the Harrisburg, PA newspaper The Patriot News announced that both they and their online site PennLive.com ‘will very strictly limit op-Eds and letters to the editor in opposition to same-sex marriage.'”
As of three years ago, the newspaper claimed weekly circulation of 476,000. Its current hype to advertisers boasts of “500,000 unique visitors and 22 million page views each month.” Faced with what quickly and obviously became a move with the potential to cause significant losses in readership, the paper abruptly reversed course Saturday morning.
Of course, it wasn’t the clean “We were wrong, we are sorry” the circumstances demanded. Instead, the “apology” from John L. Micek, who is the outfit’s editorial and opinions editor, rubbed the Supreme Court’s same-sex “marriage” ruling in readers’ faces and played the victim card.
Micek opened with a three-paragraph description of how one newsroom “colleague” cried tears of joy over the ruling. Fine, John, as if we didn’t know that the press has almost universally and openly advocated for the cause for several decades.
Micek then went into “woe is me” mode (bolds are mine):
Our letters policy on same-sex marriage – an explanation and an apology: John L. Micek… And as the comments on our main story about the ruling — many of them openly hostile — began to pile up, I decided I wanted to send the strongest possible message that the Opinion pages of PennLive and The Patriot-News would be space for civil discussion of one of the most important civil rights rulings of our lifetime.
I came up with three sentences, which currently read like this:“As a result of Friday’s ruling, PennLive/The Patriot-News will very strictly limit op-Eds and letters to the editor in opposition to same-sex marriage.“These unions are now the law of the land. And we will not publish such letters and op-Eds any more than we would publish those that are racist, sexist or anti-Semitic.“We will, however, for a limited time, accept letters and op-Eds on the high court’s decision and its legal merits.”… By day’s end, I’d received dozens of emails and several phone calls — not to mention the hundreds of comments appended to the editorial — accusing me (and this news organization) of being “fascists” opposed to both the First Amendment and the right to freedom of expression.And those were just the polite ones.
Micek then tried to make three points, all of which dug his hole deeper.
… First: No one at PennLive and The Patriot-News is an opponent of the First Amendment.
This argument seems potentially plausible until one nears the end of Micek’s missive, where he states that “These pages, I remind myself finally, belong to the people of Central Pennsylvania.” Well, my friend, if that’s what you and your organization really believe, then “these pages” are in the public square, and (based on your representation) are fair game for First Amendment suppression charges if comment moderators censor comments whose only “offense” is disagreement with “the law” or not being within someone’s intentionally limiting definition of mainstream.
… Second: And I cannot stress this one enough — that’s in a civil way. More than once yesterday I was referred to as “f****t-lover,” among other slurs. And that’s the point that I was trying to make with our statement: We will not publish such slurs any more than we would publish racist, sexist or anti-Semitic speech.
Immature name-calling is out of bounds, of course. But let’s be clear, John: Your incivility, i.e., telling readers that you would henceforth limit what they can say in the public square (as defined by you) was the equivalent of rudely screaming “Shut up!” to hundreds of thousands of people.
People the paper and PennLive.com told to zip it included clerics of dozens of Christian and other faiths; devout followers of those religions, which based on natural law have taught and always will always teach that the behavior the Supreme Court legalized several years ago is morally wrong; non-religious people whose humanitarian instincts tell them that legitimate marriage as an institution is a one-man, one-woman undertaking; and people of goodwill in general who understand that history has been notoriously unkind to “anything goes” societies.
… Third: I fully recognize that there are people of good conscience and of goodwill who will disagree with Friday’s high court ruling. They include philosophers and men and women of the cloth whose objections come from deeply held religious and moral convictions that are protected by the very same First Amendment that allowed me to stick my foot in my mouth on Friday.
Micek’s contention is not credible. He certainly had to recognize that his revised comment policy would have prevented the posting of, among many others, a Catholic bishop’s comment reiterating church doctrine, namely that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and that same-sex “marriage” defiles a sacred, time-tested foundational institution of civilization.
Finally:
I stand with my gay and lesbian friends who, on Friday, were extended the same protections under the law that the rest of us take for granted.But for those of you who were offended by what was intended as a very genuine attempt at fostering a civil discussion, I apologize.
The second-last sentence seems gratuitous and unnecessary, until you realize that his organization must stay in the gay thought police’s good graces, or they’ll be in a heap of trouble.
As to Micek’s final sentence, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air pegged it perfectly:
Ah yes, the standard “sorry if you were offended by my brilliance” non-apology. How exactly is telling people to shut up “fostering a civil discussion”? How does offering a blanket smear of all critics of Obergefell as bigots qualify as “a very genuine attempt” at any kind of discussion? For that matter, how did Micek envision a “discussion” coming from his all-out ban on any opposing view in his newspaper? At the end of all this, Micek then offers an apology — not for his actions, not for all of his mean-spirited and sanctimonious posing, but because we turned out to be not quite as stupid as Micek believed we were.
Let’s also not rule out the idea that Micek had opportunistically embarked on a “testing the limits” exercise. In other words, he may have shut down discussion hoping that the euphoria in the homosexual community and the desire among many readers who want to “live and let live” — part of which involves not seeing icky people challenging their comfortable, oblivious worldview — might outweigh those who objected. That clearly didn’t happen.
Regardless of the motivation, if Micek’s gambit had worked, it could have spread to other papers like wildfire. It didn’t work, but there’s always next time — and given the censorious path this nation is traveling, next time probably isn’t very far off.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
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SEE:
EXCERPT: "John Micek's recent effort to silence those views on gay marriage with which he disagrees tells us a great deal about his own narrow-mindedness."
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SEE:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/06/30/newspaper-editor-who-backtracked-after-banning-anti-gay-marriage-op-eds-apologizes-but-theres-something-missing-from-the-text/
EXCERPT:
The opinion editor at a Pennsylvania newspaper says that he “regrets” the initial language he used to announce on Friday that his outlet would ban op-eds that oppose same-sex marriage; he later changed that language to say that his staff would instead “very strictly” limit such content.
“I was way too fast on the draw on that, and sadly for a guy who writes for a living I frankly regret that that happened,” John L. Micek, editorial and opinion editor for PennLive and the Patriot-News, told TheBlaze. “It was never an intent on my part to restrict anyone’s speech.”
Micek said that his original language, which read, ”PennLive/The Patriot-News will no longer accept, nor will it print, op-eds and letters to the editor in opposition to same-sex marriage,” was “broad and imprecise” and that he could understand peoples’ frustrations.
It was after he hugged his co-worker and then sat down and considered the Supreme Court’s ruling — subsequently noticing some of the negative comments streaming in about the legalization of same-sex unions — that Micek said that he wanted to “send the strongest possible message that the opinion pages of PennLive and The Patriot-News would be space for civil discussion.”
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