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Censorship in the Name of Tolerance

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Sat, 2010-06-26 15:38 — The Conductor
Topic: 
Culture
Law
Places: 
Minneapolis

A U.S. Judge has upheld an anti-gay activist’s right to participate in this weekend’s Gay Pride celebration in Minneapolis. Pride leases a downtown park as the center of their festival. They thought they should have exclusive control over who can be there. The Minneapolis Park Board, surprisingly, sided with the activist.

The Park Board figured that it is still a public park, and anyone who wants to be there should be allowed to show up. The activist, a Christian evangelist, had been a regular at Pride for a decade without causing a ruckus. Maybe his message wasn’t well received, but the gays did at least tolerate him. Now the gay community is getting more exclusive. According to their lawyer:

if Johnson is allowed to distribute materials without paying vendor fees or abiding by Pride's rules, it would dilute the festival's message of tolerance and cause "irreparable harm."

That’s right. The gay form of tolerance depends on stifling dissent.

Fabulous!