On The Media

In listening to your discussion as to whether the children witnessing the lesbian wedding were being used as a political football by the media, it occurred to me that the children had already been used as a political football . . . by the lesbian couple. Billing the affair as "a teaching moment," the couple was flat out indoctrinating the children into seeing their lifestyle as normal and something to be celebrated. How self-serving! While the ad indeed uses the images of the children as a political football, the lesbian couple's use of the children themselves for political ends is far more egregious and outrageous.

Although Mr. Garfield seemed puzzled about Prof. Lessig using Lyle Lovett as an example of the real intent of the DMCA, it was clear to me. They have the same initials! ;-)

So what's so funny about Lyle Lovett? Before he had funny hair and success as an entertainer, he was a journalism student doing quite well in my wife's class at Texas A&M University.

Paul LaRocque

Actually, it seems even stickier than Ms./Mr. Hammond suggests. If the ad was truthful, it wasn't the couple (who would probably be as delighted as the schoolchildren likely were to have the kids in one of the couple's classes attend their joyous and legal event) that presented enablement but the grammar school.

I would venture to say that does not meet the level of coercion, of which I wrote last week as an alternative to voluntary participation in political speech by children. If I remember my mindset from grammar school, I know I would have been delighted to have been invited to my teacher's nuptials and be grateful for the enablement. In fact, I bet there had to be parental permission slips for the field trip, just like when I was little.

One of the catch phrases of the '60s, thus much later than my hormones kicked in, that I none-the-less saw the basic philosophical wisdom in was "Make love, not war." It wasn't particularly specific about to whom.

Now that "Black is beautiful," has come to full flower and tolerance for racial intolerance is both legally and culturally sanctioned against, will it really have to take the election of an openly gay person to the Presidency for people in this country to see the tide of history?

What is liberty if not to love whom you love without your neighbor or your government interfering. Then, again, there isn't even a common agreement on what love is.