Scanner : free speech

This Week in Gayness: The Homecoming Drag Queen

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:38:00 GMT

Some gay rights bloggers were concerned about the presence of Jerry Lewis on the Oscar stage.

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District Supreme Court decision, which upheld free speech rights for students. The Gay News blog looks at how much has changed since then (spoiler: nothing.)

According to the Guardian, some evangelicals appear to be growing more receptive to the gays and lesbians in their midst.

More on that Focus on the Family vs. Charlotte, North Carolina story we mentioned last week.

The Log Cabin Republicans are going after that slimy new RNC chairman. Here's hoping for a split.

George Mason University senior Ryan Allen was awarded the title of Homecoming Queen at a sold-out basketball game on Saturday, thanks to his 12-inch heels and infamous local drag queen act.

As we mentioned earlier, Sean Penn was named Best Actor and Dustin Lance Black won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Milk. Both made speeches related to the Prop 8 fight in California. Here's a story about Dustin's speech airing in India, where it may have been censored in a rebroadcast of the ceremony.

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This Week in Gayness: Don't Ask... Just Don't Ask

This Week in Gayness: How to Tell Your Boyfriend Is Closeted

The Media Made More Mistakes Than Ever This Year

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:10:00 GMT

From Regret the Error, here's a list of the worst (and most amusing) slip-ups the media made in 2008... at least until they make some more in the next three weeks, of course...

The first thing we gotta ask is, why does anyone report (as news) the story that a certain person has herpes? And even if that's a wise move, to publicly shame someone for no reason, it still doesn't explain why they'd publish a story about a nobody like David Guest having the STD. Guest, it was claimed, had received the disease from Liza Minnelli as an unintended wedding present. Of course, it's totally fabricated, as the Daily Mail and other papers were forced to admit in print:

In articles published on 23 and 26 May 2008, we gave the impression that Mr Gest had contracted a sexually transmitted infection and alleged that he had Liza Minnelli’s dog killed without her knowledge.
This was wrong. David Gest has never had a sexually transmitted infection and did not have Ms Minnelli’s dog killed.
We apologise to Mr Gest for any embarrassment caused.

Isn't this like LBJ saying, Yes, it's untrue what I said about my opponent, "but make the bastard deny it"? In other words, maybe a few people missed it the first time-- a retraction only reinforces the public awareness of the possibility of the story's truth, as in when you phrase a denial as "No, I did not do that horrible thing," psychologically, many people think, "Hmm, 'horrible thing.' Wonder if he did it."

Ah, never mind, we can't explain it. Just read more:

Here’s how the famous humor writer [Dave Barry] chose to correct a misspelling he made in a column published by the Miami Herald:
In yesterday’s column about badminton, I misspelled the name of Guatemalan player Kevin Cordon. I apologize. In my defense, I want to note that in the same column I correctly spelled Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarak, Poompat Sapkulchananart and Porntip Buranapraseatsuk. So by the time I got to Kevin Cordon, my fingers were exhausted.

Wonder if he spelled "Cordon" with an "n" and an "m." These and more via Regret the Error.

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Gonzo Porn Director Slapped With 4 Years In Prison By Un-American Tampa Court

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:46:00 GMT

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
- from The Friends of Voltaire by Evelyn Beatrice Hall, 1906

The US District Court in Tampa, Florida appears to have forgotten the lessons of the above quote, Lenny Bruce, and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution: on Friday, they sentenced the disgusting, misogynistic, violent, and downright horrible pornographer Max Hardcore (real name Paul Little) to a three years and ten months in prison, a case of gross injustice if there ever was one. The stock market crashes, we may actually elect McCain-Palin, and the national debt is soaring, but the real problem here is our inability to see how all this is leading to a degradation in our collective sanity...

Let's look at the facts: Paul Little made sickening, perverted, and borderline child-porn films featuring women being pissed and puked on, for starters. (No, let's stop there, it doesn't improve from there.) The point isn't what he did-- it's what he didn't do. He didn't do anything that invalidates his First Amendment rights to free speech. He didn't rape children or even film children naked. He was convicted of obscenity, which, if we're not mistaken, is basically the same charges that drove Lenny Bruce to his doom. And would anyone today deny Lenny Bruce's routines were protected speech?

As Slate put it:

“So, to recap, in the Land of the Free: if you’re an adult who produces a film using other consenting adults, for the entertainment of still other consenting adults, which merely depicts fictional acts of humiliation and degradation, the DOJ will prosecute you and send you to prison for years."

There's another issue here: why was a California resident, who does his business solely within the state, prosecuted in Florida? Most believe it's because local law in Florida is less kind to the porn people, making it easier to charge and convict Little. (We have yet to hear another rational explanation for the trial's venue.) Of course, we're sure Little will appeal this to the highest levels, although by the time it gets there, we may have a McCain-Palin Supreme Court passing judgment on morality and the Constitution...

Read more here. Thanks to Jeff for the link. UPDATED: For some reason, the quote at the top was deleted after the jump...

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Skinny Dip Sandwich Free To All Plungers

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:42:00 GMT

Three hungry people are in trouble with John Q. Law after taking a nude dive for a free "Skinny Dip Sandwich" outside the Greenville, Maine's Black Frog Restaurant...

Our first thoughts: They should probably call it the Jerk Chicken or the Pulled Pork Sandwich and include a Matzoh Ball soup...

Last weekend, three amigos in their 20s and 30s, two males and a female, in fact, entered the Black Frog and asked proprietor Leigh Turner if they could have the free Skinny Dip Sandwich. Turner told them, "Sure, just let me check with the 40 or 50 diners..."

Remarkably, they all said yes...

Of course, that never stopped party poopers like the Greenville Police, led by crusading Chief Scott MacMaster[bater!], who is making sure the trio get a court date next month. He said a lone family that just happened to be standing right right there

was offended and contacted police.

Whiners. They remind us of the one woman in Michigan or someplace who represented most of the complaints that led to all of Howard Stern's million-dollar fines. Hey Puritans-- suck on this NSFW!

...NSFW penises ahead!

Via WMTV.

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Expose The Cover Up-- This Saturday At The National Go Topless Day

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:01:00 GMT

The ladies behind GoTopless.org are putting together a gargantuan nationwide protest honoring the Constitutional right to bare breasteses...

Here's the lineup for Saturday's events, all of which begin at noon unless otherwise noted:

LOS ANGELES: Venice Beach "Where Navy Street meets the sand" on the board walk
NEW YORK CITY: Central Park: Merchants Gate at Columbus Circle (59th Street at the corner of Central Park West and Central Park South), right by the giant Time Warner Mall
MIAMI: South Beach meeting time 12:30 PM -- 7th and Ocean Blvd across from News Cafe. Look for the topless women:))
CHICAGO Lakefront (across from Buckingham Fountain)
HAWAII: Honolulu and Hilo Big island
AUSTIN, TX: Hippie Hollow Park
BERKELEY, CA noon to 1pm Sproul Hall on the Mario Salvio famous "free speech" steps
SANTA FE, NM 1-2pm Alameda Park between Guadalupe and Sandoval
OMAHA NE "Heartland of America Park" near Downtown Omaha, Nebraska, and the parking lot is between Capitol Ave, and Douglas St. on 8th St. a link to the map is as follows. http://maps.google.com/maps?source=ig&q=41.25859%2C-95.926609 (starting time is not noon but 3PM for Omaha.
BLOOMINGTON, IN at the sample gates on campus at Kirkwood and Indiana
DENVER: (on Aug 26) at the door steps of the Presidential Democratic Convention.

Spiritual leader "Rael" says the event will raise awareness that the 14th Amendment, that pesky old footnote indicating we're all equal under the law, means women can go bare-chested if men are permitted to do the same. Some judges have-- gasp-- read this well enough to realize it applies to the cases of women who are arrested or ticketed for baring their breasts.

Thanks, Karen F.!

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Today in WTF: Ex-Candidate For Kentucky Gov. Arrested For Sex Offenses After Obvious Joke

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:57:00 GMT

Our first reaction: ha ha, perv.

Our second reaction: this is a travesty of justice! A man's life and career are at stake...

Here's the lowdown, you tell us if he isn't either a) completely lying or b) the people pressing charges against him should be the ones in prison:

1) Otis "Bullman" Hensley, pictured above in one of many campaign photos featuring riding, yes, a bull, was charged with attempting to lure a thirteen-year-girl and her eleven-year-old sister into “illegal sexual activity." Hensley, a two-time failed candidate for Governor of Kentucky, called the allegations a "misunderstanding."

Here's the part where you say: "what part of 'you show me yours and I'll show you mine' is every misunderstood?" Okay, now read on:

2) The incident in question took place in a supermarket, where Hensley was making off-the-cuff remarks while trying to win over the annoyed locals:

“The one girl turned around and looked at me and smiled,” Hensley said. “I said ‘Ma'am, do you want to trade them girls for a good fattening hog?' and then I went on into the meat department. That was all that was said.”
(The phrase may be a reference to the long-ago practice of giving farm animals as part of a dowry.)
Hensley said the grandmother became upset and went to tell the girls' father about his comment.
He said he followed the family out of the store and then to the courthouse trying to apologize.
He meant nothing sexual, he said, and uses the phrase often as a joke and a means to “cut up with people” in the county, where he is well-known for his unorthodox campaign style. Just before going into the grocery store, he made the same comment to a woman and young girl in the bank, he said. [Herald Leader]

It would be easy to make jokes about how humorous remarks revolving around farm animals and sex usually don't go over big in states like Kentucky, but...

In any case, Hensley was busted for first-degree unlawful transaction with a minor-- guess what? That's a felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Speaking of prison, as of press tim, Hensley was still in jail, kept separate from the lynch mob known as the prison population, awaiting a mere $15,000 in bail money...

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New Orleans Politician Arrested While Getting-- How Perfect-- A Lap Dance

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Sex Writer On "Obscene" Website Sentenced To Home Detention

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:38:00 GMT

A woman whose website, Red Rose Stories, was shuttered three years ago by the Feds, pleaded guilty yesterday to obscenity charges and received a long term of probation plus six months of home confinement.

Wait, fiftysomething years after Howl and Naked Lunch, they're still busting people for "obscenity," particularly on the internet? We had to find out just what the site could have presented that could get its owner in so much trouble...

Karen Fletcher is the owner of Red Rose Stories. She's a 56-year-old Pennsylvania woman who happens to live in the district covered by crusading US attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, a staple of the Alberto Gonzales/George W. Bush Justice Department and her website contained

stories that allegedly involved bestiality, water sports, scat, bondage and domination, S&M, slavery, threesomes, orgies and sex with children.

Note that not one of Fletcher's pages featured photos of any kind, nor did the site explicitly encourage real-life encounters with children. After her arrest, Fletcher quipped that, to her, it seemed "the only legal sex stories are those that involve a man and a woman consenting to missionary position sex in a dark room.”

Buchanan "has gone on a rampage trying to stamp out expression that doesn't meet her standards of morality," Marc John Randazza, a law professor at the Barry University School of Law in Orlando, wrote on his blog.
Randazza, who teaches about free speech rights and other legal issues, acknowledges that the content of Red Rose Stories was shocking, but he suggested the U.S. Constitution protects fictional stories. "If you believe in the Constitution, and you believe in what this country means, you can NOT believe that any American should ever face prison for writing fiction -- no matter what the subject matter of that fiction might be," he wrote in a blog post.

What do you think? Was Fletcher a fool for writing about child sex and enjoying it?

Via Anarchist Librarians and PC World.

Breaking News: Nerve Conquers All, Or At Least The Child Online Protection Act Trial

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:32:00 GMT

Do you guys remember the Live From The COPA Trial blog Nerve ran a few years back?

Word just came in from Will Doig, our Editor-In-Chief, that Nerve, Salon, and other websites have won their ACLU-led free speech fight against the dangerous Child Online Protection Act, after years of appeals and other legal wrangling by the government...

Tonight, we'll be rounding up the neighborhood children, strapping them to the chairs, and prying their eyes open to see unquestionable filth like Victoria's Secret, Barack Obama.com, and the "penis balloons" tag on Scanner, all of which will surely damage them for life. Okay, we're kidding, but we'll definitely be celebrating our glorious victory, which is in no small part thanks to testimony by defendent and Nerve CEO, Rufus Griscom...

One ACLU lawyer writes in:

We won! The Third Circuit has affirmed the district court finding that COPA is unconstitutional.

According to Wikipedia:

On March 22, 2007, U.S. District Judge Lowell A. Reed, Jr. once again struck down the Child Online Protection Act,^[7] finding the law facially violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Reed issued an order permanently enjoining the government from enforcing COPA, commenting that "perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection."^[8] The government again appealed, and the case is now before the Third Circuit.^[9]
COPA... is a law in the United States of America, passed in 1998 with the declared purpose of protecting minors from harmful sexual material on the Internet. The federal courts have ruled that the law violates the constitutional protection of free speech, and therefore have blocked it from taking effect. Several US states have since passed similar laws.
The law was part of a series of efforts by US lawmakers legislating over Internet pornography. Parts of the earlier and much broader Communications Decency Act had been struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court; COPA was a direct response to that decision, narrowing the range of material covered. COPA only limits commercial speech and only affects providers based within the United States.

We'll have more on this emerging story, including an interview with an ACLU lawyer, in the very near future...

Now We're Mad: George Carlin Dead At 71

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:08:00 GMT

George Carlin, who carried on the legacy of Lenny Bruce with a fight for free speech, died at 71 on Sunday of heart failure. Today, we reflect on some of our favorite moments in the great funnyman's career...

In 1973, Carlin went on the radio with his "Seven Words You Can't Say On Television." Whoops-- you couldn't say them on the radio, either. (He'd already been arrested a year earlier for simply reciting them in public-- see above photo.) The prudish Supreme Court ruled against Carlin, a fact that history will surely judge the 1978 Court harshly for.

We loved the "Class Clown" album, which contains the above-mentioned routine. You can hear Part 1 of this recordo on YouTube.

The first time we ever heard George Carlin on the radio, he was doing a bit called "People I Can Do Without." (In other words, "People I would kill if it were legal.") Some of our favorite lines:

A pimp who drives a Toyota Corolla.
People who actually know the second verse to "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Any lawyer who refers to the police as the "Federalies."
A cross-eyed nun with a bullwhip and a bottle of gin!
A brain surgeon with "Born to Lose" tattooed on his hands.
Couples whose children's names all start with the same initials.
A man in a hospital gown directing traffic.

We'll miss you, George. There's no one out there half as crazy or half as brilliant (well, Chris Rock's pretty talented, but still...)

Judge In Trouble For Bestiality Photos, Lingerie Parties

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:01:00 GMT

A judge in Los Angeles, due to hear a major obscenity trial, is in hot water after the contents of his website became public... although no one yet knows how they did...

1) Alex Kozinski is the chief Judge of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1996, he had a diary that was recently published, in the wake of the current scandal, on Slate. There isn't much here that he would have to recuse himself over-- unless you consider a lingerie (and pajama) party "obscenity." Looking at the above picture, we're not sure how we feel, mainly because of said party's obvious IQ average.

2) He was about to preside over what will surely become a landmark free speech case.

For jurors to determine whether [Ira] Isaacs' work is obscene, they will view hours of hard-core pornography so degrading that in one film, an actress cries throughout, prosecutors said in court papers.

But if jurors find that any of the four videos at issue in the case have any "literary, scientific or artistic value," the work is not legally obscene, according to a 1973 Supreme Court ruling.

"All they're going to do is turn on a DVD machine and hope the jury is going to be so shocked and disgusted and offended that they're going to throw me in prison," said Isaacs, 57, a native of the Bronx. He said he hopes that jurors will be shocked -- he's a self-described "shock artist" -- but also that they will see artistic value in the work. [LA Times]

3) Kozinski's site, which is now down for good, "included a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. Some of the material was inappropriate, he conceded, although he defended other sexually explicit content as 'funny.'"

4) The trial was suspended today following the public outcry. He may be removed from the case, although hopefully not.

5) He would've seen this case for what it was-- a disgrace to the Bill of Rights/First Amendment. Lenny Bruce will have died in vain. Henry Miller would have written all those books for nothing. And Bill Burroughs would return from the dead and shoot everyone in a William Tell Trick gone wrong.

To be continued...

Via the LA Times.

Sally Kern Speaks Truth To Gay-Terrorist Power

Katie Halper — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:15:00 GMT

The liberal, gay, secularist, vegan media has it's panties all up in a bunch over a leaked youtube video of Oklahoma state rep by day, freedom speech activist by night, Sally Kern. Kern delivered a free speech privately (she thought) to a group of Republicans:

[homosexuality] according to God's word, that is not the right kind of lifestyle. It has deadly consequences for those people involved in it.... [they] have more suicides… there's more illness, their life spans are shorter… studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades.This stuff—it's deadly and it's spreading, and it will destroy our young people. It will destroy this nation. Not everybody's lifestyle is equal, just like not all religions are equal.

Kern explained that homosexuality is even a bigger threat than, "terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat." The speech was leaked and sent around on youtube.

Kern is just the latest victim of the homosexual agenda which runs the media, this country, and the universe. As usual, as Kern rightly points out in a post-leak interview, the homosexuals are trying to take away people's rights to free speech and privacy. "There are indisputable facts that show its a deadly lifestyle... What is wrong with me, as an American, exercising my free speech rights?" Amen!

Besides, Kern's words were distorted and taken out of context. Kern herself explains "I am totally against hate speech.... The account given on YouTube took my words out of context and omitted other parts stringing certain words together to make it appear I was engaging in hate speech. I was not and would never do such a thing." The context that was omitted was Kern's preface that "some of my best friends are gay."

So, now watch the video, taking this omission into account. If you're looking for homophobic hate speech, I'm afraid you will be disappointed. But if you are looking for an American freedom-fighter, standing up for free speech, you're in for a treat!