Paul says...
A few weeks back, NHL bad boy Sean Avery was in the news again, not for being an idiot this time, but for something totally unexpected... something "Un-Avery", like. Sean, it seems, had taken up a cause... advocating for gay marriage!
In public service announcements for "New Yorkers for Marriage Equality," the rebellious Ranger opines, "I treat everyone the way I expect to be treated, and that applies to marriage. Committed couples should be able to marry the person they love. Join me in supporting marriage equality".
While many were shocked to learn that Sean may care about something other than Sean, others, like NHL player agent, Todd Reynolds, took exception to his point of view. Risking being busted by the politically correct constabulary, he tweeted, "Very sad to read Sean Avery's misguided support of same-gender 'marriage.' Legal or not, it will always be wrong."
As Reynolds endured the boos and hisses, and was dealt the 'homophobe card,' another celebrity jumped in to the act... Sportsnet host, Damien Goddard! He tweeted, "I completely and whole-heartedly support Todd Reynolds and his support for the traditional and TRUE meaning of marriage."
More boos and hisses! We invited Damien to join us on our show, but he declined, saying he was staying low and moving fast... maybe some other time. We were disappointed, but understood. He had a job, and people to answer too. A few days later he was fired. How sad.
How sad that the rights we once enjoyed in this so-called free and democratic society, have been so easily trumped by political correctness... fall in line, or fall out!
Disagree if you will, be offended if you must, but Reynolds and Goddard should be allowed their views without fear of harassment or persecution.
Do we not recall the words attributed to that famous French philosopher, Francois-Marie Arouet... pen name 'Voltaire?'
Apparently not.
Carol says...
On this one, Paul and I pretty much agree! As an individual you have the right to hold any opinion you like. It's one of the freedoms we enjoy in this country but, if your opinion shared liberally and publicly begins to affect your employer there may be consequences.
Damien Goddard, should have the right to say how he feels. He just said that he doesn't believe in gay marriage. So! That is his opinion. The venom and vitriol that was spewed in his direction was hateful.
If you are hired for your opinions you shouldn't be fired for them if they aren't the popular ones or don't reflect being in lockstep with management. Look at Don Cherry! It really does take an employer with backbone to support their staff when complaints are lodged. We know what that's like and over the years have worked for very supportive employers and others not so much.
I think where Todd Reynolds dove offside was in a follow up interview to his tweet where he says. "But the majority, I think, of Canadians would say that they don't agree with gay marriage -- that man and woman were created to be married, not man and man or man and horse, you know?"
Why would he suggest a consensual relationship between two same-sex individuals is comparable to bestiality! Please! It drives me nuts when people do that.
Will we only tolerate speech we agree with and opinions that match our own? We will be living in a very boring country where real conversations take place away from the spotlight, debate will disappear and only government sanctioned discussions will be allowed.
When what you do for a living is share your opinion, you become pretty touchy when you see others losing their livelihood for sharing theirs. There may be a day when you disagree with me. Nah, more likely Paul!
In any event I hope you'll call to enhance not stifle the discussion.
The debate continues.
Paul and Carol Mott can be heard discussing the issues weekdays from 11a.m. until noon streamed through their website www.themotts.ca.
Follow Carol Mott on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Mottstalk
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At the end of the day, imagine they changed gay marriage with black marriage saying that blacks shouldn't get married for some assinine and menaingless reason. Or marriage between different classes, or between people of different geographical locations.
Its pure wrong to make such comments, it is wrong to make anti-gay marriage comments. If you don't think so, in 200 years you will be on the same side that advocated slavery and Jim Crow laws, so why should I respect you now? Could you imagine if he said "slavery was a pretty good institution, we need more of that!"?
Should LGBT people and their allies remain silent before of such vilification, so that the presenter is safe?
If he went off on a rant against too many East-Indian immigrants, Isreal's policy of "apartheid", how Obama was born in Kenya, or any other bigoted rant then firing him should be an option. He was hired to discuss sports, not be a talk radio host.
Lest we forget, this joker compared my every bit-as-good-and-valuable homosexual marriage not to his heterosexual marriage, but to a man marrying a horse. People who agree with him quite frequently call people like me-- law abiding, tax paying, contributing members of society-- a threat to religion, freedom, children, family, faith, marriage, heterosexuality, barnyard animals, and goddam western civilization.
Civilized people call that the bigotry that it is, more and more all the time. The uneducated, uncivilized hold desperately to their old bigotries. It is easier than compassion, logic, or thought.
If they are not so impolite, they will insist that their religious beliefs should determine how my establishment clause government treats me and my family, which rights, if any, should be afforded to me by society, or whether i should be persecuted, and to what extent, or merely shunned.
civilized people call that religious bigotry.
This has never been about marriage, but what it has always been about-- how much the very existence of homosexuals attracts, bothers, offends, entices, and torments some heterosexuals, and a number of homosexuals who desperately want to be straight, but ain't.
It is one thing to say you are against marriage equality, as wrong headed, stupid, and wasteful as that is. but the anti-marriage-equality folks are not pro-marriage, they are anti-gay. world of difference.
This man damien didn't just oppose marriage equality. He showed what his real motivation was, and that just isn't pretty. I have friends that have been devoted couples longer than all seven of Gingrich and Limbaugh's 7 weddings combined. I know of people who have been together longer than all 15 of the marriages of those vctwo jokers and Liz Taylor.
Guess who gets to get married as often and as badly as legally possible? Guess who gets to protect their families and westates with a $100 marriage certificatre, while we have to spend thousands for douments that some states will not enforce?
The problem here is that these kinds of statements CREATE fear, harassment and persecution. So as valid as the question might be, I find it difficult to consider that one should be free from "fear of harassment or persecution" in making a statement which generates "fear of harassment or persecution".
Here's a little food for thought, the vast majority of sexual devience in Canada is heterosexual. Are you saying you didn't know our 12 year olds are having BJ parties ? What do you expect in a society where absolutely everything, from TV, movies, advertisement, books, are all hyper sexualized ?
Those 12 year olds don't worry me quite as much as the 15 year olds my coworker's child is friendly with who are experimenting with erotic asphyxiation (he came home from an after school "party' and mentioned what they were doing because he was confused by it).
People are denied the right to protect their famil,ies legally all of the time.
Sauce for the goose is not sauce for the rpoganda?
Contrary to your view, we continue to enjoy a democratic society with general freedom of speech.
Todd Reynolds' argument was not "trumped by political correctness"; it was trumped by reason. "[I]t will always be wrong" is not a valid argument for denying people equal rights. It's an irrational opinion that's neither logical nor pragmatic.
"Do we not recall the words attributed to that famous French philosopher, Francois-Marie Arouet... pen name 'Voltaire?'"
IIRC, those words involve defending people's right to free speech to the death even if you disagree with that speech. Practically speaking, I'd bet that you two and most others would not, in fact, be willing to give your lives to defend the freedom of speech of just anyone particularly if that "anyone" has declared you personally (in effect) to be evil. In the end, that quotation is nothing more than a rhetorical flourish. Consider Fred Phelps, for instance; I certainly would not take a bullet for him to maintain his right to declare that I'm going to Hell.