Mr. Barrios, thank you for your eloquent, right on target piece. Hope the Washington Post got the message. Tony Perkins is a disturbed, obsessed, hateful individual peddling bigotry under the guise of religion.

Article has not been pulled:
http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/10/christian_compassion_requires_the_truth_about_harms_of_homosexuality.html

C'mon, folks. Religion -- any religion? -- gets a free pass with this "both sides" relativism. I'm sure WaPo has signed on Mel Gibson for a forthcoming column on Jews. Can't wait for that one to hit the fan.

C'mon, folks. Religion -- any religion? -- gets a free pass with this "both sides" relativism. I'm sure WaPo has signed on Mel Gibson for a forthcoming column on Jews. Can't wait for that one to hit the fan.

The Washington Post has quietly yanked Tony Perkin's very offensive and outrageously false piece. Thank God.

http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/10/christian_compassion_requires_the_truth_about_harms_of_homosexuality.html%20%3Chttp://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/10/christian_compassion_requires_the_truth_about_harms_of_homosexuality.html

Look at the First Amendment again. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. "

There's nothing in there about the WaPo or any other organ being forced to allow hate speech in its pages. "Congress shall make no law..." is what it says and that's what it means.

Nobody's First Amendment rights would be violated if the WaPo exercised some editorial judgment, and hiding behind the First Amendment only shows what cowards they are.

Thank you, Mr. Barrios.

Absolutely. We, in the United States, assume that responsible publishers will put material that may be harmful to children or teens behind protected barriers - whether in print or on the Internet. We place warnings regarding adult material. We install digital nannies to monitor what our kids read.

Why is this religious hate speech accessible to kids? Bare breasts rarely, if ever, have driven a teen to suicide. A sexy butt has never, to my knowledge, incited a child to bully a classmate.

What standard of journalistic integrity requires the Post to make demeaning and degrading Op Eds accessible to children and other impressionable individuals?

Hey Washington Post! Shouldn't you put your anti-gay hate speech behind an adult-protected barrier? At least bare breasts generally don't contribute to teen suicide statistics.

I will announce my "bias" up front: I am related to one of Mr. Barrios' employees.
I am a follower of several Washington Post Journalists. [Their names shall remain sheilded to protect their innocence.]
Dear WaPo,
I am having a very hard time with "word- time" you are giving to someone who has, for decades, devoted himself to the ignorant, hateful slandering of people and lifestyles with [whom/which] he does not agree. Most certainly, Mr. Perkins is free to illuminate his philosophies anywhere he chooses. For one of the highest ranking print Journalism outlets in the Nation to publish this degree of "hate-mongering" is very disheartening. At the very least, you might consider publishing an opposing view, or two, that represent the other extreme, and place all of [it/them] on the same page. Please gives us true journalism, unlike the vast majority of your "competitors".

Fantastic piece, Mr. Barrios. I agree that Perkins's distorted opinion piece should not even have appeared in the Washington Post--he's entitled to his opinion, but the Post is under no obligation to publish his hate mongering. The media needs to wake up and hold itself accountable--each time you give voice to these hate-filled blowhards, you spread the message that being gay is inherently wrong. Stop it already. Kids are dying because of it.

SJames asserts that England has hate laws that prevent Perkinsonian group defamation, but that is not the case where the animus directed at homosexuals is claimed to be based on religious belief. Only direct incitement of another or others to murder or hate crime is an offence. Defamation of an individual or individuals is another matter and comes within the ambit both of criminal defamation (eg accusing a named person of being a sex offender solely on the basis of their being homosexual) or civil action (very expensive).

My neighbor has freedom of speech to say anything that he wants to say. If I chooses to punch him in the nose for saying it, I have commited a crime, not him; but his nose will still be punched.
--------------------------------------

There's an exception to the Constitutional free speech doctrine called fighting words that should apply to bullying. However, to be fighting words, the speech has to be individually directed.

"You're a fag and should go kill yourself" are fighting words.

Waving a placard "God Hates Fags" is not.

WmarkW |

My neighbor has freedom of speech to say anything that he wants to say. If I chooses to punch him in the nose for saying it, I have commited a crime, not him; but his nose will still be punched.

Shame on the Post

Perkins and his ilk seem to take the position that if you don't want to be bullied because you're gay, then just don't be gay. It's not quite that easy.

Why in the F... does the Wapo even give these creeps anything more then a sentence saying ...................

"The hate group Family research council is at it again."

As for free speech, at least some countries have had enough experience with free speech.

Germany and England have hate speech laws. They know what free speech gave to the worrld in Germanya in the 1930s.

And btw, you can bet that the Family Research council of perkins etc will soon be on the hate group list. These creeps should be sent to Afghanistan with their bibles. Let the taliban deal with them.

When you see a group with the word family in it, eg focus on the family, American family association, etc - you can just bet that they hate gay people and gay families.

People whose religious culture is left over from the dark ages of our civil war.

Perkins should be held guilty of mass murder of gay and perceived gay kids. He reminds me of Hitler, who murdered 55 million people with his words. Including germany's gays, the Jews, and others.

I took a pix of Perkins and showed it to some gay friends, because I wondered about him. And none of these people knew who he was, but all but one said their gaydar said "he is gay". Just another murderous homophobe who hates himself, and throws out his hate on others.

And his sidekick Peter Sprigg, I've met him. He is just laster focused on hatred fo gay people.

What he never tells is that he is a Baptist minister - the culture that gave us slaverry and the kkk and segregation. Who have a new victim to hate.

Also, interesting that spriggs was an actor in christian plays in college. A very large percentage of actors are gay. Makes you wonder.

These people are just like little hitlers, who btw, had all his soldiers wearing belt buckles saying "Gott Mit Uns" You can guess the translation.

Andc the family research council has called for the jailing of all gay people.

The our own talibangelicals, that doesn't mean jail. That means a new Auschwitz.

When is the USA going to do something about these murderous monsters, who btw, contribute directly to the every year 9/11 of about 3000 gay kids committing suicide.

@WMarkW: This is not a first amendment issue. Mr. Perkins still has the right to say whatever it is he wants. He does not, however, have to right to be published in a national newspaper. Notice the Washington Post would likely not publish someone spewing racial epithets toward black people and call it "Both sides" of the race debate. WaPo has every right to refuse to publish Mr. Perkins' erroneous comments and label it as "both sides" of the debate. The fact it, several national organizations have long proved his claims to be false, and if the Washington Post had an editor there worth his/her salt, they would have fact-checked his blathering before allowing it in their paper.

There is no excuse for bullying, and both the parents and the teachers share blame for it. Bullying someone to suicide is disgusting, whether related to sexual orientation, race, or anything else.

This piece, and one just posted by Joe Solmonese, both imply that Tony Perkins' expression of his opinions on On Faith somehow constitute "bullying" (whatever that is) and are not part of the American free speech tradition.

My alarm goes off when I hear people saying that we have to make exceptions to First Amendment principles for some value-judgement, emotion laden term, like "pornography" is an exception to a free press, "black magic" to free religious exercise, or "hate" to free speech.

The bullying the suiciders encountered was highly personalized -- cyber-communication, personal confrontations and broadcast of encounters that should have held an expectation of privacy. Personalization is an element of First Amendment exceptions for libel and slander, in that they must be individually directed. "The people supporting (some industry's) government bailout are swindlers" is not specific enough to sue over.

"God hates fags," "Gays are perverts," and "AIDS is a just revenge," if not personally directed over a widely-broadcast medium, are opinions not threats.

The real question is when are Americans going to stop these 25% "religious" bullies? They use their feigned "Christian Love and Concern" to jam their theocratic ideas down the rest of our throats through Limbaugh, Fox News and now On Faith.

Say no to them 2 November. Don't let their theocratic designs on America destroy our freedoms. Send them and Tony Perkins to political exile in some hateful theocracy.