Typical theist behavior. You can see them doing that shit on YouTube of all places.

Still, the fact that a celebrity actually stood up at a mass media event and said something like this is a fairly good sign. The more people who realize it's okay to do this sort of thing, the better.

That is true and I agree.  But it's obvious that her voice wont' be heard because it will be censored.  Because the christians complained.  They are afraid that if people start to listen to rationality..they will loose their money making sheep factory.

BGH,

It's the idea that the christians want to ensure that no type of criticism of religion is presented in the public and social arena.  Doing so may start to drift the social sentiment away from religion.  They are afraid of that and since they have power, they can tell networks to censor any and all speech criticizing religion, labelling it under false pretense of hate speech. 

I can see them bleeping if she said "fuck Jesus" or "Jesus sucks cock", but that's toatlly wrong if they bllep the whole part like that. Just because it offends Christians. Conservative Christians wake up in the morning with the intention of being offended at least once that day.

We need a court case where someone can prove damage from the censoring.  A celebrity is the best bet because the rules for libel and slander are different for celebrities.  A good lawyer could prove that A) it is not hate speech and B) it's harmful to the celebrity's potential career to censor her speech since her speech IS her career, literally.

The difference is that Jesus isn't considered an offensive, disparaging word. Jesus isn't considered a racist word.  If I say suck it, Wavefreak, is that hate speech?  It might not be nice, but it's certainly not hate speech.

Wow, that's really all she said?  Yikes. 

Does the legal standard for hate speech require that the words themselves be offensive or is the intent taken into consideration? Jesus, taken alone is not offensive, fag and nigger in the right context are not offensive (listen to people with street cred talking). So when is it offensive? When the context makes it offensive.

If, in the middle of a hearing I tell a senator "go fuck yourself", I will get cited with contempt. If I tell someone in an internet forum "go fuck yourself" in a thread of ribald humor, then it means little. 

I don't see how you can possibly consider Kathy Griffins comments as hate speech. However a lot of the comments left about her on the website wavefreak linked to could definitely be seen as hate speech.

The laws on hate speech are intentionally vague to the point of allowing almost any interpretation the court deems appropriate.

And, just to echo what everyone else has already says, Jesus is not a bad word.  Jesus is something that some people believe in.  The speech was not directed at any living people, so how could it possibly be hate speech?

They'll probably say it's like hating on your dead aunt, but it's not even that.  Your dead aunt existed, and we know that for certain.

There's no way to get around the fact that this is not hate speech.  It's non-religious speech that could be offensive to some.

There is NO right to not be offended.

I do not know if it got moved.  Larry, did you want it moved?  Would you mind if it was moved to General Conversations?

LOL!!!!  And I won't be one of them! 

Bill Donohue needs to learn to be silent when an intelligent person is talking.  Suck it Bill.

Yeah. I noticed that. I was going to point it out. People can be such ass hats without even trying. 

Sometimes I think we've become a bit too sensitive or PC.  Yes, saying suck it, Jesus is offensive to some.  That doesn't mean she should be censored.  Everyone would be censored at some point, if that were the case. 

And kitty BBQ is excellent, you should try it some time. 

The power of the religious right is something of a red herring. Advertisers are paranoid not because they care about religious values, but because they don't want to lose money. Corporations are the lap dogs for whomever can grease the wheels of their profit machines. In the U.S., at this time, it seems the religious right has the power to threaten corporate profits. If bending to the religious starts to hurt the bottom line, the corporate world will abandon it faster than George Bush can offend a thinking man.

I can definitely agree with that wavefreak, but I think that this not only goes on in the corporate world but also, in the public policy world.  Our politics are being hijacked by these people, and this is just another example of the power the christian right possesses. 

The corporations are afraid to loose money, yes, so they cater to the christian right because they are afraid of being boycotted.  Now the problem is that there are too many people who are brainwashed by this idea called theism, this is exactly what folks like Donahue want.  By doing so they can keep the public debate silenced and out of the mainstream regarding the negation of the existence of a sky daddy.  

It's like a vicious self nurturing cycle of delusion. 

Technically, it would be more akin to saying "Suck it, Malcolm X." She was addressing a single figure, rather than a group of people.

They can try to keep the public debate silenced but the Pandora's box of logic and reason has been opened. I think we're going to continue to see an increase in the scrutinizing of faith, prayer, miracles, and the existence of invisible deities not just on the internet but in the mainstream media. Atheism will become more respected as the "religion" of common sense and censoring atheist views will be less tolerated.

No, it is not hate speech. 

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/11/tv.emmys.griffin.ap/index.html

 eta: Damn - whoever did that was fast. I was just going to merge the threads and it was done. Maybe it was magic?! O_O

Not that I am disagreeing with you, but someone needs to remind the United Daycare of America that just because something makes you uncomfortable doesn't mean it's wrong.

No.

Imus' speech was ignorant and offensive, and he got the axe because he used racially loaded words to describe a group of black women. The problem is that basically no one calls white women "hos" or any white person "nappy-headed". I would be willing to lay odds that if he'd called them "no-talent lackwits" he'd still have his job. So, he got canned for being ignorant, annoying and lacking in vocabulary.

Offensive speech becomes hate speech when you start to incite violence against a group of people. Insulting one specific person, living or dead, cannot possibly be hate speech (although I'm sure we can all come up with a great example of people who would like to equate insulting them personally with insulting a whole group). If it had been "suck it, Christians!" it still wouldn't be hate speech, because it's not inciting violence.

I disagree. Getting censored for something said about one specific (ostensibly) dead person is a distraction from the issue of the definition of hate speech.

So let me ask: so what? So what if it was offensive? Who ever told anyone they had a right to be comfortable, unchallenged and inoffensible? In the US, the Constitution gives people the right to be offensive. Granted, Kathy could have her Emmy taken away and lose her gig on whatever her TV network is for what she said, but that's a separate issue.

People don't want to be offended when they don't like the painful process of thinking. When you get offended about something, your first thought should be "is that person right?" If they're not right, THEN think about getting offended. If they are right, well, you've got more thinking to do. I'll admit I don't go LOOKING for things to offend me or that are distasteful, but I certainly don't go crying for redress of grievances just because someone said something bad about my role model.

I see it like this: if you are saying bad things about people regarding the things they cannot change about themselves (race, ethnicity, orientation, gender, etc.), that's possible hate speech. If you're saying bad things about a person regarding things they CAN change (hair colour, speech, religion, etc.), that may be offensive, but it cannot be considered hate speech. If we can't criticize the choices people make, what does that leave us? No criticism?

What bothers me is that it seems that being offensive is OK as long as the targets are twits.  One thing I have noticed that cuts across ALL beliefs - atheist, theist, christian, pagan or whatever - is the dynamic of contempt. When a person allows contempt to become a part of their thinking it inevitably leads to decisions and actions that are hurtful. Contempt, bitterness, and other destructively negative mind sets are a cancer. While it is VERY frustrating to deal with the inanity of our culture, once you set yourself above others and sneer in contempt at their un-enlightened miserableness, then you have lost.

If atheism is true, and we manage to not nuke ourselves, then the delusion of theism will fade away. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but it will sowly wither and die. But if you try and kill it, it will rise up like a dragon and fight back with all its irrational fury. And then we may end up nuked.

I think she should issue a public apology for forgetting to also tell the pope to suck it.

 I'm reminded of a button...

 And again, I don't think this would've been an issue unless christian groups wouldn't have made it an issue.  Which is exactly what's wrong with this country.  Spiritual leaders have too much power both politically and socially.  This has got to change.

And this is exactly why I hate the usage of the term "hate speech", people fail to realize that they may not be the ones in power deciding who gets to say what and what is hatefull vs offensive.

If FOR EXAMPLE ONLY Kathy had gone up and said, "Christians should be tortured" that would be illegal because it is a call to violence. What she said even if hatefull (which it wasnt) but even if, SHOULD STILL BE PROTECTED by the first Amendment.

Her rights are not violated by the event organizers cutting out that line. She still has the right to go other places to other media our use her own media to say the same thing.

I really cannot stand pollitically correct idiots insisting on making "hate speech" as part of legal lingo. That is dangerous because the people who want it may consider YOU to be commiting hate speech.

There is a differance between say, a moderator booting someone(private person) and a goverment official such as a policeman, prosicutor, or judge shutting down this site.

We must remember that BOTH atheists and Christians are capable of crying foul and bigotry even if they are merely being offensive. But remember, Christians outnumber atheists so I do not think it is within our intrest to demand "hate speech" laws and give goverment the power to shut sites like this down. 

Emagine those same Catholics if they wrote laws based on "hate speech" and what they would do to this site if they could. Emgagine if what Scientologists like Tom Cruise would do to shows like South Park if Judges could inforce "hate speech" as determined by Scientologists. 

Quote:

I am glad you had no hand in writing the Constitution.

Dont mix apples and oranges. Kathy Griffen had every right to say what she said, and the event organizers have every right clip it. No one's rights were being violated, not hers and not the event organizers. Both had choices, she chose to say it, and they chose to clip it.

What GOVERNMENT does not have the right to do, is demand Kathy Griffen never say that anywhere. What the GOVERMENT does not have the right to do is tell the event organizers that they must let her say it.

Do not confuse "what people should do, or what you think they should do" with what is actually legal by law. What she did was legal and what the event organizers did was legal. No one broke the law.