This morning's
Editor & Publisher reports that:
Editors at The Insurgent said they decided to publish the cartoons after an earlier uproar over cartoons in a Danish newspaper that took aim at Islam. Those cartoons caused rioting and deaths in some Muslim parts of the world.
But to be quite honest, I didn't know a thing about it until I got an email from the AFA asking that I send a note off to the Oregon Governor as well as other Oregon officials to get the school to apologize for depicting a Gay Jesus, or as the AFA describes it (graciously providing redacted images here):
One was a depiction of a naked Jesus on the cross with an erection; the other, titled Resurrection, showed a naked Jesus kissing another naked man, both sporting erections.
More below the fold...
It seems that the Insurgent staff is refusing to apologize for practicing its First Amendment right. Indeed, it seems that the Insurgent is wallowing in its Constitutionally protected freedoms regardless, or perhaps because, of whether it pisses people off.
Again...the AFA:
Here is what Insurgent Student Editor Jessica Brown had to say about the graphics. "I have to say it is really fun to offend people. It is fun to break the rules. If it pi--es people off...good that's the point!!! It has here in this office. So read, get pi--ed and talk about it."
Wll in its somewhat selective borrowing of quotes, the AFA neglected to add Brown's statement quoted in both the Emerald and El Vaquero in response to the fact that apparently university officials chose this particular issue to correct an administrative error where:
More than 700 copies of a controversial recent edition of a student publication that criticizes and satirizes Christianity are sitting in a University facility instead of being mailed as usual. University officials said they held the issues of The Student Insurgent after realizing an administrative error had allowed past issues to be sent at a discounted rate, but members of publication's staff claim the issues were censored" (par. 1).
Brown is quoted as saying that:
"We definitely feel that we're being discriminated against because of our beliefs about Christianity and the way we presented our beliefs," said Jessica Brown, a contributor to The Insurgent. "We don't feel that it was hate speech ... I just feel that (Christianity's) a very detrimental aspect to our society that needs to be politically discussed and possibly poked fun at occasionally"(par. 7)
Bill O'Reilly got involved when he reported that the Univ. of OR's president "[Dave] Frohnmayer is a coward who should be fired and that the issue is one of hate, not free speech" (E&P par. 3).
Although he has denouced the actual publication, E&P notes that Frohnmayer typically "opposes student publications he sees as offensive" (par. 4) He later points out that "U.S. Supreme Court rulings say funding for such publications cannot be content-based. The Insurgent receives fees paid by all students, but no tax dollars" (par. 5).
Darn it all. He went and brought SCOTUS into the picture. He called Bill a frog. Doesn't he know he's suppose to cower before the wrath of the giant loofa?
So I sent a little note off to the AFA asking them
"What part of
Amendment I
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.
don't you understand?"
Is it me? Or is the AFA swinging at pitches in the dirt when they decide to take on college students stretching their antidisestablishmentarianist muscles?