{"id":15817,"date":"2012-09-10T01:59:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-10T08:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=15817"},"modified":"2012-09-10T02:03:25","modified_gmt":"2012-09-10T09:03:25","slug":"anti-ssm-politician-in-baltimore-asks-boss-to-order-pro-ssm-employee-to-shut-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=15817","title":{"rendered":"Anti-SSM Politician In Baltimore Asks Boss To Order Pro-SSM Employee To Shut Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brendon Ayanbadejo, a football player for the Baltimore Ravens, has been outspoken in support of marriage equality. Maryland state Delegate Emmett Burns, a Reverend and a Democrat, wrote to Ayanbadejo’s boss (Ravens owner Steven Disciotti) on government letterhead<\/a> (emphasis mine):<\/p>\n

I find it inconceivable that one of your players, Mr. Brendon Ayanbadejo would publicly endorse Same-Sex marriage, specifically as a Raven Football player. Many of my constituents and your football supporters are appalled and aghast that a member of the Ravens Football Team would step into this controversial divide and try to sway public opinion one way or the other.<\/p>\n

Many of your fans are opposed to such a view and feel it has no place in a sport that is strictly for pride, entertainment and excitement. I believe Mr. Ayanbadejo should concentrate on football and steer clear of dividing the fan base.<\/p>\n

I am requesting that you take the necessary action, as a National Football League Owner, to inhibit such expressions from your employees and that he be ordered to cease and desist such injurious actions.<\/strong> I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing.<\/p>\n

Please give me your immediate response.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I hope I don’t need to explain why this is appalling behavior. (I should note that after massive criticism from liberals and democrats, Burns backed down<\/a>. Reminds me of that other Reverend who boldly announced his opposition to Obama because of Obama’s pro-SSM stance, and then backed down a week later. Oh, wait, that was the same dude<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

When a similar situation happened earlier this year, many pro-SSM bloggers (including some big names, like Andrew Sullivan) spoke up to defend Chick-Fil-A’s free speech rights, as did major pro-SSM organizations like the ACLU. Have any major anti-SSM bloggers or organizations spoken up to defend Brendon Ayanbadejo’s free speech?<\/p>\n

I don’t know. But I can say for sure that NOMBlog — which posted countless times on the Chick-Fil-A mess, often several times a day — has yet to post about Burns’ attack on Ayanbadejo’s free speech rights.<\/p>\n

(Postscript: While looking – unsuccessfully – for examples of NOM standing up for free speech of people they don’t agree with, I came across this video of<\/a> Brian Brown passionately arguing that it’s wrong to describe this FRC statement as “spewing hate”: “One of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets’ of a new sexual order.” <\/p>\n

Brown shouldn’t have trouble unambiguously condemning a statement like that; and that he does have trouble suggests that his moral balance is seriously skewed. Things like that are why so many people consider NOM an anti-gay group, rather than an anti-SSM group.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brendon Ayanbadejo, a football player for the Baltimore Ravens, has been outspoken in support of marriage equality. Maryland state Delegate Emmett Burns, a Reverend and a Democrat, wrote to Ayanbadejo’s boss (Ravens owner Steven Disciotti) on government letterhead (emphasis mine): … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-speech-censorship-copyright-law-etc","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15817"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15819,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15817\/revisions\/15819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}