Yesterday afternoon our local blog-cum-news-outlet sfist.com posted an interview with a Fred Phelps, the anti-gay hate monger who’s often featured on cable news channels, and now, surprisingly, on blogs like sfist. I questioned sfist’s motives behind this interview, and my questions eventually lead to the discussion below with brock, the editor of the article. (For reference, here’s the wikipedia article on Frank Chu)
me:
@brock:
1. fred phelps: on every cable news channel ever, now also on sfist.com
2. frank chu: hardly on the news, frequently on sfist.complease explain.
brock:
one is mentally ill and has the power to affect public thought on homosexuality. the other, combined with his asian background and signage, is mentally ill but amuses the trustifarians of SF ever so.
again, put your head back in your navel and no one will hurt you, angel. shhh, it’l be ok.
UPDATE:
First off, I don’t know brock, so if you’re reading this, know that I don’t hold any ill will towards the guy. However, this is a stunning revelation of how sfist views their audience. Mr. Brock has revised his previous statement to read as follows:
brock:
one is mentally ill and has the power to affect public thought on homosexuality, thus worthy of an interview to an audience that otherwise likes to keep its head on the sand.
I’m sorry, was I reading gawker/valleywag/defamer, or was I reading sfist? Ah, San Francisco, home of gays, bloggers, and elists.
2 Comments
Could one of the journalistic prodigies that keep condoning Mr. Phelps please point me to an example of when hate speech has been productive in society?
Anthony Lewis made a good point: democratic & free speech are great, but they’re experiments. they could fail. if the ‘wrong’ person gets too much of a following it could lead to a detrimental collapse of the society. such was the case in Germany, such has been the case elsewhere.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the 1st person to burn a flag on the 4th of July, but i think any of us are smart enough to draw a very distinct & unwavering line between my action and the rhetoric Mr. Phelps spews.
Old or tattered flags can legally be burned on the 4th of July, and Flag Day.