From: egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Edward G. Nilges)
Subject: Sinead O'Connor's Freedom of Speech (was: Re: Sinead on SNL...YAY SINEAD!  
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 17:02:31 GMT

In article <BvrA6x.n2z@news.cso.uiuc.edu> locker@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jon Locker ) writes:
>In article <ed.718436302@cwis> ed@cwis.unomaha.edu (Ed Stastny) writes:
>>cb366@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mark B. Bendiksen) writes:
>> 
>
>Consider a different spin on this argument.  What if a Palestinian
>entertainer had come on a show and blamed Judaism for the sins of the
>world?  Would that be considered an 'anti-institutionalized religion'
>stand?  Or would it be (correctly) viewed as hateful words coming from a
>hateful person? 

This has been what the Daily News and Post have maintained, as well as
people on the net.  You conceal one important fact.  Sinead is Catholic
in the same way Jews are Jews.  That is, while she probably does not
practise, Jews don't lose their right to protest real anti-Semitism if
they stop going to shul.  Sinead was raised, and seriously harmed, in a
profoundly Catholic society and she protests the effect of this society
on her and millions of others.  As such, she is quite authorized to rip
up pictures of the Pope, just as a Jew, even a non-observant Jew, is
authorized to make jokes about Jews and to criticise Israel in a way
that non-Jews should NOT make jokes or (unjustified) criticism (the Jew
is, in some sense, authorised to make unfounded criticism of Israel,
whereas I must research any criticisms because I am not a Jew: Jewish
criticism of Israel is discourse that enjoys certain "insider" rights.)

In the Catholic catechism, it is made clear that "fallen away"
Catholics, who choose not to go to church or receive the Sacraments,
remain Catholics.  Some believe that this places these people (including
me, Sinead, and Madonna) in danger of everlasting damnation.  Others
(including me) believe that Sinead and Madonna (and Matthew Fox and
countless other contemporary heroes of the Catholic left) are BETTER
Catholics than the Pope.  "More Catholic than the Pope" was a term of
abuse in traditional Catholic families.  It conceals the fact that
Christ was more Catholic than the Pope, St  Thmoas Aquinas was MCTTP,
Ignatius Loyola...you get the idea.

And the fact that Sinead may according to right wing Catholics be in
danger of damnation does NOT revoke her secular right to criticize the
Pope!
>
>No congregation/race/group should have to put up with this crap.

I quite agree that German Protestant and Catholic youth may not insult
Jews, and that Protestants shouldn't put Catholics down.  However,
internal self-criticism of a group by its members is healthy and
DIFFERENT from ignorant attacks from the outside.  I hope I've made this
important distinction clear!

I have reviewed posts on Sinead here and in rec.arts.tv.  Nearly all
condemn her, either directly or using slimewords like "constructive
criticism."  These are the same people who bay loudly for "free speech"
on the network; free speech for technically enabled white males, for the
most part.  My pleasure is that of the astronomer who predicts a
heavenly body that "swims into his ken", for for some time I have
maintained that the net and EFF committment to free speech is
dangerously akin to similar committments in the Soviet Constitution,
revocable if the free speaker says the wrong stuff in the wrong manner
or has the wrong sex or wrong haircut. My pleasure is tempered by the
fact that Catherine MacKinnon would point out that the silence of
countless women and men speaks louder than Sinead's brief moment.