Thread:Comments:Internet security firm to donate revenue to charity after Anonymous protest of Westboro Baptist Church/Does no one see that WBC is the good guy in this story?/reply (20)

Thanks for the thoughtful reply and for wading through all of my 350 pictures. In all of my posts here, I am looking at the issue from a First Amendment (freedom of speech) perspective. People are so upset about the "anti-queer" message and are then whipped up even more by the outrageously hurtful speech method employed, that the First Amendment essence seems to be lost in the smoke. My objective has been to encourage you to peer through the smoke to see the First Amendment stakes that are at risk.

Words are powerful. As a speaker, I do not allow my opposition to choose my vocabulary for me. I use "queer" for the same reason that the queer community uses it to refer to itself. "Queer" is the word that most accurately represents the meaning of the LGBT... acronym, which keeps getting longer as new subgroups are embraced.

A "queer" is someone who rejects the "marriage norm", which states the rights and duties of a mated male and female and then goes on to say that all should marry, i.e. that it is morally wrong to not conform.

No one conforms completely to the marriage norm. Masturbation is a nearly universal behavior; only the most disciplined individuals have a chance of dying without ever having done it. Masturbation is queer sexuality; it is prohibited by the marriage norm. So almost everyone is queer; some people are just more queer than others.

Even queers agree that some sexual behavior is perverted. So the issue isn't whether it is wrong to be queer. The real issue is that we need to agree on which sexual behaviors are to be deemed acceptable.

I speak this with authority, because I AM A QUEER.