Paul Siegel: Gay Rights as a Free-Speech Issue

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New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 23 -- June 5, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #118, June 8:

Paul Siegel:
Gay Rights as a
Free-Speech Issue

In brief

Civil-liberties activist Paul Siegel has advice for people--particularly gay people--considering challenging discrimination in court. Base your challenge on the 1st Amendment (freedom of speech, right to assemble), not on the 14th (equal protection, privacy).

This sounds technical & legalistic, but in fact this intelligent and often funny talk should have wide appeal.

Highlights include a funny account of what Pacific Telephone & Telegraph would & wouldn't allow into that compendium of decency and good taste, the Yellow Pages, . . . stories of clueless high-school administrators who think the 1st Amendment does not protect students wearing T-shirts that say, "I Support My Gay Friends," . . . and a sad story of a gay student suspended and "outed" to her parents by the school principal for the crime of kissing her girlfriend on school grounds.

Paul Siegel will often go weeks or months without reminding anyone
of Benito Mussolini. Still, every once in awhile . . . . Photos by K.D.
All photos: Click to enlarge.

Notes, credits, & links

Recorded live (by moi) at the University of Hartford, on April 27, 2010.

Paul Siegel is a longtime civil-liberties activist. His day job is Professor of Communication at the University of Hartford.

http://www.aclu.org/

http://www.aclu-ct.org/

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "East-of-the-River satellite studio and skunk works") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford. "East-of-the-River" is Hartford-ese for "Podunk."

New World Notes' main audio archive is at radio4all.net. Installments beginning with #90 are archived also at The Internet Archive, in a variety of file formats. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page, and each page has links to the recorded audio.

Series Overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.

Bottom: The talk's concluding slide

Coming Soon -- Tuesday debut date shown:

• June 15 -- Is It Time to Impeach Obama? Racist, right-wing crackpots are loudly denouncing the President. That shouldn't stop Progressives from doing the same--though on different grounds.

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