Wow – gotta love all the people trying to turn this into a religion/political debate. This is clearly an apolitical strip intended to be ironic and amusing. Take the chips off your shoulders, please.
Coffinsurfer said: President Obama just signed the Defense bill into law and added to this was a nice amendment that added homosexuality to the “protected” list As well as classifying use of language attacking anyone who is mentally disabled or physically disabled…a federal felony and is now considered Hate Speech.
Out of curiosity, I did a brief fact-check on this claim. The bill in question, a provision attached to a military spending provision, expands the “hate crime” provisions for violent crimes to include gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. My source is the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/us/politics/09hate.html?fta=y
In general, it is unconstitutional to prosecute speech, save for defamation and incitement to riot. These protections include protections for general calls to rebellion and violence against ethnic minorities.
The relevant case is Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) which overturned the conviction of a KKK member for hate speech, because his speech failed to meet the criteria that it was “likely to incite imminent lawless action.”
So - Wiley is right to scorn these claims. Any public apology by Doonsbury or other comics was due to public outrage, NOT legal consequences.
Can we please avoid the political nonsense. This is clearly not a political strip.