An Attack on the Spokesman Review

The Spokesman Review is two things:

1. A Shitty Paper and;
2. Lousy Internet Citizens

The first point is difficult to document because of point number 2. Michael Kinsley is an idiot for writing the article I discussed yesterday, but the Spokesman Review is even worse for picking it up. Kinsley has no point, and the argument presented in his article is non-sensical. Which seems to be the standard for what makes the editorial page of the Spokesman Review. The most liberal face ever to appear on the Spokesman's editorial page is that of moderate (at best) or conservative (at worst) David Broder. Whatever Broder is, he aint no liberal, and yet he is what passes for a liberal voice on the editorial page of the Spokesman. After running this nonsensical article yesterday, and convicting Sami Al-Hussayen of terrorism charges before his trial, the Spokesman decided to lay an attack on those advocating gay marriage by running an artical by two Spokane clergymen about how gay marriage would infringe on the rights of others. Their case seemed to be that churches would have no first amendment rights to oppose gay marriage if gay marriage were made legal. The only support they provided for this was the undocumented claim that this has happened in other Countries (like Canada) where gay marriage has been legalized. Let's use the example of Canada, and assume that what they said is true (which is highly suspect). Canada has a very different legal set up than we do in the United States. Canada's government is set up by a series of "Constitution Acts" that establish the form of government but does not serve as the supreme law of the land. Therefore all rights are granted to individuals by laws that are all equal to each other. Therefore say freedom of speech does not reign superior over possibly hate crimes legislation. In the United States however, the Constitution serves as the supreme law of the land and any law that contradicts it will be invalidated by the Supreme Court. Therefore there is no risk of individuals losing their free speech rights because of hate crimes legislation unless it clearly incites and calls for violence. They claimed that this is a great risk because the Courts are increasingly using international standards in the interpretation of our own Constitution, but the Courts have never and will never use international standards if there is no basis in American law or in the Constitution for those standards. The Court used international standards a little bit in Lawrence v. Texas invalidating anti-sodomy laws, but the right to privacy that Lawrence used to make that case has been present in American law since the 1950s in Griswald. They used international standards recently to ban the execution of minors, but again it was used within the 8th amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. So this pitiful attempt at a 'legal argument against gay marriage' failed miserably, and only showed the Spokesman Review to be out to promote bigotry and oppression. The artical essentially consisted of wild off the wall claims to insist that we should all be afraid of gay marriage.

The second point is that the Spokesman Review are shitty internet citizens. This is supported by the fact that I was unable to cite the artical that I referenced previously. They require people to be subscribers to the Spokesman or pay in order to get any access to any of their articles. All respectable papers, the New York Times, the Washington Post. They all allow for free access within a few days of an article's printing, but not the Spokesman, they want to hoard information and keep it from the public in order to maintain their own profit. Although then again, I'm beginning to believe they don't print any information.