And the Winner for the Most Hysterical Comment Goes To...

... some genius named John Benante for this bit of casuistry on my Sunday column...

I know that Spencer is a right-wing ideologue, but he is worse than that. So, he would take issue, apparently, with same-sex partners "french kissing in a public place" - but not, I must assume, with opposite sex partners doing the same thing? What about mixed-race couples? They would have been fair-game for the likes of Spencer just a couple decades ago. Also, it seems to Spencer as if it should be perfectly fine for a restaurant to actively discriminate against serving homosexuals, as the restaurant supposedly wouldn't be "breaking any federal laws." People like him felt the same way about blacks a few decades ago. I've never much respected Spencer, but I find him completely loathful now. And here's something for this... gentleman to chew on. How about if a restaurant chooses to deny service to people with disabilities because their very presence makes some people feel uncomfortable? Would he be okay with that, if no federal law was being broken? Or would that be "different" somehow because no holy book that he's aware of condemns disabilities. (Though that's not completely true. People who were not physically "right" were not permitted to enter the temple. Old Testament. I don't know the verse(s), but it's there.

Benante apparently missed Friday's column in which I made it pretty darn clear that I am against both same sex AND opposite sex couples' Public Displays of Affection. As in...

Two dogs copulating on my lawn - I spray them with a garden hose
Two gay people copulating on my lawn - I spray them with a garden hose
Two straight people copulating on my law - I spray them with a garden hose.
GET OFF MY LAWN!

So let me add mixed-raced and disabled couples to the mix, plus any other sort of combination of people one can imagine...

NO COPULATING ON MY LAWN!

As for simply serving the disabled... the biblical verse Bernante is looking for can be found in Leviticus:

“Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, or a man that is broken footed, or broken handed, or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken; no man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God. He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy, only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish, that he profane not my sanctuaries: for I the Lord do sanctify them.”

Benante is apparently unfamiliar with the Americans With Disabilities Act. While God is allowed to refuse service to the disabled if He so desires, Red Lobster isn't. And doesn't. It even serves "shellfish," another Old Testament no-no. And while restaurant owners are under no federal obligation to serve people based on their sexual orientation, there are plenty of state and local law forbidding such discrimination. As if they're really necessary.

The point of the column has to do with the government (and its administrators) respecting the First Amendment, specifically the right of free citizens to speak their minds without fear of government retribution.  

I hope my position is now clear to the unfortunate Mr. Benante. Unlike his feelings toward me, I do not find him "completely loathful." I do find him sadly and pathetically ignorant. And utterly lacking of a sense of humor.