A Meditation on the Rights of Isaiah Washington, Mel Gibson and Michael Richards to Behave like Morons

I've never seen an episode of Grey's Anatomy but due to the way the news industry is structured, I can't help but hear about the gay slur spoken by actor Isaiah Washington. I mean, you know, I couldn't tell you how many people have been victims of the genocide in Darfur based on the coverage by ABC, CBS, NBC, or CNN, but I can tell you exactly what gay slur Washington said. It is getting, of course, a ridiculous amount of coverage by the networks who are treating it like it's real news or something. Even worse is the outcry. I just heard that thousands of people have signed on online petition calling for Washington to be fired and Disney may justify firing Washington because of some ridiculous law against offensive slurs in the workplace. I say ridiculous for two reasons. One, because if the NBA or NFL had such a law in place where any player could be fired for making offensive statements during work, there wouldn't be enough players to field one team, let alone a league. And two, what the hell happened to the First Amendment?

This case isn't like Mel Gibson and his "Jews are responsible for all the wars of the world" outburst. For one thing, Washington has actually apologized for making the statement, whereas Gibson mere apologized for being so drunk he couldn't control his truth mechanism. This case is much more akin to the Michael Richards' outburst which I felt was ridiculously overplayed as well.