or some other official pronouncement, or just the usual wingnut blather on blogs and Facebook?

Can't we just expel them from the Union?
They want out anyway and I say see ya

Marriage licenses will be issued because nobody who actually issues them is going to be stupid enough to defy the Supreme Court.

It is already occupied.

That means the supreme court is guilty of "incitement", right? "Shouting fire in a crowded theater"?

I've been assured by several crackerjack legal experts on DU that saying something that pisses off a religious fundamentalist is NOT protected speech, not if the fundamentalist reacts violently.

Does this ironclad legal argument apply to supreme court rulings thelmselves? Hmmm, interesting question.

But your deliberate ignorance of the element of intent in those arguments is infantile.

I have never seen you or others who want to talk about Gellar from sunup to sunset ever carry on for days about the First Amendment when mosques or Muslims are violently attacked by bigots.

Promoting hate, for no reason other than to promote hate is perfectly legal. It is also morally reprehensible. Promoting love is not the same thing. It is sad that you refuse to see a difference. Law is not a guide to decent behavior.

When mosques or Muslims are attacked, or when they aren't, I absolutely support their 1st Amendment right to express their opinion without violence, and to practice their religion the same. No one should be attacked for who they are, what they say, believe, wear, write or draw. People shouldn't be attacked in general, actually.

What's happening here, though, is that some people are letting their feelings of sympathy for what has happened to Muslims in other circumstances, get in the way of a conversation about the 1st Amendment which isn't even about Muslims or most Muslims, unless one believes (I don't) that a majority of Muslims get violent or even freak out over cartoons of the prophet.

"intent" is meaningless. Whether she "intended" to piss off people or not, or she "intended" to "make" people get violent (actually, she "made" people draw the cartoons, which in turn "made" people get violent... amazing, her ability to manipulate others) is irrelevant.

If OTHER people, like the staff at Charlie Hebdo, hadn't been attacked for doing the very same thing- i.e. drawing "blasphemous" cartoons- then this wouldn't have happened in the first place, would it have?

The only difference between you and I in relation to the First Amendment is that I have actually defended people's rights to criticize religious leaders under it, instead of merely prattling away about it on an internet forum (e.g. http://chrisnemelka.com/domain-name-dispute/ ; http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=1125 ; and various other cases involving commercial "gripe sites&quot .

Again, you are being deliberately ignorant of the argument being advanced by the other side, and it is not a sign of either intelligence or good sportsmanship to blithely ignore what Gellar is about.

The fact that you felt led to bring up Gellar's antics in relation to a pending Supreme Court case which bears no relation whatsoever to stirring up ill will for the mere sake of stirring up ill will is indicative of a misguided obsession. It's like Thanksgiving dinner with ODS-afflicted relatives who think their arthritis is caused by Obamacare. These two things have nothing to do with each other - nothing.

I made it perfectly clear in my response to your non-sequitur that, yes, under the law of the United States, her intent is irrelevant - as is the money-making scheme developed by Westboro Baptist, by which they sue municipalities and private parties for various causes of action when someone takes a pop at them too.

Celebrating your favorite bigot in a thread about marriage equality is entirely inappropriate. You certainly have a right to do that, and you certainly have a right to deliberately distort arguments based on results thus far from jurisdictions such as those in Europe which, remarkably, have a higher rate of political participation by their populations and a more diverse set of views reflected in their legislatures than we do. Again, I don't agree with those arguments, but I also do not agree with your deliberate distortion of those arguments and your apparent need to flog your strawman in a thread which has utterly nothing to do with the subject.