Maryland GOP: Purveyors of Smut
by AnonTerp on Apr.04, 2009, under Budget, Leadership
What’s the spin? Republicans portray themselves as champions of the Bill of Rights (okay, so it isn’t like the Democrats run on a platform openly against it) and rail against use of Big Government as a club to enforce social policy (okay, so it isn’t like the Democrats … uhh, never mind that.)
In fact, Republicans are so in favor of the BOR and against Big Government that one of their champions in Maryland, a State Senator named Andy Harris, took the lead in bringing all the budget power of the state down on the University of Maryland in order to stop the showing of a movie to adults on campus, for which no tax money was used. Harris asked the legislature to pull UM’s budget if its leaders allowed a “XXX” movie to be shown the other night. Great job protecting the First Amendment there, Senator. (Stories on this in the Diamondback and Sun.)
When the story first broke, it isn’t like administrators were even aware this was on the horizon. Those in charge of Friday’s “Visit Maryland Day” were taking oxygen after they learned their recruiting message about quality education was being bowled over by the porn report. How many reporters can pass up a chance to file a story about “X X X”? Apparently not any more than there are Republicans who can pass up a chance to bowl over their party platform with a headline grab about defending chastity and purity for children.
The aftermath is classic. Students who didn’t even know there are theaters on campus rose up against administrators telling them what they couldn’t watch there, and the movie in question is now getting screen time on campuses across the state. The GOP’s headline grab did more in one day to spread smut across Maryland than Larry Flynt did in years.
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April 5th, 2009 on 3:34 pm
Legislators are just discovering this on campus? Where have they been?
Some of the readers here remember history. Years ago the student association could put one porn film on the calendar so its ticket sales would pay for a full year of the high-brow art.
This senator is just manufacturing an excuse to get in the news, and he’s doing it at the expense of any college-age student in Maryland wanting to become a Republican.
April 6th, 2009 on 9:58 pm
Hurrah for our students! This crazy right wing Senator is the big loser.
April 7th, 2009 on 6:18 am
Hey, Andy Harris – what else do you goose-stepping Republicans want to ban from campus? Are book burnings next, now that you know McKeldin Library has text of prurient content in its tomes? And don’t forget to paint over the images on display over in Art. Once you use the power of the budget to bludgeon people into conforming to your social standards, you lose the right to thump your chest over the evils of big government (or if you do it anyway, everyone will see you for the hypocrite that you are.) Now that you’ve validated this is okay behavior in government, kiss conservative media goodbye since the fundamental issue having been settled, we are reduced to working out the details of what else ought to be controlled. Right wing hate speech on public air waves? Soon to be a thing of the past…