[IP] "Lawmaker Reads Crude Web Posts at School"

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross@stapleton-gray.com>
Date: February 9, 2007 1:27:11 PM EST
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: "Lawmaker Reads Crude Web Posts at School"

I suspect I'd disagree with Sen. Brown's opinions on this issue  
almost entirely, but have to endorse his right to call out his  
critics, even by name; the antidote to bad speech is more speech, and  
he has an invitation.  (My one caveat would be that posts on Facebook  
may or may not actually be by those they're attributed to, so he runs  
the risk of quoting someone whose identity has been hijacked, but  
reading in public comments made by someone on a publicly-accessible  
web page? Go for it!  And we're talking high school students... they  
may be minors, but they're not unaware that their words have meaning,  
and effect.)

Ross

**********

Lawmaker Reads Crude Web Posts at School

Friday, February 9, 2007

(02-09) 07:19 PST Wrentham, Mass. (AP) --

A state senator used foul language in a talk to high school students  
in his district, but defended himself by saying he was just repeating  
what some students wrote about him on a Web site.

Sen. Scott Brown was discussing his stance on gay marriage during an  
assembly at King Philip Regional High School on Thursday when he  
decided to share the comments written about him and his family posted  
on a facebook.com page dedicated to a pro-gay rights history teacher  
at the school.

Brown, a Republican from Wrentham, opposes gay marriage.

"I hate scott brown" and "scott brown ascends from the underworld,"  
were two of the tamer comments on the site. Others contained  
profanities.

Some of the comments were aimed at Brown's daughter, Ayla Brown, a  
former American Idol finalist.

He read the comments verbatim, even naming the students who wrote  
them in some cases, witnesses said.

"He was doing it loudly and pretty angrily," student Rachel William  
told WHDH-TV. "Some of the teachers tried to stop him, and said  
things like 'You shouldn't be naming students.'"

Student Stephen Small said "Some teachers immediately were outraged  
to hear the language that was used ... some people still feel it was  
inappropriate to read them word for word."

Brown defended himself.

"What I was doing was reading from what they had written about me and  
about my family," Brown said. "I actually called them on it. I said  
'Now there's hate speech and then there's respectful proper speech."

The mother of the student who created the site told the station that  
she thought Brown acted inappropriately.

The school's administration declined to comment.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/02/09/national/ 
a055138S95.DTL




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