About the free speech thing... I guarantee you 99% of the people advocating it (including myself) care about it on both ends. For example, I am bisexual. I think the fact that anyone would seize all those books is shameful and awful. But at the same time, any sort of "you CAN'T say this" is not good, and it's not particularly effective to ignore something now because of what happened in the past. But that seriously sucks about the bookstore... What happened to them after?
censorship isn’t just about “any sort of you-CAN’T-say-this” it’s about systematic repression at institutional/governmental/etc levels. I’m sorry but a stand up comic’s “”””””right””””” to make fun of a disabled child in front of an audience and not experience any sort of backlash is not a free speech issue! The problem with the Little Sister’s case (that’s the bookstore where I worked) was not JUST a homophobic backlash to their materials, which would have been bad enough, but it was a systematic effort on the part of authorities/institutions to repress the cultural expression of LGBT people, even - especially - when that meant banning safer sex materials that could have saved lives during the AIDS crisis, which is like... murder, in my opinion, but whatever - and then denying the survivors a chance to speak in court about the effects that that repression had on their communities (which also happened).
Like I honestly just don’t believe you that 99% of people who are mad about a stand up comic getting sued over offensive jokes at the expense of a literal child also give a shit about marginalized peoples’ right to speak truth to power because I literally never, ever see those people saying shit about cases of brutal censorship of people all over the world, I only see these people coming out of the woodwork when someone’s “right” to say fucked up shit and not experience any consequences is called into question. I mean that’s just what it looks like from where I stand but like I said I worked for four years in an environment that was the site of one of the most pivotal battles for actual free speech in Canadian history and the crowd that supported us was VERY different from the crowd that comes out to support people like Mike Ward.
Anyway I totally recommend that everyone, especially Canadians, learn about Little Sister’s Book And Art Emporium and their history and legal struggles, you can find out more here - that link has a summary and also an archive of newspaper articles and court documents related to the case.
