{"id":2046,"date":"2015-05-25T15:40:01","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T21:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=2046"},"modified":"2015-05-25T15:40:01","modified_gmt":"2015-05-25T21:40:01","slug":"faux-outrage-or-sounding-the-alarm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/faux-outrage-or-sounding-the-alarm.html","title":{"rendered":"Faux outrage, or sounding the alarm?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A couple days ago I registered my disapproval<\/a> of the National Review\u2019s attempt to gain eyeballs by ginning up outrage over a Boy Scout prohibition of water gun games. \u00a0(Talked to my Scout-leader husband earlier about it; he\u2019s A-OK with this policy, given that it\u2019s in the context of 11 year olds being entrusted with rifles.) \u00a0They\u2019re continuing to promote this story on Facebook and Twitter, which seems exceptionally short-sighted.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Ann Althouse wrote today<\/a> about the gypped jewelers \u2014 you know, the custom jewelry shop in Canada who, after taking an order for a custom ring set for a lesbian couple, then placed a sign opposing gay marriage in their shop; the couple got upset, \u00a0and after unspecified threats to the business, the shop provided their deposit back, even though, since this was custom-made, they will take a significant loss on this. \u00a0\u201cHeads, I win, tails, you lose\u201d seems to be the message here, or rather, even expression of opposition to gay marriage by business owners is forbidden.<\/p>\n

Althouse is skeptical of reports that the owners received threats, and interpreted their decision to refund the money as a voluntary one, so that she thinks the outrage is being ginned up out of nothing; at least, reading the comments on this post thus far, she appears to reject the claim that the owners were coerced into refunding the deposit and releasing the couple from their obligation. \u00a0She goes further and says that the couple was morally right to want the refund because<\/p>\n

This sign was posted after they made the deal to buy the rings, and at that point they felt bad about having their rings \u2014 the rings that are highly symbolic to them \u2014 coming from that place. The jeweler displayed a message of disrespect to them and they objected.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, on the one hand, I think Althouse is mistaken here; there are enough cases out there of people being threatened that I think the shopowner\u2019s fears (of boycott, of Memories Pizza-style Yelp campaigns, of vandalism or violence) are credible. \u00a0It is not appropriate to say \u201cit\u2019s all being blown out of proportion,\u201d nor to say, as she says in a comment at 12:41 pm, that such businesses are fair game because \u201cmy position on this issue is that it\u2019s speech, it\u2019s debate . . .\u00a0He CHOSE to engage in public speech and he got a RESPONSE in public speech.\u201d When you are attempting to put out of business someone with whom you disagree, or worse, it\u2019s not a \u201cfree speech\u201d issue. \u00a0Besides which, her approach is that, because the jewelers \u201cdisrespected\u201d the couple, they were in the right in backing out of a contract because it made them feel bad. \u00a0(And, by the way, she doesn\u2019t back down in the least in the comments.)<\/p>\n

Of course, on the other hand, the specific nature of the threats isn\u2019t being reported (or perhaps I haven\u2019t read enough), and the shopowners\u00a0don\u2019t appear to be threatened by the couple themselves as by anonymous self-appointed defenders.<\/p>\n

So we\u2019ve got \u00a0the Left being outraged, and the Right being outraged, and the Left being outraged that the Right would dare be outraged \u2014<\/p>\n

and I am really so tired of this.<\/p>\n

Tired of this endless outrage.<\/p>\n

Tired of this industry, of blogging sites and opinion sites and facebook- and twitter-sharing, that depends on eyeballs that are drawn to outrage-stories, because that (and click-baity headlines) is what gets the pageviews and the facebook shares and, ultimately, the advertisers\u2019 revenue.<\/p>\n

Aren\u2019t you?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple days ago I registered my disapproval of the National Review\u2019s attempt to gain eyeballs by ginning up outrage over a Boy Scout prohibition of water gun games. \u00a0(Talked to my Scout-leader husband earlier about it; he\u2019s A-OK with this policy, given that it\u2019s in the context of 11 year olds being entrusted with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nFaux outrage, or sounding the alarm?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A couple days ago I registered my disapproval of the National Review's attempt to gain eyeballs by ginning up outrage over a Boy Scout prohibition of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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