MIAMI – Progressives have never been shy about sharing their belief that social conservatives are knuckle-dragging cavemen who don’t really belong in the modern world.
However, progressives used to soften their criticism by piously quoting Voltaire’s famous line: “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
That’s how left-wingers used to roll, but not anymore.
These days, when progressives are confronted with a view they don’t like, they’re much more likely to shout, “I’ll have your job!” than to quote the 18th century philosopher.
The most recent example of the left’s intolerance of dissent came this weekend when the Miami Dolphins came down like a ton of bricks on safety Don Jones after he tweeted “OMG” and “horrible” in response to last weekend’s televised kiss between Michael Sam – who hopes to become the NFL’s first openly gay player – and his partner.
The Dolphins fined Jones and undisclosed amount of money for the offending tweets and suspended him from all team activities until he undergoes sensitivity training, CBSSports.com reports. (Jones has since removed the offending tweets and issued a lengthy apology to Sam and the Dolphins organization.)
The disciplinary action taken against Jones is mild compared to what happened to David and Jason Benham. The Benham brothers recently had a planned television series cancelled by HGTV executives “after anti-homosexual and anti-Muslim comments previously made by the twins surfaced on a blog,” NYDailyNews.com reports.
And just last month, Brendan Eich resigned as chief executive of Mozilla, a software group, amid controversy caused by his support of California’s 2008 constitutional amendment that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
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