Tammy Bruce

"If she can't be controlled, she must be stopped." With that one chilling honest sentence, Joan Garry, the executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), revealed more than she intended about the agenda of her organization.

The woman Joan Garry was trying to stop -- talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger -- had committed the unpardonable sin of expressing an opinion about homosexuality that was not endorsed by GLAAD. Instead of trying to debate the issue, Garry, GLAAD, and their friends in the media unleashed a breathtakingly vitriolic assault on Dr. Laura. She became a symbol of hate, attacked in the press, denounced by the two contenders for the 2000 Democratic presidential nomination, and vilified on television shows ranging from Frasier to The West Wing.

As I'll explain in more detail in chapter 3, corporations were bullied into pulling their sponsorship of Schlessinger's new television show, and TV stations that had picked up the show were picketed. GLADD's objective was not only to silence opinions it didn't like but also to destroy, both personally and professionally, the woman who expressed those opinions, thereby sending the clear message that having an unapproved point of view will not be tolerated.

On one level, at least, GLAAD won: in March 2001, Dr. Laura's television show was canceled.

Dr. Laura is only the most visible victim of this new assault on free speech and thought. Powerful groups on the Left, groups like GLAAD, the National Organization for Women (NOW), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), are waging an all-out war on the free exchange of ideas. The effects of this new intolerance are felt in the media and in the arts, on college campuses, even in offices and factories. The message is clear: Don't speak up. Or else -- you'll be fired ... you'll be sued ... you'll be called a name.

Name-calling may not sound like much ("Sticks and stones may break my bones..."), but it has been a powerful tool throughout history -- "Barbarian!" "Heretic!" "Witch!" "Communist!" Today it is one of the hallmarks of the left wing, and it's pretty clever strategy. Isolating individuals by promoting group identity and the politics of the "other" keeps people from recognizing just how devoid the Left is of actual ideas for progress and the future. Such delineation also undermines the willingness to challenge the status quo; people are afraid of being termed "other" and banished from the group.

Look around you. Labels such as "racist," "sexist," and "homophobe" are routinely used to demonize anyone who utters a word that doesn't support the Left's agenda. Television producers allow their scripts to be edited by groups that purport to represent aggrieved minorities. On college campuses, student newspapers that don't toe the party line are collected and destroyed, and speakers with un-PC views are shouted down. More ... > >

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