Memorial Day at the althouse blog.

The poor professor doesn't take the holidays off.

Instead, she throws red meat to her carefully cultivated conservative commenters, then runs away -- again, and turns off the comments for "moderation" when she can't persuade by words, and the commentariat turns on her.

Ms. Althouse?
Please stop helping gay people.
You've really done enough.

Just celebrate Memorial Day like the rest of us, and give one day a rest from the gay marriage "fight".

You see, you can afford to cut and run when the going gets tough, and people respond to your thoughts and words with their own, not to your liking. Others -- in the classroom, in the workplace, in the home -- don't have that option: to just stick their fingers in their ears when the conversations turn honest, and hateful.

The saddest thing is: her blog and her commenters reflect poorly on the University of Wisconsin, and everything the Law-in-Action tradition is supposed to espouse.

If you have to go running from the conversation, it's likely one you probably weren't strong enough, or educated enough, to start in the first place.

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ADDED: Awwwww.... the common-commenter HUSBAND of the widely praised law professor steps into the thread to defend/protect her. You'd think that as a law professor, experience with the power of words, she's be capable of continuing to freely argue her case in her own words. *(remember: ann delights in dirty talk on her blog too, and she is no stranger to vulgar insults, directly addressed to commenters who disagree. That's the rough-and-tough verbal nature of her blog: she dishes it out daily.)
Meade said...

"BTW: Just to be clear, Ann, my comment about you being full of shit on this was meant to be disrespectful to your opinion, not to you personally."

Husband Meade: If that's true, John Henry, then you need to learn to write more clearly. Try this: "Your opinion is full of shit." Or: "I am full of shit but I'm going to leave a comment anyway."

The husband (not a law professor himself) steps in to take over the argument, based on namecalling, not substantive argument. That's not sweet so much as just plain sad. Will he be accompanying her to class now too, in case students speak up and Ms. Althouse gets too flustered to respond on her own?



DEEPER AND DEEPER:
Now, in a shutdown threads comment, in which all views have to be pre-approved and moderated, Ann remembers that she is a professor at Wisconsin:

Ann Althouse said...
"Suppose a university advertised, "Your views, whatever they are, will be tolerated here." Is that a disinvitation or its opposite."

It's a middle position. In a repressive society, it would be welcome.

In America, students expect something more like: Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere we believe the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.

Getting closer, annie girl. Now: don't just type or mouth those words, put them into ACTION professor baby. Don't hide behind your husband, or your hurt feelings.

Open up the thread, allow everyone to their say, and "encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowinug by which alone the truth can be found."

You see, tossing red meat, and then running away when your conservative commenters respond, is NOT the Wisconsin way. We know you've been coddled with the tenure, never having to actually argue the facts to a win on their face, but if you can't see the hypocrisy in quoting the Wisconsin motto in a closed thread, you're closer to retirement than you think.

Why not allow that there are more fearless voices, who could respond in kind to the bigoted assumptions you are so nicely trying to converse with? (Without our husbands jumping in to finish the job...)

FINALLY: I wish Mrs. meade would speak for herself in the first person, and stop putting words into gay people's mouths that are her own:

Speech is important because of the way it reveals thoughts, but some thoughts, when revealed, with affect what people think of you. You don't say everything you think. You lie and you dissemble. You bullshit. You flatter.

You are coddled with the tenure.
You are speaking for yourself here.
OWN IT on your own behalf.
The rest of us don't have the luxury of walking away, moving out West when the seeds of hatred you have planted here in Wisconsin come into bloom.