A Word About Comments

I'm pretty liberal. You can pretty much say anything to me and I won't be too offended. I believe whole-heartedly in Free Speech. I may vehemently disagree with you, but I think you have the right to say it. Even the offensive stuff.

You may think that this flies in the face of the fact that I moderate comments on Little Merry Sunshine, but it doesn't. You see, I believe that you have the right to say whatever you want, but Little Merry Sunshine is my playground and I get to set the standards of decency. Yes, I get to say things that are outrageous and crazy and sometimes use bad words and they may even be things you disagree with, but again, it's my playground. You aren't required to read it.

I even allow comments of all types. You can comment anonymously, with a pseudonym, or using your God-given name. I don't care.

The thing about comments though is that when I allow a comment to be placed on Little Merry Sunshine for all the world to see, I'm essentially saying that I endorse (or in some cases condone) what you are saying. 99.9% of you come here and play nicely. You even disagree with me sometimes. And I'm actually happy when you do (although let's not have it happen often) because you make me think about my own views and that's good.

But when people come here and make blatantly racist, homophobic, anti-semetic comments and then suggest certain groups of people shouldn't exist, well, I draw the line at that. Especially when they do it anonymously. Have some balls. If you believe in something strongly enough to say it, use a name. I do.

In the 2 1/2 years that I've been writing Little Merry Sunshine, I've allowed every comment, except two. Interestingly, they've both appeared in 2009, were both written anonymously and both in response to the same blog post. I've even rejected them both for the same reason: they were trying to incite violence.

So no, Mr. Anonymous-Race Baiting-Homophobe-Anti-Semite, I won't publish your hate speech. If you had simply called me a name, I would have, but the fact that you included that final phrase about "extermination" shoved you so far over the line of decency you can't even see its shadow. And I won't tolerate that.

Let's all go back to playing nice. Thank you.