Recently I followed the twitter feed of the National Institute of Marriage (NOM), an organization that is fighting efforts to permit gay marriage.  There is another twitterer with the blog handle Ifollowhate, and he (or she, or maybe they) follows every person who follows the NOM account, and promptly tweets to said person, “why do you follow a hate group?”  I thought little of it and didn’t bother to respond, so I just blocked this account.  Then I thought about this.  There is a person (again, maybe more than one person is attached to the account) who spends their entire day parked on twitter, seeing who follows another twitter user, ready to pounce on any individual who dares follow this group.  (NOTE: Not exactly – see comments.  This is an automated program, though the Ifollowhate twitter account does followup with other twitter users.)

What a sad existence.  Imagine if your entire life was spent devoted to nothing more than harassing people you disagree with politically, accusing them of being (or following) a hate group.  Yet the mentality that drives such a person (or group) is more and more common.

In Los Angeles, the City Council passed a resolution that condemns certain types of speech on the radio. Continue reading →