A few days ago, I wrote about (and posted the video) of an event that happened — live — during a performance of the play/monologue "Invincible Summer" — where 80+ people walked out mid-performance, and where one member of the audience went to the performer, Mike Diasey, and poured water on his notes, all because he used the word "fuck" a few times.
Daisey tracked down the group (it’s unclear if they were a "Christian" group or a public high school, or maybe a Christian group from a public high school) and talked to the school administrator, who said that Daisey’s use of the word "fuck" created — I’m not making this up — a "security issue". (NOTE: As Daisey explains, the groups was told when they bought tickets that the show had strong language and adult themes).
He also tracked down the actual guy who destroyed the show’s outline.
Guess what? The guy is a Christian who has anger management issues:
He has three kids–one is 21, and two are 17–and he’s terrified of the world. Terrified by violence, and sex, and he sees it all linked together–a horrifying world filled with darkness, pornography and filth that threatens his children, has threatened them all his life. They’re older now, but he says he still sees things the same way–and that the only way to protect his children and himself is to lock it all out of his life.
He also said he’s had anger-control issues for years, and sometimes acts of rage come over him–he explodes, and then has to apologize, and doesn’t know why it happens. He tries to lock it down, but it happens, and he’s ashamed of it. I told him that regardless of where we both stand, I felt very strongly that the repression of walling off everything in the world and viewing it all as filth is connecting with these outbursts, and that it isn’t going to work–until you deal with the root causes, and deal with the world, his anger and rage would keep using him.
He agreed with this.
It wasn’t all agreement–he reiterated the administrator’s line that it had been a "security issue" (his words) and that "we had to get our kids out of there". He said at one point, "You’re probably more *liberal* than I am" and the word *liberal* had this hook on the end of it, one that he probably didn’t even intend, but it was unavoidable for him–it sounded edged, like a slur.
He also casually used a coarse racial epithet to refer to black people in a very loose, unnecessary analogy, which was remarkable to me–in a situation where violence resulted from offense at language, our worlds are so far apart that he didn’t think for a moment about throwing out this word. I believe strongly that everyone is free to speak, but we are also accountable for our speech–the casual indifference of it shocked me under the circumstances of our conversation.