SCENE: Mitch BERG, accompanied by Joe TUCCI, Attorney at Law, and paralegal Lance PFLAU, steps out of a black Chevy Suburban and walks up to the Highland Park home of Avery LIBRELLE. BERG knocks on the door. Eventually, LIBRELLE answers.
BERG: Hey, Avery. Let’s go.
LIBRELLE: Huh? Where?
BERG: To the pistol range. We’re going to get you started shooting, and get you started on your carry permit.
LIBRELLE: What?
BERG: It’s time you did the right thing.
LIBRELLE: How is forcing me to pick up an instrument of violence “the right thing?”
BERG: Because it’s a right. We have the right to keep and bear arms. It’s very important to many of us, and until everyone is intellectually and socially assimilated into that right, the right is not safe.
LIBRELLE: But…but, you can’t force me to exercise a right I disagree with, especially on moral grounds, like the gun thing! You can’t!
BERG: Of course I can! Just like the gay couples who are sueing the bakers and photographers and florists who tried to opt out of rendering their services at same-sex weddings. Rather than just let the Christians have their way and go find a gay-friendly baker or photographer or florist, they hauled them into court, at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars to both sides, not so much because they wanted to use their products, but to send a message to all of society; dissent from our orthodoxy will not be tolerated! Just as they will be doing, shortly, somewhere or other, to some church somewhere or another in this country.
LIBRELLE: Pshaw! That’ll never happen. The First Amendment protects freedom of religion!
BERG: Right. Just like the Tenth Amendment trumps the Commerce Clause, the Fifth protects American citizens who end up on terror watch lists, the Fourth protects us from no-knock raids and property forfeiture, the Third keeps the police from throwing you out of your house to set up a stakeout, the Second is protecting the people of Connecticut from gun confiscations, and the First protects, well, those bakers and photographers and florists. Rights are only truly safe when everyone has been forced to comply with them.
LIBRELLE: I refuse!
BERG: I thought you might. Mr. Tucci?
(TUCCI turns to PFLAU, who takes a document out of his briefcase)
TUCCI: You’ve been served.
LIBRELLE: What the… (Reads papers) A lawsuit?
TUCCI: Yep. To compel you to come shooting, get a carry permit, and support the Second Amendment as incorporated upon the states by the Supreme Court in McDonald Vs. Chicago.
LIBRELLE: That’s BS! That’ll never fly in court!
BERG: Perhaps. But it’ll cost you thousands and thousands of dollars to retain an attorney to litigate the case, even if it’s dismissed on summary judgment. Heck, even if you go pro se, you’re going to eat up a lot of time.
LIBRELLE: Look, you’re arguing a false equivalence. Business are subject to public accomodations laws! They have to serve the reasonable demands of their customers!
BERG: Ah. So when I walk into a halal market and demand pork chops, they can’t refuse?
LIBRELLE: Huh?
BERG: Pork is trayf under halal. They won’t even touch the stuff.
LIBRELLE: Well, you can’t. You’re not a memeber of a protected class.
BERG: What now?
LIBRELLE: Under public accomodations law, merchants can not refuse service on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation! You’re a straight white male, so you have no race, gender or orientation!
BERG: Ah. So the rights of gay people trump the rights of religious people to act according their consciences.
LIBRELLE: Right! Gays were born that way! You can’t refuse to serve people based on conditions they were born with. Religion is chosen!
BERG: So the rights of people who were born some way trump the rights of people who choose something.
LIBRELLE: Sure!
BERG: Well, our rights are endowed to us by our creators, so I was born with the right to keep and bear arms. And so were you.
LIBRELLE: That’s really stretchy, Merg!
TUCCI: We can sort that out in court, Mis… (looks to BERG and PFLAU, both of whom shrug) …um, Avery.
BERG: So some peoples’ rights are more important than other peoples’s rights?
LIBRELLE: Absolutely. Why should I be forced to associate with people that I morally disagree with?
BERG: Wait – so you embrace the ideal of “free association”…
LIBRELLE: Yes!
BERG: …unless the law says you have to associate with them?
LIBRELLE: Yes! We can’t have discrimination!
BERG: Hm. OK. Mr. Tucci?
TUCCI: Mr. Pflau?
PFLAU: I am gay. I demand you come to the range.
LIBRELLE: You’re gay?
PFLAU: Well, I’m a little curious. And addicted to Glee.
(LIBRELLE stands, holding papers, slowly deflating)
TUCCI: May I remind you; No h8.
(An air of resignation visitly wafts over LIBRELLE)
LIBRELLE: OK. Got me there.
(The four walk down to the street and bundle LIBRELLE into the Suburban. In the back seat sit Professor William G. KRIEPPI and blogger Edmund DUCHEY, morosely wearing “NRA” hats and maroon GOCRA shirts)
LIBRELLE (to KRIEPPI and DUCHEY): They got you too?
(The other two sullenly nod as the Suburban departs for Burnsville Pistol Range, Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money” playing loudly on the car stereo).
(And SCENE).
Three and a half stars! Needs more Tucci.
“Rights are only truly safe when everyone has been forced to comply with them.”
Excellent.
Minor script change suggestion:
LIBRELLE: You’re gay?
TUCCI: (Pulls assless chaps from briefcase) Remember; no H8
(slaps self on forehead)
DAMMIT.
Swiftee, you leather-clad biker, you – you are on your way to being the subject of a scathing Fleen.
Something doesn’t ring true here…No Tucci Haiku?
So the NFL says it will pull the Super Bowl out of Arizona if said state enacts the Religious Liberty law. So what about this scenerio? Law is vetoed. Super Bowl goes to Arizona. NFC champion Washington Redskins go to a Native American owned foodery in that state to hire them to cater the Redskins pep rally. Native American declines to do so due to religious conflicts with the Redskins name. NFL sues them, forcing the tribel members to take part in the Redskins rally.
Geesh, after reading this……just to be d-bags, I say that we form a group called….say “Lutherans for conceal and carry…..machine guns”. Then go to the most leftwing pacifist businesses we can find in the Twin Cities, and force them to cater our event at the gun range. If any refuse to take part, so them for religious discrimination. Your story above isn’t that far-fetched.
Well Done!
Joe TUCCI, Attorney at Law, and SitD consigliere. You need to put his name on the masthead.
This needs to happen. It’s time to start fighting fire with fire. Taking the high road never works, because there is no honor among thieves.
Too many trolls undermining the bridges on the high road.
What a load of crap. No one is forcing anyone else to exercise a right they don’t want to exercise. No one is holding a gun to anyone’s head to force them to exercise free speech, free assembly, freedom of persona religious conscience, or the freedom to vote, or the 2A.
No one is compelling anyone to exercise their right to marry, only guaranteeing that it is a right fairly enjoyed by consenting adults who serve a legitimate interest of the state and society as the justification for any state involvement.
That means things like raising children — which gay people do as well as straight people. That means guaranteeing property rights and inheritances – which are the same for gay people as straight people.
NO straight person is in any demonstrable way diminished by recognizing same sex marriage, despite all the right wing whining.
You can only, apparently, try to make a persuasive argument by dishonesty and misrepresentation of the facts — because the facts are not your friends, not on your side, and do not support your position.
Yippee that the same sex marriage ban was overturned in TX today. Another one bites the dust! Now the people in one more state are not being denied their civil rights (or at least not for long).
Another classic example of DG’s poor reading comprehension. I knew satire and nuance were beyond her; I guess we can add complete sentences to the list as well. She again misses the point of the post even as it circles around and pokes her in the butt.
Another classic example of DG’s poor reading comprehension. DG claims a St Olaf education – a tragic waste of her father’s money.
Don’t pack your flea collar just yet mongrel. TX plans to defend their sovereignty all the way to the Thomas court where it will be affirmed. You and your mongrel pack will have to settle for the Northern kennels. Tee hee!
freedom of persona religious conscience
Except when those religious consciences collide with the gay lobby bullies. The private property right of the business owner exists. The “right” to get married does not.
Inane prattle from DG, as usual.
The woman does not know how to outline and structure an argument. tl;dr.