Letter to the Editor: Intolerance in Chappaqua
August 29, 2008
from Will Wedge and Maggie Christ
To the editor:
Chappaqua: a bucolic suburban bastion of liberal thinking and political outlook. Chappaqua: home to a Democratic former President and current United States Senator. Chappaqua: where residents give a sh*t about their children’s education, the environment, sustainable living, the future of our country and America’s role on the world stage.
But with great sadness we are appalled to report on a different Chappaqua: the one with a mean streak of censorious, conservative abrogation of First Amendment freedom of speech.
A couple of weeks ago, we purchased a pointed but non-partisan yard sign: “08 / Give a Sh*t.” (It did not have the asterisk.) It arrived last Thursday, and we planted it Thursday evening. By Saturday morning, 36 hours later, it had disappeared.
We would like to think that someone took it because they were so enamored of the wit and sentiment of the sign that they wanted it for themselves. We fear, however, that someone was offended by its hardly immoderate language and didn’t think a second before snatching it from our property. Didn’t think a second about how their intolerant and immoderate censorship is precisely what the First Amendment exists to protect us from.
We have a neighbor whose car is plastered with bumper stickers and other signage that we find hugely offensive. Have we stolen his car? Of course not. He has the same right to free speech as any of us.
We bought two of the signs, planning to give one to a relative for her own yard. We think instead that we will find a way to suspend it from one of our trees, out of reach but still readable.
Will Wedge and Maggie Christ
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