09 April 2012

The Ale Mary's Facebook War Ramps Up UPDATED

Ale Mary's is enjoying the scads of free publicity garnered from a Fabebook protest against their bar's "blasphemy" (see earlier post).

Meanwhile, another Facebook group has sprung up in direct opposition to the first one,  "500,000 Supporting Free Speech & "Ale Mary's"

I will not recommend the disingenuous tactic openly used and espoused by the original protest group: "Help push this thing over 1000! Invite all of your friends whether they like it or not." But I trust this blog's readers to take appropriate action as they see fit.  (When openly questioned, several times, about potential membership inflation via this tactic, the anti-Ale-Mary's group's moderator repeatedly deleted the questions from this blogger and then ejected this blogger from membership.) 

UPDATE: Fox 45 Baltimore's TV news story has supposedly been picked up as incidental (i.e. what else is happening elsewhere) news on Fox station newscasts as far away as Miami.......   

UPDATE II:  Baltimore Sun's Jill Rosen reports.

5 comments:

Tancred said...

Or try and come in and misrepresent people by accusing them of inciting violence.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV said...

If you actually read through the actual comments, I did not accuse them of inciting violence. I compared the one commenter's repeated (like a stuck record) suggestions that said bar wouldn't dare to offend Muslims in such a fashion with the fact that radical Muslims often react with violence to such things that offend them, and suggested parallels as to whether or not the owners of Ale Mary's should be in fear of such reaction from outraged Catholics, and whether or not the offended Catholics wanted to be adopting similar intolerance. This is entirely different, albeit considerably nuanced, from accusing their members of "trying to incite violence".

What I WILL accuse one member of doing--and others of supporting--is promoting the filings of official complaints of discrimination by the place against patrons on the basis of creed. Their apparent belief is that, as "a public place," they are not allowed to show discriminatory behavior against anyone for any reason. The insinuation was that if a patron were ejected for any reason (loitering, disruptive behavior, trespassing), that they could/should file a complaint claiming religious discrimination. I don't know about you, but no place I go drinking in has ever heard what religion I follow.

Unknown said...

Alex, it's not even worth getting into a discussion with Tancred about this. He is either Koob or one of that group, so you mine as well be talking to a formstone wall. Also also thanks for putting the word out about the supporters group.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV said...

Gee! Ya THINK SO?!?

Example:
http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com/2012/04/anti-catholic-baltimore-sun-weighs-in.html

JohnM. said...

A couple of thoughts Alex.

As a life long Catholic, I'm more than a little annoyed by the original group's efforts. I confess I've long taken considerable pride in how tolerant Catholics tend to be (the actions of a certain current presidential candidate not withstanding), and have always liked to point out that there's no one like a Catholic who appreciates a good Catholic joke (have you heard the one about the priest who kept on swearing every time he missed a putt on the golf course? but I digress). Frankly, I'm amazed that anyone could take offense from Ale Mary's tavern... at worst I thought their humor really wasn't all that funny or clever.

The fact is, generally speaking, Catholics do not become outraged over something like this. World hunger, war crimes in the Sudan and yes, pedoophiles among the Catholic priesthood...THAT's the kind of thing that tends to get most Catholics up in arms.

To get back to the original group of idiots... assuming they obtain the desired result (which is what; Ale Mary's closing or going out of business?), what exactly would that accomplish? Will this make the world in anyway a better place, or for that matter, a less blasphemous one? Frankly, I don't even know who these idiots are, and God knows I sure don't want them to be the new definers of what is and what isn't blasphemous.... among Catholics or anyone else for that mattter.

Anyway, hopefully this will be nothing more than a tempest in teapot, and these folks will soon go away to bother someone else. Please let it be sooner rather than later...