You provided opening quotation marks for the first paragraph but you didn’t close them at the end of the paragraph. For the second paragraph, you provided new opening quotation marks and you closed them at the end of what you wanted to quote.

Therefore, it was not clear to me whether what was written in the first paragraph was written originally by you or Gerard.

Well yes, that was kind of my point. [insert smiley icon here]

I do close the quotation marks – at the end of the next paragraph. It’s normal publishing style to leave the quotation open if it is broken over multiple paragraphs because it is a single statement.

I also think Gerard’s statement is perfectly clear: people are often all for free speech until they have to defend someone they don’t like. Such an argument is not free speech.

I’m not sure you want to get me started on that particular issue. I’m not sure the art world has any criteria left to make meaningful qualitative judgements.

The point I was making is, there’s always someone (and usually quite a few people) who will regard the person whose free speech rights are under attack as undeserving of protection. That’s pretty much why the ACLU defend unpopular causes, and make themselves unpopular. Attacks on civil liberties always start by attacking unpopular segments of society. If you wait until beloved institutions are gagged, then it’s too late. Your rights are already gone.

I’m referring to Jason Walsh’s freeview forth article.

It is written:

““If you look at the landmark free speech cases in the US, the people the ACLU defend are never nice people – they defend neo-Nazis who want to march in Skokie, Illinois and they defend Hustler magazine.”.

Now, it’s not clear to me whether it was Gerard Cunningham or Jason Walsh who originally wrote this because Mr Walsh opens but doesn’t close the quotation marks..

However, I must say I don’t agree with that statement at all at all. First of all, I don’t agree that Hustler magazine are never nice people and secondly I don’t agree with comparing Hustler magazine to neo-Nazis.

So what is so “never nice” about Hustler magazine?

Is it because it was one of the first major men’s magazines to show much more explicit views of female genitalia back in the early 70s? Is it because it was the first US magazine to show public hair?

Pray tell, please enlighten me!!

I must say I find this comparison very bizarre. (though very Irish!)

Tell me, who gets to decide what is art and what is mere childish scribblings?

He’s saying we do have to defend things we don’t like and he clearly doesn’t like this artist. So, yes, he is making an intellectual and aesthetic judgement but he’s still defending the work, just saddened that he has to.

No?