This week has found me somewhat irritated at the way people are drawing the lines in certain aspects of free expression.

The Chick-Fil-A controversy started everything. While I don't agree with their stance on same-sex rights at all, and while I think the Henson company is within its rights to pull licensing (if their contract allows that), the notion that the mayor of Boston would try to block a free enterprise by legal action is wrong. Unless and until there are laws that make discrimination based on sexual orientation illegal (something that I would support, by the way), the mayor's actions represent a flagrant abuse of his authority.

Now I see that Voula Papachristou of Greece was banned from the Olympics for tweets that some could assume were racist. Specifically, when she heard about a West Nile Virus outbreak in Greece, she tweeted, "With so many Africans in Greece, the West Nile mosquitoes will be getting some food!!!"

Maybe it's racist, maybe she is. She likes the Golden Dawn Party. The point is that I wouldn't expect that a US athlete would be removed from the games for making comments about illegals. And honestly, she has a right to be a member of any political party she wants to.

And all this once again reminds me that if we only protected the rights of the people who agreed with us, we wouldn't have free speech. People are welcome to boycott Chick-Fil-A (I don't think I would have gone to one even before the controversy), sponsors can pull sponsorship. People are welcome to hate Voula Papachristou, too. However, I think the "official" actions taken against both are disgusting, too.