The Prudes Speak!

David French:

Over at the Wall Street Journal, James Taranto highlights a revealing and much-talked-about exchange between the Washington Post ombudsman, an anonymous reader, and an anonymous Post reporter exploring the Post’s bias against social conservatives. While the entire exchange (and Taranto’s analysis) are worth reading, I wanted to pull out two quotes of interest. First, the WaPo ombudsman:

Because our profession lives and dies on the First Amendment — one of the libertarian cornerstones of the Constitution — most journalists have a problem with religionists telling people what they can and cannot do. We want to write words, read books, watch movies, listen to music, and have sex and babies pretty much when, where and how we choose.

Taranto’s response:

That “libertarian” is quite a dodge. Most journalists are anything but libertarian in areas where that would mean siding against the left, such as guns, education, taxes, nonsexual health care and nonmedia corporate free speech.

I agree with Taranto — “libertarian” is the wrong word. And this raises a pet peeve. It’s astounding how many times liberals say “libertarian” when they really mean “libertine.”

Stick to your guns, social conservatives! Make sure the Republican party never strays from its mission to scold.