Speech, Tuesday, October 6, 2015

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"Afternoon, folks," Josh said, drinking from his coffee in a shocking change of pace surprising to no one. "Hey, everyone," Josh said. "There's been a recent news story about this woman in Kentucky who won't do her job--" tell us how you really feel, Josh, "--of signing wedding licenses for people in her county because she doesn't believe people who are the same sex should get married."

Josh snorted. "I didn't think we should fund stupid things like Congressional salaries, but I still showed up for work in the government every day. Anyway, she's been in the news a lot and someone managed to wrangle her a rope line pass at the Pope, who is the ruler of about a zillion Catholics around the world. She's not a Catholic, by the way, and is part of religion that thinks he's going straight to hel,l but don't expect a lot of internal consistency from this lady. Anyway, she met him, he gave her a rosary and a kind of rote reply and got on a plane, and then her lawyers got on the news media crowing about how him meeting with her was endorsing her position."

He shrugged. "Now don't get me wrong, Catholicism isn't exactly a font of liberal social thinking on this front, but the Pope seems to be embracing the 'don't be a dick' philosophy, which I'm pretty sure was what the Beautitudes would be if they were distilled for the Twitter generation. So after a few days of awkwardness, the Vatican finally came out with a 'nooooo, that's not really what happened, turns out the Pope pretty much has no idea who this lady is and the archbishop who arranged this meeting is Quite Fired', but her lawyers are still doubling down on this meeting."

"So, as people in a class on Speech, what's their next play? Do they call the Pope a liar?"

Comments

Sign in 10/6

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

Looking like you just got caught lying about a guy in charge of a massive religion.

Re: Sign in 10/6

[gavegoodface]

Garik Loran

Re: Sign in 10/6

[not_every_mage]

Anders

Listen to the lecture

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

On a scale of one to invading Russia in the winter, how screwed is this lady?

Answer the question

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

Or do you just hide for a week and hope this goes away?

Re: Answer the question

[not_every_mage]

"It's not my religion, but, hypothetically, what if they doubled down and used the Vatican's answer as proof the pope's going to hell?" Anders wondered. "A 'he had the chance to see the light but he denies it and betrays us,' kind of thing. Might play with people that stupid."

Re: Answer the question

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"Ooooh, and they are definitely that stupid," Josh said. "Nefarious. I like it."

OOC

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

Ugh, this day.