The left's tyrannical suppression of opposing views would be less farcical if leftists weren't such pseudo-champions of tolerance and freedom of expression. In our leftist-dominated culture, the permitted categories of speech are becoming ever more restrictive.
If, for example, you are a conservative radio talk show host, you must always remain vigilant because the left wants to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine to suppress the opposing viewpoint and re-establish its major-media monopoly. If you own a small catering company and same-sex marriage violates your religious beliefs, the left wants to force you to provide food for same-sex marriage ceremonies. If you are a health care provider or business who objects to providing insurance coverage for abortifacients or contraceptives, you will be denied your freedom to do so. If you are a conservative organization applying for tax-exempt status, the leftist Obama administration -- via probable collusion among the White House, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice -- will delay, harass or deny you.
But the left's speech-suppressing activities don't just involve the government's trampling on our constitutional rights. Leftists are engaged in all kinds of activities to chill their opponents' speech that don't rise to the level of constitutional infringements.
If, for example, you have the temerity to endorse the biblical view of traditional marriage and you are a small-business owner or a CEO, you must be boycotted or terminated, respectively. Never mind that perhaps half of Americans agree with you. Their opinions are uninformed, unenlightened and unacceptable. For now, you are entitled to think your Neanderthal thoughts, provided you keep them to yourself, but God help you if you are reckless enough to voice your opinions publicly or anywhere within Google's reach.
If, as another example, you believe that life begins at conception and that abortion, apart from certain exceptions, is wrong, you are to be berated as a misogynist throwback who wants to subjugate women and expose them to back-alley abortions. You may not oppose government-subsidized promiscuity via Obamacare-provided abortifacients without being accused of waging war against women.
If you are an outspoken conservative and harbor the fantasy of acquiring an ownership interest in a football team, you may need a reality check. If you are a politically conservative student in a university classroom, you'd better think twice before you open your mouth.
If you are a successful actress whose opinion doesn't conform in every respect to currently accepted feminist dogma, you'd better think twice before expressing yourself out loud, as actress Kirsten Dunst is now discovering.
Dunst had the audacity to stray from the permissible feminist boilerplate in an interview with Harper's Bazaar in the U.K., in which she expressed support for traditional gender roles.
Dunst said: "I feel like the feminine has been a little undervalued. We all have to get our own jobs and make our own money, but staying at home, nurturing, being the mother, cooking -- it's a valuable thing my mom created. And sometimes, you need your knight in shining armor. I'm sorry. You need a man to be a man and a woman to be a woman. That's why relationships work."
Notice that Dunst sensed before she had completed her comments that she was stepping in it. She said, "I'm sorry."
Why should she have to preface her heartfelt and innocuous opinion with an apology?
Let me tell you why: People don't have a right to dissent from prevailing leftist views. The militant homosexual lobby is not alone in demanding strict conformity. Militant feminists have done this for a long time themselves.
It's not enough to support equal pay for equal work or to believe that women have the right to pursue any professional career they want. The feminists demand that women adopt their attitude of hostility toward traditional gender roles, even when people choose them, as opposed to being forced into them.
Liberal activists are no more about career choice than they are about choice on the abortion issue. They insist that you reject traditional roles as demeaning and destructive. If you are a woman who wholly supports other women pursuing professional careers but happens to also believe in certain traditional gender roles or characteristics, even on a limited basis, you are the enemy, and you, too, must be shunned.
It's not as though Dunst objects to women having professionally success, as her own career clearly demonstrates. But to say she likes men to be masculine or chivalrous and women to be feminine is blasphemous. For her to acknowledge what people have instinctively known since the beginning of time -- that men and women are different -- is threatening to feminists.
So poor Kirsten Dunst is finding out what it's like to have the leftist thought police knocking at your door. Some of them have called her "insufferable" for voicing her opinion. Others have said she is just "dumb." One critic tweeted that she "should never be allowed to talk near young girls."
It seems to me that young ladies such as Dunst are more courageous and more comfortable in their own skin than people who would bully them into denying their true feelings. Political correctness is becoming ever more oppressive and increasingly unreasonable in its positions.
That leftist groups still masquerade as open and tolerant is laughable -- and disgraceful. Bravo to Kirsten Dunst.