First Amendment backers mum on 2nd

The recent brouhaha in New York over an obscene and distasteful art exhibit is a perfect example of the convenience of being a leftist. New York City Mayor Guiliani wants to pull the plug on public funding for an art exhibit he and many others find offensive - including one piece in which the Virgin Mary is depicted smeared with elephant excrement.

Leftists leaped from their Corinthian leather sofas, almost knocking over their dry martinis, in defense of the works.

They shouted about the sanctity of the First Amendment with its guarantee of freedom of speech.What raises my hackles is the leftists a la carte use of the Constitution.

They become convenient patriots when in need of the protection of the Constitution and burn the flag when they don't. They use phrases like "America was built on freedom" and praise the rights of the individual for which our forefathers fought. However, ask them to read one amendment further and they run shrieking and screaming. They put on the First Amendment like a new suit from Barney's, but call others who protect the very next amendment fascists, nut cases and extremists.

The right to bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment - which is as explicit in its right as the First Amendment. Yet when people attack the Second Amendment and attempt to restrict gun ownership, if not ban guns entirely, where are the fashionable defenders of the Constitution then?

These convenient leftists think guns are bad. They don't buy the argument that guns don't kill people, people kill people. They call that argument excrement. Yet they ignore the historical fact that people have been killing people without guns for hundreds of thousands of years. A sharpened stone can bring down a woolly mammoth, saber-toothed tiger or the guy in the next cave. Bad people kill and banning guns won't stop them.

The Constitution is not a menu from which leftists may conveniently pick and choose only those items they find appetizing

As unpalatable as it may be to them, if they're going to defend excrement, they should defend all excrement equally

DALE McGLOTHLIN, Letter to the Daily Progress, October 22, 1999, Charlottesville, Virginia.