A gay journalist says he was briefly detained by security after he booed President Donald Trump during the opening night of the musical Chicago at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
A gay journalist says he was briefly detained by security after he booed President Donald Trump during the opening night of the musical Chicago at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, according to the Washington Blade.
Emphasis mine.
I have no issue with gay people, but why was it relevant to the article to call out the guys sexual orientation? Based on the article it didn’t seem to have anything to do with why he was prevented from exercising his first amendment rights. Is it just because the outlet is focused on gay, lesbian, and trans topics primarily, so they feel the need to bring orientation up anytime they cover something even if it has nothing to do with those topics?
Yeah, the advocate tends to include when a person is gay even when irrelevant to the issue because it’s relevant to the purpose of the publication.
The News: “La La La, totally not fascism, now more sports!”
What happened to the free speech maximalist/fuck your feelings crowd?
I thought they were all about the FREEZED PEACH and didn’t let feelings affect them?
Turns out they were full of shit on the free speech and are the most delicate of flowers to ever grace the planet.
Freedom of speech in USA is a joke.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index
You have to scroll quite a way down to get to USA at number 57, with Sierra Leone above and Gambia right after.deleted by creator
You can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride.
I thought the Kennedy Center was closed for 2 years?
Now it’s the Robert F Kennedy Jr. Center.
Might be shutting down later. Not uncommon to announce future closures. Or, maybe, they opened it for a super special event.
Supposedly it’s not closing until July
Haha, safe spaces are very much real in 2026
The ruling class has always made sure their spaces are safe. They control all of the machines of propaganda.
I’m confused what “detained” means in this context. The article Advocate is reporting on is from the Washington Blade, and it says Ramirez booed once Trump showed up in the balcony box, was “briefly detained by security” until the lights dimmed and the play started, and Ramirez watched the play. Does it mean that Ramirez was given the option by security to either leave or sit outside the theater until the play actually started?
Of note is that Ramirez is a journalist, but he wasn’t acting as one when this happened. Maybe other people get different vibes, but I feel like the title implies that – since a journalist being detained usually conjures imagery of arresting someone actively reporting something for a news outlet to silence them.
It doesn’t matter, he was prevented by officials from expressing his opinion. That means his freedom of speech was oppressed.
That means his freedom of speech was oppressed.
- You don’t understand what the Kennedy Center is, do you?
- “By officials” in this case means by the Kennedy Center’s security, which are not agents of the US government.
- Again, though, even if the Kennedy Center weren’t a public–private partnership, I can’t just walk into a federal building and start making a disturbance expecting not to get kicked out. (Or in this case, just pulled aside for a few minutes before the play started and almost certainly given the option to wait or leave the venue.)
“His freedom of speech was oppressed” in functionally the same sense that it is if I get banned from a social media platform or kicked out of a library for making a disturbance. It’s not even remotely a First Amendment issue, and him citing the 1A is bonkers.
I think in another life you’d be supporting those obnoxious, far-right “First Amendment auditors” who walk into e.g. a library or USPS building, start making a scene, and think that being kicked out means their constitutional rights have been impinged. Not because you have ill intent but because you fundamentally do not understand what the 1A does or is supposed to do.
it really depends on the context in which he was booing. Reading the article, in this context he did nothing wrong. If you can cheer, you can boo. He was not causing a disturbance.
If you can cheer, you can boo.
Sure, and that’s a fine opinion to have. I disagree they need to be treated the same way, yet I support his booing regardless of the consequences, and if it were up to me, Trump would be barred from the venue anyway and no booing would happen (not that he functionally could be right now as chairman).
It doesn’t make what happened to him even remotely a constitutional issue. This isn’t even a little ambiguous; you’d just have to entirely not understand or willfully, grossly misinterpret the 1A to drag it into this.
He addresses that directly FWIW
Ramirez, who is of Cuban heritage and worked as an anchor on Sinclair’s national evening newscast, said his instinct to go public was a professional reflex. “Journalism is a vocation, not just a job,” he told the Blade. “The Kennedy Center is a federally funded cultural institution, and being questioned about speech related to the president in that setting felt like something the public should know about.”
He said the presence of the White House press pool made clear the appearance was a managed media moment. “It was very clearly about protection — whether protecting the president from visible dissent, or his image before the media present. There was no disruption. Simply expressing dissent in a public, cultural space drew the attention of security.”
I did read the whole article, and I don’t feel like that excerpt addresses it at all. He says “being questioned about speech”, but what that questioning entailed or whether he was allowed to leave (in which case, that’s not actually detainment) is never addressed.
(Aside to the detainment question: e.g. libraries are government-funded; I can still be kicked out of them if I start yelling in one. The Kennedy Center is a public–private partnership, and this was private security, but it’s not like rules still don’t apply if I walked into a fully federally owned government building. I think his argument that his being kicked out of the theater temporarily for loudly booing before the show “undermines the First Amendment” because the Center receives federal funding is nonsense, even though I wholeheartedly support his booing. He notes that there was positive disruption like clapping from others, but it doesn’t “undermine the First Amendment” that he was singled out to temporarily leave.)
