RADIO SHOCK JOCKS AND THEIR JUST REWARD

Anyone alive today has surely noticed a change in the way radio personalities do their job. In the beginning radio was the quickest way to get news to the American people. Who can forget the pictures of entire families gathered around the radio anxious to hear a "fireside chat" from F.D.R. updating them on the status of the war? It wasn't long after radios were used merely for news that entertainers began seeing the potential use of radio to be a stress reliever that people could listen to purely for enjoyment. The people who remember the speeches by F.D.R. are probably not likely to know Opie and Anthony, but suffice it to say they've made their mark in radio.

Opie and Anthony are the poster boys of "shock jock" radio. Their irreverent and juvenile radio program was pulled from the airwaves in New York and a hand full of syndicates after WNEW in New York City began to feel the pressure after the radio degenerates aired their most recent radio gag. The premise of the joke that cost them their jobs was simple enough - people who had sex in risky places vied for prizes and the people who had sex in the riskiest place would win. Simple - until a couple from Virginia decided to turn the sanctuary of historic Saint Paul's Cathedral into their own personal brothel.

What happened to Greg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia was a long time coming. The radio duo was fired from a Boston radio station before polluting the airwaves of New York with their adolescent drivel, but more important this time is that what they did was so egregious that the Federal Communications Commission is investigating the station to see if their antics were severe enough to warrant sanctions from the feds. The station, owned by radio giant Infinity Broadcasting, offered no further comment after announcing the cancellation, but draw whatever conclusion you want from the fact that they were fired shortly after FCC Chairman Michael Powell directed the agency's enforcement bureau to investigate the broadcast.

Complaints began to pour in as the radio program broadcast a play by play from the show's producer from the church of what the two people were engaging in. Shortly after, the FCC was flooded by complaints and the Catholic League, with 350,000 members, demanded that the pair be sacked and the FCC to investigate the broadcast. "Nothing would make us happier than for WNEW's license to be revoked," said William Donohue, head of the Catholic League, which has also demanded a hefty fine for WNEW's parent company. After the pair were fired Donohue downplayed the demand for license revocation, but the investigation has been fast tracked by the sheer volume of complaints and appears to have a life of its own.

The pair involved in the sex act and the producer who gave the first hand account of what they were doing just a few feet from worshipers were all charged with crimes in New York. After appearing in court the Virginia couple asked to be excused from appearing in person, but they were denied and told that if they can travel to New York to commit crimes, they could travel to New York to answer for them. After leaving the courthouse - they were jeered by onlookers. It would not be an exaggeration to say that they are probably the most unpopular couple in all of New York.

It should come as no surprise that Opie and Anthony are reportedly in negotiations for another radio program - this time the rumors say with Clear Channel Communications - and they'll probably be right back on the air because the market will want to hear from the two freaks who defiled a church in the name of ratings. It is certainly the right of any radio station to put people on the air who can draw an audience, but it then becomes the responsibility of people who think that there are certain lines that cannot be crossed to act. Whatever station ultimately puts Opie and Anthony on the air should hear from the public and whatever advertiser is dumb enough to sponsor the deviant duo ought to know that when you sponsor idiots - your bottom line suffers.

Of course Opie and Anthony talk about their free speech rights and how the Constitution is being trampled because people want to silence them, but where in the Constitution are Americans guaranteed a radio show? The only time these two talk about rights is when they are being called on the carpet for the stupid things they say and do all in the name of the First Amendment. What a better place we would live in if people like Opie and Anthony realized that the First Amendment was not designed to allow them to fill the publicly owned airwaves with prepubescent drivel and was, instead, supposed to protect speech that would be otherwise thwarted by government. The First Amendment protects people from intervention by government - it does not, however, require Clear Channel to provide you a megaphone from which to spew idiotic banter.

Suffice it to say that if Opie and Anthony were sending people into any of the "protected class" bastions to have sex there would be an outcry from the left to fire the two. Today - there is nothing but people on the left seeking to reinstate the clowns. If the Virginia couple were sent into a Mosque or a predominately black Baptist church the left would revolt as they endorsed the defiling of a sacred place to a minority group, but because it happened to a Catholic Church - it is just good radio fun. The hypocrites should remember the tolerance they preach and stop allowing anti-Catholic statements to go unchecked.

Tolerance is not a monopoly of the left, but it seems that only the left is suited to determine when intolerance has occurred.